Hi Tom.
I'd actually forgot about the sculls etc in monti however you are correct, I
do remember the need to jump over them and run in the right direction was
very classic.
The only problem however with enemies in a side scrolling game is that
without a way to show vertical movement of enemies particularly easily, it's
difficult to find patterns that require the player to watch, (I remember a
discussion of the problems creating bouncing skulls like original monti).
To give one example, in metroid, one of the most common enemy types are wall
crawlers. These will crawl across the top of any ledge or wall, then down
the side and across the bottom. This means though there movement paterns are
very simple you can encounter them in many different circumstances. For
example when you are climbing up a shaft jumping upwards from ledge to ledge
you have to not only be careful of the enemies crawling atop the ledges
where your going, but of hitting enemies on the sides or bottoms of ledges
while you jump. When walking along in a narrow tunnel with a ceiling not far
above your head, your watching not only for enemies crawling across the
floor, but on the ceiling too etc.
This means one enemy with very simple movement can produce a large number of
situations dependent upon the terrain for you to judge.
I'm not convinced that audio side scroller techniques have been created yet
to really show correct enemy movement vertically and give the player enough
information to make strategic judgements, but I do think that more of this
sort of thing could be used in a first person setting, though thus far the
only game I can think of that employs this sort of enemy movement in an fp
context is in fact papasangre.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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