Hola/Hello,
Welcome to Decrypting the Station, a series of blogs in which we will start explaining some specific elements of Endless Dungeon, like the different monster families, the Meta Progression, and more... (we don't want to spoil all the subjects ^-^ ).
We will be starting with the families of monsters, and no surprises, the bugs. We know that you most likely have been seeing them or killing some of them, but we wanted to go one step forward and let you know a bit more about them, like the lore, the game designer's intentions behind them, and the art side of them.
THE BUGS
Lore
The Bugs are noisy, aggressive, numerous beasts that attack without much thought. They feed on Blobs, which is one reason that they have mutated so much.
The Bugs have heavily colonized the station in the absence of staff and crews. They would naturally be in the places that are harder for Bots and Blobs to reach. They will be everywhere, distributed throughout the Station.
You are more likely to hear them than to see them, at first…
Some words from Jeff, our Narrative Director, to talk a bit more about the lore.
I don't know why it is, but our games always end up with nasty mega-insects in them. Craver, Necrophage, or Bug, somewhere in our hind brains we must have a fundamental dislike (or fear) of multi-legged pests.
Still, regardless of any Amplitude tradition, Bugs made a lot of sense for a game that takes place in an abandoned space station that is still full of edible things (plants, other monsters, Heroes, etc.). Even if the game genre is tactical squad-based rogue-lite tower defense, the game style and tone definitely lean towards SF survival horror. What could be better in that kind of setting than relentless creepy-crawlies that want to ingest you?
As with the other families of monsters in Endless Dungeon, the Bugs have certain resistances and weaknesses with respect to the various weapon types, and do particular types of damage. But that discussion is for the designers, not the lore team!
Gameplay
Before starting with the details of each of the bugs we think it is a nice moment to share the initial thoughts from our game designer and the intentions behind the bugs. In this case, we have with us Victor, Game Designer on Endless Dungeon, who could tell us more details behind the intentions of the bugs and some specific words of each of the monsters.
This family of monsters will try to overwhelm you with numbers, but the power of its individual is weaker than the other family. It will behave like a swarm trying to break your defense by overflooding it. Fire and explosion are always a good tools to have if you encounter bug in your exploration of the dungeon.
Let's get into some details about each of the monsters composing the bugs.
They are the cannon fodder of the bug. They are the foundation of the swarm coming to your crystal. They are not a threat alone, but their number can overwhelm you and your turrets
They work in tandem with the nibblers to overwhelm you. They are faster and more focused on important targets but less numerous than nibblers. Don’t let them surprise you when they shortcut to your crystal thank to their capacity of flying over a pit.
They are “the meat” of the bug swarm. They can deal heavy radioactive damage, especially against stationary target and can take a few punches before dying. They usually destroy their foes while they are focused on dealing with nibblers and nasquitos.
They are the “focus shifter” of the bug. When you see one, you will have to deal with it before it spawns to many monsters or have faith in your defenses to not have a hole nor weak spot. Their power of destruction can drastically add up over time but the choice of leaving the frontlines to deal with them is always a dilemma.
They are “the spearhead” of the swarm, disabling turrets to allow other bugs to flow behind the first layer of defenses. When spawning, they require you to at least notify their presence and dealing with them, so if you see bugs where they are not supposed to be try looking for a webmaster. Strangely they are the most dangerous bug while being the least damaging one.
Art
I think the best here will be words from Corinne, our Studio Art Director, who could tell us a bit more about her thoughts and process when starting the creation and design of all the monsters.
Since I was not on a daily basis on the project at the early beginnings, I can only give a hint of the important “rules” we set with Ronan about this monster family (most of these rules fit for all monsters families actually ^^)
One important graphic orientation was to keep the colorful and stylized look of the world, to establish a kind of “legacy” with Dungeon of the Endless, even if we chose to developp for this new game a rendering wich was very different from the initial pixel-art style in DotE.
We had to stay true to the tone and spirit of Dungeon of the Endless while bringing more depth and richness to the universe !
So when designing all creatures we had to keep in mind a few important rules :
The top-down camera angle, almost isometric, chosen for the game, tends to “flatten” the perspective in general and hides most of the lower part of the monsters. The camera distance does not allow to see small details too – so it was necessary that the important information for the player be clearly, if not always at the top of the creature, at least visible at first glance, to be able to understand :
- To which family the creature belongs,
- What is its “function”
- What are its vulnerabilities/invulnerabilities.
So we worked on shapes stylization, simple and strong color codes distinctives for every monster family – here the acid green for the bugs family, brown/grey-browns, with small yellow color touches
In line with the overall artistic direction we worked on a very stylized rendering, in “false flat colors”, to go in a direction of comics rendering. The idea was to eliminate unnecessary details to keep it as simple and legible as we could.
To help the graphic legibility we knew that we wanted to work the lighting to obtain long contrasted shadows, which could cast their silhouettes on the grounds and walls of the station and help the player to properly read all the creatures global shapes.
The comic graphic codes has been generally a global rule that we used in all aspects of the game (lighting, FXs, etc...)
That's all we have for you today, in the following weeks we will discover even more things.
Hope you find it interesting and let us know which of the bugs are your favorite :)
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