Monster Monday 10: Lantern Phantom

Hello-- you know what today is! It's Monday!

Today's monster is potentially another two-for one-- it depends on how you want to use these in your game. I'll share the behavior that I designed for him, but this one is really flexible.

This is the Lantern Phantom-- as a base monster, he's pretty simple and not very threatening... he can go through walls, but keeps his distance so it's not easy to close in on him.

But his magical lantern can create ghostly fire wisps, which slowly follow the player. These wisps can get out of hand, and make it even harder to get close to the phantom, so make sure to put out the flames with your sword!

Of course, my favorite kind of monster to create is the kind with lots of opportunity to implement different variations in behavior.

Because this guy's primary animations are so simple, you could really do anything-- it's really all about how you want to make use of the flames: in my example, I have them very slowly follow the player, but of course you could do anything you want.

Maybe his flames stay in place but spread over time, maybe they move out fast in a straight line and the player needs to dodge... or maybe he creates a wild bullet-hell pattern that snakes all over the screen!

That's the kind of thing that I like to think about-- I probably spend too much time imagining all the different ways that these monsters could work in different games. 🤷

As usual- here's an extended preview of me in combat. I'm taking on one of these phantoms here:

• gameplay recording (webm)

I'm treating the wisps as individual enemies of their own (it was pretty easy for me to copy and paste their movement from other monsters), and if you do it that way, there are even more possibilities. Maybe your flame wisps are a common enemy that normally spawn once from a torch, and then you encounter this phantom as an elite who can generate a bunch of them!

To make the most out of that possibility, the sprite sheet includes a variant of the flames with a little ghostly face! I hope that you can find a use for them.

Here's the description of the animations that we have on this sheet:

Reminder: Empty spaces on the sheets have colored squares to help you visualize the alignment for any re-organization you want to do.

• The first two animations are the basic idle/float animation. It's a four-frame loop that uses a repeated middle frame (three-frame stepping style). There's a version with and without the lantern.

• The next animation is an 8-frame straight animation. You'll want to spawn the flame on the fifth frame here, where the lantern lights up. The animation is designed to lead up into that.

• Lastly the flames themselves. You'll recognize the base flame (a four-frame loop)-- I've shared that one before and I'm happy to re-use it here because I think it came out great. What makes this different is the addition of a new animation where the flame grows. It's four frames and intended to lead into the loop.

Okay-- here are the downloads:

• Lantern Phantom and Flame Wisp - General Sprite Sheet

• Lantern Phantom and Flame Wisp - RPGMaker Sheet - 100%

• Lantern Phantom and Flame Wisp - RPGMaker Sheet - 200%

• Lantern Phantom and Flame Wisp - RPGMaker Sheet - 300%

Reminder: Like my previous releases in this series, some of the animations are arranged vertically on the sheet. You'll need to animate it manually in the engine by changing the facing direction. The floating+idle animation for the phantom use the typical stepping-motion and are arranged in the default way for RM-- just remember to use the 'direction fix' option.

I hope you can get a lot of use out of this one!

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Previous Summer of Monster releases:

• 1 - Simple Bat

• 2 - Crystal Crab

• 3 - Splitting Slimes

• 4 - Wurm Dragon

• 5 - Wasp Attack!

• 6 - The Marauders

• 7 - Pinecoon

• 8 - Moles and Merfolk

• 9 - Hidden Hobgoblins

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And that's it for today!

I'll be back later in the week with something new from the request thread. See you then.

Thanks!