Flower Challenge Prototype

Another prototype! This time it's of the "Flower Challenge". A month ago, when we first talked about the challenges, I described it like this: 

"Challenge #1: Gauntlet With Debuffing Flowers

In this challenge you'll battle waves of enemies while managing a heap of flower buds which grow and (if you don't hit them) will create a debuff in the surrounding area once they burst into their full flower form. The debuffs we've considered so far are poison and blind, but we're also discussing other ways they might inconvenience the player, should they forget to manage the buds."

Well, we've made a bunch of changes! To begin with, we're not really talking waves of enemies anymore. Instead, there's a big flower in the middle, which serves as a mini-boss: it has a big HP bar and dictates when the battle ends (once its HP reaches 0). 

There are still smaller flowers & regular enemies spawning around the room, but at regular intervals rather than in proper waves. 

We also changed the debuffs around. Instead of multiple flowers with multiple debuffs, we're simply settling for one type of the smaller ones, which release poison clouds. Standing in a poison cloud for too long means you'll start losing a percentage of your HP, so take care!

The flowers will increase in size over time, releasing their poison once their reach their final form. If you hit the flowers, they'll shrink, until they die and disappear from the map. 

The big one works a bit differently. Instead of releasing poison in its final form, it heals the other flowers and shields them, meaning you can't damage them until you've dealt with the bigger one. Also, while hitting it causes it to shrink, there's a limit to how small it can get, at least until you've worked through its HP bar!

One thing to keep in mind is that if you simply hit any flower in its final form, it'll revert back to the second highest form. Which means that if you don't continuously hit it, it'll soon grow into its final form again, spewing even more poison (or healing the other enemies once again)!

We kind of like the "dilemma" the big vs small flowers cause: if you stay near the big one too long, the room will fill with poison from the smaller ones, but if you focus the small ones too hard, you'll soon be forced back to the big one or you won't be able to deal damage to them anymore!

However, we'd like something more to spice things up, so we're currently thinking of ways to make the fight more interesting. Perhaps the big flower will have a special attack that temporarily removes the other flowers & enemies in order for you to dodge something or deal with some other kind of threat (vines, thorns or some kind of beam, perhaps)? Still deciding on that!

Got any ideas? Feel free to share :D