Fungal Foes | Patreon Weekly #238

Hey Patrons, happy holidays! In this weekly I’m going to share my early concepting and implementation progress for the various enemies in the third caves quest variant.

I’m also hoping to release a Shattered Secrets in another day or two, sharing some early info on what I’m planning for 2024.

The Fungal Caves Layout

As mentioned previously, I want the layout of the fungal caves to be heavily focused around tall vegetation. Here’s a quick screencap of how that’s looking currently:

The main goal here is to use the fungi to heavily limit visibility, both for the player and for enemies. This creates a very claustrophobic-feeling layout that actually limits movement the least of all the layouts. I think on that front the fungal caves are shaping up well.

It’s worth noting that to keep the balance of this variant, the fungal grass here will drop much less seeds and dew than it normally would, and the Warden will temporarily lose her ability to see through grass in the area. All other grass and plant-based benefits are still present though.

Fungal Enemies

Just as with the other regions, there are three unique enemies here:

• Fungal Spinners are cave spinners that have lost their webs and poison in favor of the ability to spit plant-life at you. They also gain notable defense boosts when standing right next to fungi. Just like with wisps and guards, the goal here is for an enemy you want to reposition into a more favourable environment.
• Fungal Sentries Are immobile defenders that will stack up poison very quickly if you stay in their line of sight. You’ll want to balance exploring the cave and mining gold with keeping away from their sight. Just like you, they can’t see through grass.
• The Fungal Core is the boss of this region. It’s connected to all the other fungal life in the area, and draws strength from it. After starting the fight with it, you’ll need to go hunting for 2 or 3 mycelium nodes in the level. These nodes will be hidden inside of walls, but fighting the core will reveal pathways in the fungal network that can guide you to them.

Currently it feels like these enemies are missing something though. Spinners end up punishing you for trying to reposition, rather than rewarding you. Sentries guard an area well but have very little interaction outside of that. The core’s “node hunt” mechanic is great but can quickly start to feel tedious without anything else going on.

No to worry though, this is similar to how I felt with the earlier concepting for the gnoll area, before thinking up gnoll guards and the boulder toss attack. Things just need some concept refining, which I’ll try to do a bit of over the holidays.