Enemies+ or another core functionality
Hey guys,
I honestly thought I'm done with the suggestions, since the engine is really solid now, but when I reviewed the functionality of the engine I found there is one major thing we're still missing- the option to spawn or respawn(or both) enemies.
There are a lot of ways to implement this- a dedicated "enemy spawner" tile that creates an enemy of type X every Y seconds. A simple switch under the enemy, that adds an option to respawn enemy on screen load(normal enemies only, not boss enemies) or my preferred variant- a drop down menu with the variables right above "On death activates the variable". The dropdown is "Activated by variable". If you choose "none" which is the default, the enemy works as normal enemy. If you choose another variable the enemy is "off" when you start and appears on map only after variable is activated.
Why: Spawning and respawning enemies is a key design pillar for action orientated rpg games since the beginning of the genre. It's something that is especially useful, when you try to make a "big" game on a very small map, since by default this requires a lot of backtracking. Backtracking on entirely empty map gets boring pretty fast. It's also really useful if you plan to make a game where you hit the maximum level on a 3x3 map- sure you can dial up the XP rewards and do it this way, but the far better way would be to "spawn" harder enemies, based on your progress(activated variables). Never suggested it until now, because I generally dislike respawning enemies. That however does not mean they're not super useful as a mechanic :) I believe it's important enough to be a core functionality(and not a plug in) but as always, it's entirely up to you.
Also you may want to check if the "On death activates the variable" label that takes two lines now won't fit on one line if you shorten it to "On death activate variable". I think it would. Not a big deal, but it would look better.
Best,V