This week's new Abomi is the menacing Vulshrike!
You could say Vulshrike is the third staple of the Desert biome. It's the game's only Air/Plant-type and it loves to hunt. While it really doesn't like ice, it does have one thing in common with Pengweenie and Peneedle: it shares their Prickly ability, dealing damage back to those who make contact with it.
Vulshrike obviously takes inspiration from vultures, but it and (spoiler alert) its pre-evolution are also heavily inspired by a lesser-known desert bird: the shrike. Shrikes hunt by grabbing on to small creatures, lifting them high, and dropping them onto spiked surfaces like thorns or cactus needles to finish them off.
This is a particularly unique trait (if a bit gruesome) that I thought would translate to Abomi Nation well, and that's why Vulshrike has evolved to grow spikes itself. The rose theme isn't just an excuse for its unique typing, though I'm happy that I got to use it.
I spent all week doing boring UI work (barf), but the end result I think is pretty nifty. I've been meaning to revamp the attack menu for ages, because I always thought it looked a bit 'placeholder.'
This is what it used to look like:
And this is what it looks like now:
I think the end result is worth the time I put in. There are a lot of juicy animations that make it much more engaging to use.
There's also room for a lot more information in this design! For example, you can see that every attack now has its description underneath the name instead of just having this awkward white box show the added effects.
Also, the "Targets" section now shows little Abomi faces instead of red dots, so there should be no confusion about who you're hitting! I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner.
Finally, a smaller detail is that an attack's traits are listed to the right of their boxes with little symbols! These are things like biting moves, piercing moves, grounded moves, etc. that you could really only discern if you selected them and then looked at the damage breakdown.
Now, if you're afraid to hit a Vulshrike because of its Prickly ability, you can see exactly which moves are contact moves based on their little icons! It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but Beak Bonk and Burst Strike show that they make contact here. I really want to give players as much information as possible without them having to consult a wiki. I can't be perfect, but I can do my damnedest to make sure players feel like their losses were preventable. The deaths sting more that way, too. :)
See you next week!
Carl