Congratulations on making the ultimate combat
system. You’ve got a perfect skill tree, a flawless
set of perks, and mathematically proven battle mechanics. That one was tough to manage, good job. Only one problem: you’ve got no one to fight. You need a bestiary. A bestiary is the full catalog of enemies
you’re going to fight throughout a game, and to make a truly great one you’re going
to need to put in some work. There’s an art to it, but it’s not a free-for-all. You can’t just fill it with whatever random
monster ideas you think up, sprinkle them in the game world and call it a day. A great bestiary is carefully crafted and
balanced, from the beginning of the game to the end. To make a fantastic bestiary, you’re going
to need a wide variety of visual designs, but also a range of mechanics and AI behaviors
that keep a player adapting and learning. What that exactly looks like can be different,
depending on the style of game you’re making and what your goals are, and there’s a lot
of space for a studio’s personal flair, too. Let’s talk about bestiary design, and go
through how to balance the factors that can help make a game’s enemies worth fighting. Know what else I’m fighting these days? Boredom. Know what I’m fighting it with? Skillshare. I’m taking a class from Tom Froese called
ODD BODIES: Illustrating Expressive, Stylized People. Tom’s class is short and sweet, and really
helped me get more creative and expressive with my character designs. Skillshare is full of super high-quality educational
classes to browse through. It’s all they do. They’ve got classes on UI/UX design, creative
writing, illustration, music and music production, film and video production, and like literally
hundreds of other classes I don’t have time to get into. It’s super high quality stuff. I got a free trial for this sponsorship, but
I’ve paid them in the past for Premium Membership, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. And you can get a free trial, too! The first 1000 people to click the link in
the description will get a 2 month free trial of Premium Membership, so you can explore
your creativity. Skillshare! It’s good! So what separates mediocre game bestiaries
from great ones? There are a lot of possible answers, but a
lot of the ones I like most are able to deliver one idea consistently: Novelty over time. The concept has two components. Each part of the bestiary should be new and
exciting, and the game needs to be able to sustain some degree of that novelty over its
entire run. But even that first part, ‘new and exciting’,
can mean so many different things. To make a great bestiary, it’s a good idea
to look at what you’re making from a few different angles. One of those is through visual design. The physical appearance of your characters
makes a big difference. Visually striking enemies are great for piquing
the initial interest of players. It can help keep players locked in, too, if
a game keeps revealing a lot of unique enemy designs over time. New areas get just that much more exciting
when you don’t know what you’re going to fight next. For a series like Dragon Quest, the goofy
enemy design is a big part of the charm. The turn-based nature of the game also helps
free up the Dragon Quest character designers to create more outlandish designs. The mechanics of the game are easy to separate
from the visuals. Fights that get abstracted into stat blocks
and math make a huge dragon that punches you for two damage not seem quite so out of place. The logic of the fight doesn’t matter quite
as much, which freed up the designers to create monsters that looked unique and attacked in
more unique ways, without worrying that it would make other animations look silly. Dragon Quest does take a little shortcut,
though. They do use a few palette swaps, but the monsters
are expressive and unique enough for that to slide. Final Fantasy X might push the envelope a
little too far. Final Fantasy has a long history of color
palette swaps being used to create a variety of monsters. In Final Fantasy X, there are about a dozen
different ‘species’ of enemies that end up getting reskinned and reused throughout
the game. The enemies might have a beefier stat block
or different elemental resistances, but the character model and animations are mostly
the same, which makes traveling to a new area feel a little less fun. Final Fantasy XII did the same thing. How many different wolves did you have to
deal with? This, this, this, this, this, this, this… there
are like 12 of them. Obviously, it’s a lot faster and easier
to implement more enemies through palette swaps, and it might still be the right move
to make for certain games and production pipelines, but the method isn’t without its drawbacks. When attentive players notice that a new enemy
looks and behaves identically to an old one, it can take the excitement out of discovering
new things and lower player expectations. Besides just being fun to look at, unique
character designs can help convey parts of a game’s narrative and general tone. Halo is excellent at using its characters
to help hint at the game’s deep lore. The enemies of Halo fill some basic tropes. Aggressive, durable Brutes. The huge and armored hunters. The tough and disciplined Elites. The small, weaker Grunts. The enemies have great and distinct silhouettes
to tell from a distance what sorts of fights you’re about to dive into. The character behaviors match their look,
but the visual appearance is also a window into the game’s narrative. Without reading any of the game’s extensive
