Hola / Hello !!!
It is tiiiiime, time for the next Decrypting the Station, in which we will go into the details behind the latest family of monsters that you have seen, the Blobs.
For the newcomers, what is this blog about? In this series, we will cover different elements of Endless Dungeon, such as the different monster families, the Meta Progression, etc.
If it's your first time, here you can check the 2 previous blogs about the Bugs and the Bots.
THE BLOBS
Lore
The Blobs are generally the results of laboratory tests or other mutations. They could be Amoeba who devolved (a boss?), vat-grown meat for the kitchens that became sentient, cellular experiments that went wild... They should show signs of radiation mutation, cancerous growths, etc.
As they have no particular society or group, they tend to roam as individuals or in small groups, feeding and reproducing. Their natural tendency to geomoetrically increasing population is kept in check by the Bugs and the Bots, who either eat or kill them.
Your probably already know him, but let's see what Jeff, our Narrative Director, has to say about them.
Another theme that we always have fun playing with is lab experiments. This has been the stuff of science fiction B movies ever since they started fiming them, and I guess that glowing, crawling, mindless lumps of organic matter that consume everything in their path is just too much fun to pass up. It works particularly well in the Endless universe, where pretty much every planet or station the Endless ever built is full of labs. The Endless were certainly mad scientists, forever playing with both living and unliving things. Boundless curiousity and a passion to discover and understand the universe is, I think, generally a noble thing. Humans by nature are forever questioning and pondering, poking things that maybe should not necessarily be poked... and that was the problem of the Endless; they poked things until those things poked back. Besides, the predecessor of Endless Dungeon, Dungeon of the Endless, took place on the planet Auriga, which was essentially a gaia planet that was turned into one enormous research site. That game was full of blobby experiments, and there is no way we would pass up the chance to put the same monsters in Endless Dungeon. It also gave us the need to have a part of the Station filled with that sort of lab equipment, so fiction and legacy and design just kept feeding on themselves as we were making the game, building and growing and expanding - y'know, just like a blob...
Gameplay
To speak about the gameplay side of the Blobs we will host Victor, Game Designer of Endless Dungeon. He will be able to tell us more details about the intention behind the Blobs and some additional details about each of the monsters.
This familly of monsters will try pierce your defenses by raw force and resistance. They are quite slow but hit hard and have the biggest HP pool. Radioactive and multiple lines of defense are the best tools to defeat them if you go in their part of the station.
Bump into each of the Blobs:
They are what we call the creep of the blob family. They are numerous, attack heroes, generators, research machine and crystal on sight. They have the least HP of the family but split in two at death. Keep your distance if you are unsure of your melee capability as they can chew you in seconds.
They are the protector of the blobs, being an indestructible first line as they are immune to front damage. They will allow the wave to arrive to your front line of turret and will let the electric leechers do their job. They will also need you to reposition to hit more valuable target or to get behind their back to kill them. They are not really dangerous by themselves, but they will tremendously increase the already high survivability of a blob wave.
They are the turrets killers of this family and one of if not the strongest of the game. They will stun any turret caught in their attack and tend to spawn in numbers so they will almost always take down your first line of defenses. Shove them out of your turrets or shoot them with high knockback weapons.
They are the artillery unit of this family as they attack in a circular area in front of them. They are the most efficient when combine with other monsters, forcing you to reposition yourself to dodge the area. Moreover, they should not be ignored in the wave as they gain strength over time when in combat. Their little secret is that they don’t know how to not blow other monsters in their attack so they can be uncommon allies if this weakness is exploited.
They are the big bad hero killer of this family. They move slowly until they see their target and start charging them. They have one of the biggest hp pool of all monsters and even "If temporarily" one of the top speed too. The viable strategies are hit and run (more specifically “hit and run the hell away”) or if you have the right upgrades facing them in close combat.
Art
And now to maybe the most anticipated part of the blog: The Art.
This time we will have Corinne, our Studio Art Director, who elaborates a bit more on the thoughts about the process when creating the Blobs, aesthetic, etc.
As for the bugs, the previous faction presented, we chose to establish some graphic “rules” to represent the blob family. As we know that the Endless were always fond of experimentation, and built labs on almost every planet they could set foot on, we imagined that the blobs could be a kind of failed attempt to enhance or modify a whole bunch of poor creatures. There was some slights hesitations at the very beginning of the faction creation, between making the blobs monstruous, but kind of elegants and fascinating, beautifully disturbing, or developping them as some kind of brutal flesh aberrations. We finally quickly opted for the “monstruous” path, as the good old-fashion genre movie fans we are ^^
*Early Sketches of the Blobs - Elegant Version
*Early Sketches of the Blobs - Aberration version
So this blob family shares anatomic similarities : like too many limbs (or not necessarily placed at the right place), too many teeth, or eyes (or lack of eyes ^^). The blobs are failed genetic mutations of different unknown species. They are incomplete, or visibly made from uncontrolled multiplication of flesh. Warts, pustules, veins, etc… So their color palette is about all tones of flesh, bones, nails, muscles and teeth…
*MitoSis Early Sketch To final Design
As for all factions we took care of working on shapes stylization, semi-flat colors, with simple and strong distinctive color codes - here the “fleshy” tones for the blobs family, with a few beige/off-white adds for bones and teeth.
That was all for today, hope you find it interesting.
If you played against them, let us know which one you consider the most dangerous. In my case was the Jellytazer as it destroyed all my defenses if I wasn't paying enough attention.