Monster Monday 8: Mole and Merfolk

Hello! Today's release is a two-for-one!

Here's two new enemies that share a unique behavior pattern-- with special animations designed with gameplay in mind: the mole pops up out of the ground and throws a rock towards the player before digging back to safety.

The merfolk does the same thing but he pops out of the water.

I only implemented the mole in-game for now. It would be easy enough to copy-paste the merfolk in, but I don't have the tilesets with water set up in the game editor, and I figured that it wasn't necessary to do both of the enemies for the preview. :shrug:

Here's what they both look like:

Even though these guys have the same animations-- the idea is that these can be two separate enemies for completely different biomes.

Certainly the merfolk would be more challenging to hit if you can't reach into the water with your sword! I also think that it'd be a good idea to have their behavior be slightly different in other ways... Maybe their projectiles have different speeds, trajectories, or patterns. Maybe the merfolk hangs around longer than the mole, giving you more time hit him with an arrow from a distance... There's lots of possibility for gameplay variations even while using the same animations!

As usual with this series of monsters, I've also recorded an extended gameplay preview. Here you can watch me fight a pair of mischievous moles:

• Webm Gameplay Video

And here's a list of all of the animations that are included for these sprites. The sheets are arranged identically for both the mole and the merfolk.

• The emerge animation has a variant with a different final frame: you can choose which one works best for you depending on if you want the enemy to emerge directly into his "holding" state or the "idle" animation.

• The idle animations are simple four-frame loops. The one with the arms up lets you overlay a rock that he's ready to throw at the player.

• The throw animation will look best if it transitions into the regular idle animation.

• The rock itself is also included as a standalone object.

Here are the downloads:

Mole

• Mole Enemy - General Sprite Sheet

• Mole Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 100%

• Mole Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 200% (RMVX)

• Mole Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 300% (MV/MZ)

Merfolk

• Merfolk Enemy - General Sprite Sheet

• Merfolk Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 100%

• Merfolk Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 200% (RMVX)

• Merfolk Enemy - RPGMaker Format sheet - 300% (MV/MZ)

Reminder: Like my previous releases in this series, this sprite has more frames of animation than RPGMaker's default, so the frames are arranged vertically on the sheet. You'll need to animate it manually in the engine by changing the facing direction. Empty spaces on the sheets have colored squares to help you visualize the alignment for any re-organization you want to do.

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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

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I've got one more monster planned for this month... and after next week, that's the end of July-- seems to have gone really quickly!

Tell me-- do you want the Summer of Monsters to continue through August? Or would four more monsters be too much? Let me know what you think-- I'm happy to keep this train rolling for one more month... so long as you aren't getting bored of Monster Mondays!

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Either way-- I'll be back later this week with something else. See you soon.

Thanks!