backstory, the enemy designs reflect the Covenant's hierarchy and social order, from the cannon
fodder Grunts on up the food chain. The enemy designs reinforce the story that
Halo is trying to tell. Shooters that are based around realism, like
Call of Duty or Uncharted, can have trouble here. When your opponents are all just people, often
with similar uniforms, it’s really easy for the enemy designs to blur together. Even if the enemies are mechanically different,
the human silhouettes and vaguely similar gun-shapes make it tough for any one special
unit to stand out. They can compensate with more outlandish uniforms,
prominent body armor, or crazier weapons like rocket launchers and flamethrowers, but that’s
an extra step the designers had to take to make sure their enemies didn’t all blend
into a human-shaped blob. Without that extra work, encounters run together,
and things might get boring in a hurry. OK, let’s assume you’ve got your aesthetic
nailed down. That’s a good start, but an enemy roster
is about more than just looks. Novelty doesn’t just have to be about visual
novelty. Emergent AI behaviors, new gameplay systems,
interesting mechanical combos - novel mechanical design can satisfy ‘novelty over time’
just as much as looks, and can be just as varied. Look at Pikmin. Pikmin has enemy variety for days. Pikmin is all about managing a small army
to collect key items within a time limit. Each type of Pikmin has a unique ability to
help you gather items and traverse the area. In your way is a parade of dangerous fauna
that keeps you from returning to your base with all that stuff you found. Pikmin’s creatures have been incredibly
varied and creative throughout its history. The bestiary is full of alien designs, unique
traits, and abilities that draw inspiration from survival tactics in the animal kingdom,
all of which bring a harsh circle of life to an alien world. Taking down any one of them isn’t that hard,
but combat in Pikmin is more about doing so with as few casualties as possible. You need every Pikmin you’ve got to help
get the materials you need to survive another day. The game’s creatures cover a wide range
of abilities that touch on the full set of the game’s mechanics. Each enemy has a set of specific behaviors,
and each needs you to take a different approach to come out with your squad intact. Some are easy enough, like the red Bulborbs
that you can ambush by throwing your strongest Pikmin on its back while it sleeps. Its cousin, the Bulbear, is more dangerous. It actively patrols the map with a pack of
its children following behind to pick off stragglers. Some of the game’s enemies are element based,
requiring specific Pikmin that are immune to that element. Some, like these Wollywogs, hop up high to
try to crush you. The green and red cannon beetles will spit
out rocks to avoid, or homing rocks that you can use to turn the fight back on them. There are flying types like the swooping Snitchbug
that act as disruptors to throw a wrench in another battle and slow you down, or some
types that camouflage and ambush you when you don’t expect it. In Pikmin, the fights work on one level as
action-oriented battles, but they also act as a way to make you think about time management
and efficiency, to approach each encounter carefully and wait for when the battle is
most advantageous to you. The alien setting helps the bestiary work
on a meta-level with specific mechanics in the games. Breadbugs carry your items back into their
nests and have to be defeated through a tug-of-war or by throwing Pikmin on them to release their
stolen goods. The Antenna beetle sends out a soundwave that
works exactly like your whistle, calling your Pikmin away from you. The Puffstool mini-boss releases spores that
turn your Pikmin hostile. The setting makes otherwise-implausible mechanics
fair game to play around with. Pikmin’s designers put that freedom to good
use and made the game’s bestiary a challenging, varied, and creative obstacle that elevates
the game overall. Pikmin’s enemy variety is an excellent goal
for action games to aim for. It has a well-rounded set of distinct behaviors
and mechanics that let designers compose fun combat scenarios that challenge the player. Megaman, Hollow Knight, and DOOM all hit some
of the same highs. Zelda does too, including Breath of the Wild. But Breath of the Wild runs into a little
complication as it tries to hit that ‘Novelty over Time’ goal. There are a large number of different
enemies. You’ve got your Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos,
Octoroks… another Bokoblin, ChuChus, Keese… another Lizalfos… ANOTHER Bokoblin, Hinox, Lynels, a... skeleton
Moblin, and another Bokoblin. I’m leaving some out. Breath of the Wild has a vast, rich combat
system and a lot of enemies that interact with practically every part of it. If you total them all up, the game has about
the same size bestiary as other 3D Zeldas, but why doesn’t it FEEL like there’s that
many? At least it seems that way to me. I think it comes down to a combination: the
vast scope of the game, and how over the course of it you can fall into a familiar pattern
with how you fight monsters. From the snowfields to the desert, in almost
every area, you’ll find packs of the more common enemies. You’ll fight a mix of Bokoblins, Moblins,
and Lizalfos with minor variations of each. There’s not that much exclusivity in where
enemies are placed. There are some, like the Moldugas in the desert
or the Guardian Scouts in shrines, but the enemy lineup is not all THAT different place
