These little guys, called guppies, are like the goombas of the sea (yes, I’m aware that cheep cheeps are the goombas of the sea, shush): they appear in a variety of situations all over the game, but are very easy to dispose of. Don’t let their cute appearance fool you, contact with these guys will still hurt. As I stated last week, because they are so easy to defeat and avoid, they don’t provide much scrap.

Guppies like the ones pictured are supposed to be quick fodder for players new at the game to get more acquainted with the concepts of the game. Sometimes they are used as a big group for fast scrap (and healing!), and sometimes they lead players into safer areas on the screen. Or sometimes things like this happen:

How you get through a giant cluster (group? gathering? flock? school! It’s school) of guppies are one example of the kinds of challenges we want to present to a group of players in game. Do you blast your way through? Try to find a way past? It’s up to your team to figure it out.

Guppies don’t just come in one form though; next week we’ll go over some variations of guppies, and talk a bit about our design goals for these sea creatures.