Game Design: “Shadows on Deck” - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 172

Actions
Flynn can of course jump. To make him even more nimble, we'll give him a double jump to let
him avoid and beat monsters more easily. He will also need to be able to duck out of harm's way.
Because we won't be giving Flynn any weapons (besides Archie), he will need more moves to
outwit the bad guys. We'll allow him to climb vertically and give him a charge so he can push
monsters off platforms.
Flynn can send the parrot out to distract the pirates so that they briefly look the other way.
Flynn can then charge them from behind and avoid their weapons altogether. So let's say that the
player can tell Archie where to fly by clicking on the screen with the mouse pointer. Any pirate
that is close to Archie will move toward the parrot and try to catch him. Flynn can then approach
the pirate unnoticed and charge him so that he falls off the platform (Figure 7-3).
Figure 7-3. Flynn sends Archie out to distract a pirate so that he can charge him from behind
Other ways of dealing with the monsters will be to lure them into the booby traps that Flynn
has to avoid himself. Say we're moving in the jungle and discover an old mechanism that makes a
poisonous arrow shoot out of a hole. When Flynn triggers the trap, there will be a warning sound
or animation warning him to get out of the way. But if a monster is following close behind, he can
get caught in the crossfire (Figure 7-4).
Figure 7-4. The baddies can be tricked into traps