Say hello to your new best friend! 😉

Along with this new enemy type I've also added a new type of damage (toxic) with its own distinct visual feedback (green overlay). This should help to differentiate when you are taking environmental damage from toxic puddles, when a spider is spitting at you from behind, etc. To further help differentiate toxic hazards I've also removed emission for enemy blood decals.

Last but not least, I also reworked the enemy spawning logic. Previously, every second room along the solution path spawned a mutant miner 100% of the time (and at higher difficulties: a rat and a second mutant miner).

The new logic is more variable:

• 75% chance of a mutant miner / 75% chance for the 5th floor and above
• 50% chance of a spider for the 2nd floor and beyond
• 50% chance of a rat for the 5th floor and beyond

The difficulty ramps up fairly quickly now; you can end up with clusters of several spiders in earlier levels (as you can see in the video above). This is due to the fact that spiders (and rats) aren't tethered in the same way as mutant miners. I might end up changing this--maybe tether them within a 2-3 room radius--but I do like the unpredictability it creates now.

In any case, I think the opposing behaviour of the spiders and rats is going to make for some really interesting variation (you chase the spiders vs the rats chase you), especially when you throw ghosts into the mix (i.e. you turn off your flashlight to take down a spider, only to be accosted by a ghost, then chased by a rat!).

Let me know what you think of the enemy and how you find the balance! (you can find all of this in build 41)

Okay, next up: underwater enemies!

P.S. For the gamedev nerds: I'll be giving an in-depth talk about the procedural generation in TOXICANT (and a couple of my other games) at the Game Dev Atlantic conference on September 18th! It's an online conference, so anyone can attend, and tickets are only $15.