Thursday Turn Out - 04/02/2026
(REMINDER: Download keys will be sent out Monday, May 4th. If you want to playtest the Beatdown in the Holler prototype, either subscribe or email me at pete@petemakesgames.com.)
I told you I’d plan for the next ten months and plan I did.
I told you I’d get the “barest” game up and running and get it up and running I did.
I told you I’d start working on a new enemy spawner and well look, two out of three isn’t too bad.
A bit of background: I have set RespawnPoints in Beatdown in the Holler’s prototype: an enemy spawns from that point, Zel kills it, and a new one respawns a few seconds later. That’s fine for the prototype, but it’s not the behavior I want in the full game for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is that it turns what should be a frantic action game into one of memorization. You know how people get really good at Pac-Man by memorizing the ghost locations and behaviors? That’s great, but that’s not what I want Beatdown in the Holler to be. I want you to feel that danger can come from anywhere.
So, that means I needed to rethink how enemies spawned. I settled on coding an enemy spawner that created enemies just-off-camera in waves. It works, but it is so very, very wonky. Enemies spawn very slowly at first and then there’s like three-hundred-and-eighty-seven of them at once. It’s going to take some fine-tuning to get it right.
Oh, and for some reason, some enemies are popping into the screen instead of spawning off-screen.
And some enemies are spawning on water and are getting stuck.
Oh, and water is making traversal interesting, and I’m not sure in a good way.
But that’s why we make games, and test them, and fix them: to iterate until they’re fun. And that’s where I’ll get to, eventually.
Will I have it working properly by Sunday? I don’t know, but you should totally come back then and see. As always, thanks for reading!
