This was my first attempt at a complex enemy. On turn 1 they switch the most dominant colour into "corruption" (a fifth colour that usually doesn't appear but has no special properties1). On turn 2 they summon an enemy on all those tiles with a "brittle" debuff where they'll poof after one turn. And then on turn 3 those enemies all attack and expire while the boss nukes in a 2x2 rook pattern.
The art is placeholder and a bit of a mish-mash atm, but hopefully you can see what's going on!
This was immediately fun for me. As a player it will likely be a bit overwhelming at first, but they're easy to manage once you know how it works. It feels like the random, organic puzzle generation the game should be about.
I have also been rethinking a lot of what I wrote in the big "Corruption" post a month ago. It was about encouraging players not to stall the fights, having this theme of pursuit and urgency, and waxing lyrical about "encouraging the behaviour you want." But this is so much more interesting than fights where the player wallops 3 enemies, refuses to elaborate, and leaves.
So I have actually gone back to waves rather than just defeating a few enemies and being able to exit. However, the waves are tied to a turn counter, so you cannot just stall things out forever.
What I have mostly been doing however is a rewrite. I no longer try and predict what will happen on the player's turn. The preview is still there! But rather than "guessing" I clone the world, run through it, and then entities compare themselves to their liminal space doppelgangers. And to do this I had to separate out the model and view. Bit painful but it's done now!
1 It does have some extra rules like not spreading on board regeneration. But this is secret stuff.