to place. As you clear Divine Beasts and explore more,
some will change color and get some simple stat buffs, but mechanically it’s roughly
the same experience. The only exception is the Yiga Blademasters
and the foot soldier archers that show up after clearing their hideout. Other than that, the cast is static, no matter
where you are or how far you get. After fighting a few, you’ll figure out
a familiar pattern to beat each of them, which you might be using more often than you’d
like. Sprinkled in will be a few of the rarer ones
to spice things up mechanically. The elemental ChuChus explode when defeated. Lynels are complex, dangerous fights, and
are some of the most fun to fight 1 on 1 and put all of your combat skills to the test. There’s the occasional Wizzrobe that calls
down some wild weather effects. But then it’s back to the basic trio. Even some of the less common ones like the
Octoroks and Keese are underwhelming. They'll go down in one or two hits, or the
Mini-Talos with one bomb, or one-shotting those wizzrobes with the opposite element. Sure, you COULD deal with them all in fun
ways. Setting up traps and using the environment
to take out easy enemies is fantastic. The craftsmanship of the clockwork systems
in Breath of the Wild, and how the game lets your imagination run free and lets the world
respond is incredible. But you COULD just deal with each fight normally,
and it’s faster, too. The path of least resistance is a compelling
force. Even though the attack variety is totally
there, it might not be seen or used to its full potential. If the depth is never seen, it can’t help
spice up the monotony of the same monsters being dealt with the same way. Speaking of dealing with monsters the same
way, there is one more thing to watch out for: Reskinned mechanics aren’t new mechanics. Lately, I’ve played through Paper Mario:
The Origami King. It’s actually pretty fun (I know, I’m
shocked too after all the Modern Paper Mario complaining I’ve been doing). But its enemy variety is a little lackluster. Paper Mario: The Origami King is a turn-based
RPG like the others, but it has a rather unique puzzle-focused battle system. The traditional RPG trappings are toned way
down in favor of a system that puts you on a turntable, where you spin and slide parts
of the arena to position enemies in groups or lines, where you can then efficiently take
them out all at once with a jump or with your hammer. It’s alright, and it’s much more engaging
than the barebones RPG-lite systems in Color Splash and Sticker Star, but the system doesn’t
have a lot of staying power, and a lot of that is caused by how it differentiates its
normal enemies. Since the game is much more similar to a puzzle
than a traditional race-to-zero RPG combat encounter, it’s prone to the problem that
almost all puzzle games have. Once you know how to solve a puzzle, it’s
done. You’re not going to squeeze much more fun
out of a puzzle you’ve already finished. For Origami King, this problem is partially
created by its enemy design. They look nice. They got some quality paper. They mainly stick to the traditional Mario
enemies with some good variety. But functionally, each enemy is more or less
identical to every other one. They may have different attack animations,
and their stats are a little different, but they aren’t distinct enough to alter how
you approach them. Enemies go down in just 1 or 2 hits, even
as things scale up so long as you keep using stronger weapons as they become available. Some might be immune to jumps or to hammers,
but that’s not especially tricky to work around tactically. The gameplay is more focused on shifting enemy
positions around, and that general idea is pretty much the same from the start of the
game to the end. Some of the puzzle setups are harder to solve
than others, but there aren’t hardly any new types of mechanics or new considerations
to make after you get through the early part of the game. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a goomba,
a shy guy, a koopa, a cheep cheep - none of the enemies change the nature of combat very
much. Sure, there are a few exceptions. The Boos that turn invisible and Piranha plants
that bury themselves add a little wrinkle, but the new mechanics are few and far between. Some of those mechanics, like kicking a koopa
shell into the enemies behind it, wind up being a lightly reskinned version of a thing
you would do anyway. The enemies largely feel like they’re interchangeable
blocks to push around on a puzzle board you’ve already solved dozens of times before. Now the BOSS fights are a different story. They’re amazing. You have to carefully manage Mario's position
and clear a path to the boss to fight them. Each boss fight is its own unique puzzle with
its own unique rules to master, and most have multiple ways to solve them. It’s a stark contrast against the game’s
tedious and forgettable standard fights, where the lack of mechanical variety makes the game’s
bestiary feel like a lot of repeated pages. We’re just scratching the surface of bestiary
design here, but designing your enemies with Novelty over Time in mind can help get the
game’s enemy roster off on the right foot. Leave a comment below about some of your favorite
bestiaries, interesting enemies, or even counterexamples that might help highlight some interesting
takes on enemy design. We might do a future episode and dive deeper
into the topic. As long as you’re surprising your players,
you can make your fights worth fighting. *chill vibes outro from Streets of Rage 4*
