Unity2D Devlog 20 — Dodge This, You Filthy Casual

With one exception, all enemies follow a linear vertical path. This movement makes it simple for the Player to shoot them down accurately. I want to introduce another level of difficulty.

Objective:

Allow enemies to dodge the Player’s attacks.

How I went about it:

This challenge boils down to having the enemy detect the Player’s bullet and move to avoid it. The first thing that comes to mind is a RayCast2D. However, with this approach, the area of detection would be limited. I can therefore take advantage of another Physics2D method.

As the name suggests, BoxCast uses a rectangle rather than a Ray. For more information, please refer to the Unity Manual.

I can use this method for detecting the Player’s bullet more accurately. I, therefore, started by creating a new Script for the enemies.

First, I declare all the variables that I will need to make this work.

Next, I create a method that returns a bool to check for a bullet.

The next step was to create a method that would check for incoming bullets. This new method will be called every frame in Update.

Finally, if the enemy detects a bullet, it will begin to move laterally. To achieve this, I wrote a new Coroutine.

Once the enemy reaches its set destination, the Coroutine will end, and it will continue to move down.

Now we have a game! These enemies will be harder to hit and will put the Player’s ability to the test. Just look at them move!

Conclusion:

After adding this new feature, the gameplay is starting to feel more dynamic. Adding levels of complexity to the game mechanics sure makes for a fun experience. If I find this dodging feature too powerful, I can always add a random value to it. However, for now, I think it will work just fine.