Unity2D DevLog 12 — It’s a Trap!

Picture this: You’re rolling down the L.A. river in your armored MarkVII TT tank. You feel pretty confident that your main 110mm SledgeHammer cannon can take on just about any threat that comes your way. Your only concern is ammunition. But lo! you spot a crate of high-velocity rounds you can pick up just ahead. Enemies are all around, but you bear down on your target and go straight for the resupply.

But it’s a TRAP!

Crafty alien invaders don’t just show up out of nowhere without a plan. They have studied our customs, weapons, and tactics. They know how and where to hit us, and this is no exception.

Objective:

Create a negative pickup.

How I went About it:

The first thing I had to ask myself was: Why would the player pick up a negative power-up? It made no sense to expect them to interact with something that would harm them in some way. That's just another way of describing an enemy. Unless I somehow convinced the player that they were going for a valued item. I had to trick the player into heading towards a useful power-up only to reveal that it was, in fact, a trap.

I was having fun with this already. So I thought about it a bit and decided on creating a Mimic-type enemy. The Mimic would take the form of any…