The biggest thing that impressed me about Geometry Wars was the different behaviors all of the different types of enemies had. So as I developed my tribute to Geometry Wars I knew that this was a major component of the game that I wanted to mimic.

Like Retro Evolved, the enemies of Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved start small and slow and continue coming in larger numbers and with more aggressive behaviors. There are 10 types of germs (or plaque) in Dental Evolved, and each will infuriate you in different ways:

Pawns: These are the first enemies. They chase you at a medium pace.
[color=orange]Heatseekers[/color]: This plaque will chase your tooth quickly and aggressively. You will need to quickly direct your fire on them or they will get you.
[color=yellow]Zombies[/color]: These plaque move slow and follow you methodically. Their slow pace often puts them just out of range of your fluoride cannons until they are too close for comfort. They also take more damage so they are dangerous if they sneak up close.
Splitters: This plaque is fairly easy to dispatch at first, but then they split into two smaller versions.
[color=violet]Jokers[/color]: These plaque try to gain position on you while constantly evading your shots.
[color=indigo]Kamikazes[/color]: This plaque will simply fly directly at you at top speed. They may easily miss, but they’ll quickly change course and dart at you again,
[color=brown]Dumpers[/color]: They rarely attack directly, but they lay down stones that are obstacles to you and your fluoride cannons.
Sinkholes: They attack fairly slowly but when destroyed, they produce a large vortex that will destroy anything in its path.
Ghosts: They attack fairly slowly but they can fly through barriers and other obstacles ensuring there is no such thing as a total safe zone.
[color=darkblue]Snipers[/color]: They aren’t interested in attacking directly. They will shoot their germs at you and keep their distance.

There are enough enemies to fill the screen and overwhelm the player with all the different ways the plauqe will respond to you. There isn’t as much creativity or variety as in Retro Evolved but there is enough to get some of the same feel.

Thus far I have outlined how I have tried to make a game like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Dental Evolved will have some of its own features, however, namely a special weapons system. In my next post I will outline how you can upgrade your fluoride cannon or even pull out the floss to dispatch the plaque.

Cavity Crusade: Dental Evolved will be available at http://JackGames.com on Friday 8/29.
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