Chlorophyter blog post 2!

by on April 24, 2023 at 8:09 pm
Chapter:

I have made some massive progress on the game so far. I’ve been a bug fixing rampage. I haven’t spotted any broken animations, everything seems to be interacting correctly with everything else. This is the smoothest Chlorophyter has ran since I started.

Power Plant has undergone a huge rework. First, i gave her a new unique sprite for her solar panel. It stands out much better. Her playstyle seemed both boring, and unfocused. It was difficult to tell if she was a zoner or a rushdown, as she did neither well. I decided to remove her airborn buzzsaw throw, because it was both too good, and really boring, and in it’s place, two new moves. The first is Buzz Off, a new anti air uppercut that has her head turn into a buzz saw. It hits multiple times, and has some invincibility on it as any good uppercut should. The second is the new Robodendrone. You can now summon a tiny Power Plant with an antenna. This power plant will throw tiny buzzsaws that aim at the opponent, every 3 seconds. It can be killed in one hit. The buzzsaws dont do much damage, but they will interrupt your opponent and be very annoying. With these moves, and the reliance on her drones, Power Plant is now more of a set play character or a summoner character. She relies on setting up her solar panel and her Robodendrone, and once she has both, she is able to run and brawl pretty freely. The support from the projectile and the constant fuel from the panel, allows her to never have to let up on the opponent, despite her lack of speed and mobility. Your opponent will burn through their resources long before you do.

Florothy and Power Plant have had their explod effects replaced with helpers. The reason being is that the helpers bind a bit better and are less likely to bug out. They are also much more versatile and can be used in more creative ways. Furthermore they play more nicely with the AI, as the AI often doesnt activate the explod effects reliably.

Oh yeah, there is AI now! Florothy, Power Plant, and Death Captain all have fully implemented custom AI with difficulty scaling. The AI is surprisingly smart. I was shocked to find how unique, and effective each character was. Even though I programmed it, I am an idiot. I just followed a tutorial, and coded the moves in a way that I thought would be the most typical way they would be used by a player. When I finally saw them in action, my mind was blown.

Florothy’s AI is the most adaptable. She will switch up strategies on the fly. Sometimes she zones you out, sometimes she rushes you down and throws you into a combo. You never know. She’s chaotic, and weirdly smart. Maybe I’m just confusing randomness for smarts. The point is, Florothy is difficult to get a bead on.

Power Plant by comparison is probably the worst one. She is slow, plodding, and kind of a punching bag. She’s supposed to deploy her drones every chance she gets, but rarely gets it, since she often isnt in a safe position to do so.

Death Captain is by far the most vicious. I don’t know what logic I put on her, but just the nature of her moveset, and her need to steal sunlight from others, has made her the most aggressive one of all. Even on low difficulties she will rush you down and pound you into the dirt. She is also really good at conserving her sunlight, as she tends to make her moves count and relies on cheaper ones rather than expensive ones. She is reluctant to use supers, but she doesn’t really need to. The best method to deal with her is avoidance. She will run out of fuel if you can keep your distance and zone her out.

Finally, I have started work on two new characters, and a boss fight. Hopefully we’ll see more of those soon. Here is a sneak peak at the next character.