Enemy capture · Expansion packs · Phaser AE

What it does

In these games the player disables enemies first and finishes them second, and the score comes from doing several at once. This pack owns everything except the trap itself. It runs rounds from platform maps, with enemies entering, the player respawning, and the round clearing when the required enemies are gone. It scores chains: pop several trapped enemies together or roll one snowball through many, and each is worth more than the last, leaving fruit and items behind. Counters, such as bubbles blown, jumps made or distance run, earn special items with effects like a power-up, a smart bomb, a round skip, a stopped timer or a freeze, and they carry across rounds.

Pressure comes from time. An enemy that escapes a trap, a round that runs long or the last enemy left grows angry and faster. After a while a hurry-up warns, and then an invincible chaser comes in. Letters float in or are carried by creatures, and spelling the word gives an extend or a life. Bosses have hit points and can be hurt by rolled balls, lightning or both.

The capture mechanics are their own packs. bubble-trap traps and pops, snow-roll covers and rolls, and platform-hazards supplies the projectiles, chasers and enemy behaviours, so a game can use bubbles, snow or both at once. Every body is a platform-walker walker on a platform-map level, with enemies run by platform-enemies. The whole configuration is plain data, and configure changes rules on a running game, so a settings panel can retune trapped time or anger speed mid-round.

Features

Rounds — authored rows, air currents, gap columns where special bubbles float in, entry delays, per-round speeds, trapped time, specials and items, and a loop after the last round.
Chained scores — pop and roll chains, items left by each enemy, an all-in-one bonus and fruit on clearing.
Special items by counter — thresholds on bubbles blown, empty pops, jumps, distance, element pops and more, with effects such as power-ups, smart bombs, skips, timer stops, freezes and showers.
Power-ups — range, shot speed, rapid fire, running speed, power and a balloon, kept until death.
Letters — a bonus word spelt from letter bubbles or creatures, for an extend or a life.
Anger, hurry-up and chasers — enemies speed up on escape, on hurry and as the last one left, and a chaser comes after a set time, more of them later.
Bosses — hit points, a bonus, and a choice of what hurts them.
Elements — water, fire and lightning specials that appear at a set rate per round, with water streams that carry players along.
Up to four players — scores, lives, letters and power-ups each.
Three difficulties — Easy, Normal and Arcade scale speed, trapped time, patience, chasers, enemy population, lives, enemy fire and letters.
Live reconfiguration and snapshots — configure patches rules while running, and snapshots restore into a game from the same config.

Good for

Bubble-trapping platformers in the style of Bubble Bobble, with letters, fruit chains and a hurry-up.
Snowball-rolling platformers in the style of Snow Bros, with kicked snowballs, rebounds and a boss floor.
Hybrid capture games that use bubbles and snow in the same round.
Co-op single-screen platformers for up to four players.
Score-attack arcade games built on chains, items and counters rather than simple kills.

Make it yours

A CaptureConfig is plain data, and captureConfig builds one from a game's own parts: its name, mechanic, rounds, enemy kinds and the player's profile and start, with every other section a plain default or the override you give. Beyond that you can set the tile and legend, vertical wrap, player count, per-round values, enemy kinds with their capture, deadliness, boss and letter settings, the player's lives and fire rate, the bubble, snow and element settings, shots, the scoring tables, item tables and special counters, power-ups, letters, anger, hurry, timing, difficulty and seed.

The two arcade games built on it show the range: bubble-cave is a hundred-round bubble game with air currents, letters and its own item table, and snow-tower is ten floors of snow and a boss. Your own game can be a single-round bubble-and-snow arena with one enemy kind, a three-hit snow cover and a short roll chain, built in a few lines with captureConfig.

A quick look

A game of your own that uses both mechanics, with one round and one enemy kind:

const EC = game.enemyCapture;
const g = EC.createCaptureGame(EC.captureConfig({
  name: 'OWN', mechanic: 'both',
  rounds: [{ rows: room, enemies: [{ kind: 'walker', x: 120, feet: 72 }], start: [{ x: 30, feet: 72 }] }],
  kinds: { walker: { enemy: { profile, move: { type: 'custom', name: 'hunter' } } } },
  player: { profile, start: [{ x: 30, feet: 72 }] },
  snow: { cover: 3 }, scoring: { rollChain: [300, 600] },
}));
g.control(0, { x: 1, y: 0, jump: false, fire: true });
g.tick(dt);

Works with

platform-map, platform-walker and platform-enemies — required: the rounds, every body and the enemies.
bubble-trap — the trap-and-pop mechanic.
snow-roll — the cover-and-roll mechanic.
platform-hazards — projectiles, chasers and enemy behaviours.
bubble-cave and snow-tower — two complete arcade games built on this pack.
platform-rounds and dig-trap — sibling rule packs for reach-bump-kick rounds and dug holes.

Good to know

Elements are water, fire and lightning, and the counters are the ones listed; a new element or counter needs the session extended.
Bounds: at most 1,000 rounds, 4 players, 1,024 bubbles, 1,024 snow shots and 128 enemy projectiles.
Structural changes, such as the mechanic or the player count, need a new game rather than configure.
Snapshots restore only into a game made from the same config.
The pack draws nothing: your game draws the rounds, bodies, bubbles and snow from the state.