This makes the Eye of Cthulhu look like a puny marble. No wait, half a puny marble. Aranea Oculus (Latin for Spider Eye) is more of a boss-type creature than anything else. The natives of the planet it dwells on call this notorious beast The Watcher. The Nest The player will find the nest of a Watcher near the bases of large cliffs, caves, and chasms. The Watcher is a big creature, and will need plenty of space to maneuver. The nest itself is a collection of veined, orange-yellow sacs suspended by a web-like structure of thick, black goo. The goo can spread around a limited distance from the sacs. (See the figure below. The scanner’s resolution was a little off so the sacs are paler than they should be. The square on the bottom right represents one block.) The sacs emit a faint glow. Hatching When the nest is agitated, one of the sacs will be ruptured and The Watcher will emerge from the sac. Fluid effects are present in the process. After The Watcher emerges, it will emit a hollow, dark screech that basically means “COME AT ME BRO!” The screen shakes while it screams. Description The Watcher is a large eyeball encased by a crude, fleshy maw. Where the optic nerve should be on the eye is actually three spine-like tentacles. The front two serve as large cutting/stabbing arms and the hind tentacle has a mouth at the end. (Shown in the next picture that my scanner butchered.) Tentacle mechanics are described further below. The Watcher morphs into a second form after a certain amount of damage is dealt to the creature. (The nest graphics should stay the same, not what the scanner thought it looked like. Some of it was drawn in pencil, so sorry of you couldn't see it very well. The color's a bit faded, too. Again, that square on the bottom right represents one block.) Stage One Movement During stage one, The Watcher uses its tentacles as legs to move on the ground. It can also climb on walls and ceilings, making it a highly maneuverable creature. Combat The Watcher uses its front tentacles in rapid succession, making multiple swipes and stabs in short bursts. The mouth can try to bite the player by either making a direct strike under the eye, or the mouth can attack from over the eye, like a scorpion’s stinger. Stage two At this time, the Watcher is rather pissed off at your petty blows, and things really get serious. The Watcher begins to levitate above the ground, and the maw encasing the eye gruesomely opens, sending some blood and flesh flying out, and the teeth elongate. The eye is completely exposed, and now emits a pulse that debuffs the player with cowardice: Strikes are faster but less effective, firearms are more inaccurate, energy is used up twice as fast, and the player moves faster away from the creature than moving towards it. The Watcher screams again. Movement The Watcher levitates off the ground, not needing to use its tentacles for movement, and can reserve them specifically for combat. When not in its “guard” position, the tentacles move along with the eye in a trailing fashion, similar to the Sentinels in The Matrix. Combat When the Watcher is facing an enemy, its goes into its “guard” position: the cutter arms are positioned below the eye, and the mouth is above the eye. (Shown in figure two, where the pathetic-looking arrow is pointing at) The tentacles and mouth use the same methods in attacking the player, but now the mouth can spit the thick black goo that appears in the nest. It contacted, the goo can immobilize the player. Mechanics during both stages of combat The Medusas When the Watcher hatches, the nest also releases small, tentacled eyeballs called Medusas. (Shown in the second pic)They move similarly to the Demon Eyes in Terraria, but they move in a smoother fashion to maintain a constant speed. The Medusas can also target the player, NPCs, and other creatures in the world, grab on to them, and possess them to fight for their cause. The player can get rid of a latched on Medusa my mashing buttons. The Mouth The mouth can snatch other creatures nearby, swallow them, and regain some health. The mouth can also catch one of the Medusas and throw them at the player, turning the Medusa into an explosive bomb that releases black goo. Executions Something that would be rather interesting to see is when a player is low enough on health, the Watcher does a gruesome, fatal blow to the player. For example, the Watcher can grab the player, put him or her close to its eye, and scream so loudly that the player turns into dust. The mouth can also devour the player, etc. Resources When the Watcher dies, its bone-like growths on its tentacles can be used for crafting, as well as the teeth on its maw. Parts of the eye itself, such as the vitreous humor, along with the black goo from the nest, can be used for alchemy. A loot chest should appear near the nest when the Watcher is defeated, and the Medusas stop spawning. Just something else to remind anyone who bothered to read everything I wrote, (which I highly doubt) as well as anyone else who approves of this creature. The Watcher is merely a hatchling from the nest where it came from. This isn’t the biggest eye an adventurer will see in his or her voyages. If this idea goes through, I give the developers permission to design the matured versions of the creature, their planet of origin, and possibly the species’ society. Heck, I’ve designed this guy to be wired for the game so much that the devs can use the idea even if I don’t win. Additional Species (Update) After discovering that I had more time on my hands than I thought, I decided to create some interesting relatives to the Watcher. I could brainstorm some other variants, but currently time is running short, so I believe that there won’t be any other updates besides this one. The details for each one aren’t really as in depth as I would want them to be. If I had more time, I could have made graphics for their nests, but I could only manage a text description. The size of the creatures and mechanics of combat and movement are generally the same as the Watcher’s unless specified otherwise. The Burner This guy is found on hellish planets, more specifically, volcanoes. The nest is located inside the chute, and when it erupts, the Burner hatches, and rises out of the lava and ash. As shown in the picture, the Burner in initially a floating shell of obsidian, and the extendable tentacles can cause burning damage. The back of the Burner is sort of like a mini volcano, which can either send a hose of lava at a target, or combust sharply, propelling the Burner at dangerous speeds. Yes, it basically sends its scorching poop at you. UMAD? During stage two, the Burner explodes violently, sending its obsidian shell flying in every direction, and reveals its second state. In the second state, the Burner is basically a ball of fire with tentacles. The ends of the front two tentacles turn into claws, with the bottom shear as a flame, and a third tentacle appears on the back, replacing the volcanic digestive system. The third tentacle acts like the mouth on the Watcher, but it can’t bite. The Swallower This eyeball has a few tricks up its sleeve, mostly involving quantum mechanics. If the player provokes the Wormhole event (if it wasn’t made yet, the event creates a portal on a world generating random enemies and stuff like that) enough, the Swallower will spawn at the end. Instead of the haunting screech of the Watcher, it makes a sound similar to dubstep filth. The thick tail at the end is slightly flexible and can sort of act as a hind leg, complimenting the front two. The barb at the top of the eye can shoot out and retract quickly, and the eye can turn into a black hole, suck a bunch of things in, and send them back out, all at once, in all directions. If the player gets caught in the hole, then his or her or its inventory gets rearranged, and still gets spat out like the other items that were sucked in. Eventually, the top barb shoots out completely, along with the two front legs, all while beginning to levitate and summoning two tentacles out of its eye. The tail at the end bends to form a disintegration beam generator, which takes time to charge up. The eye can still turn into a black hole, but the tentacles are still present in that phase, and can still attack the player. The top barb is replaced by a set of missiles, which, when detonated, implodes, sucks blocks and items in, and then explodes, sending them everywhere. At low enough health, the missiles travel faster and develop limited tracking capabilities. The tentacles can open portals and pop into different locations. The Beekeeper This is basically a large, green wasp with a large red orb/eye replacing its head, and verdant tentacles replacing the legs. This abomination resides in the planets covered in dense jungles. An adventurer may find a nest similar to the Watcher’s, but with green sacs and goo, and is suspended by the trees instead of solid ground. When it hatches, it uses its tentacles to grasp on trees to move around, sort of like using the Ivy Whip in Terraria. It can also release a cloud of small organisms that block the screen. Any contact with the barbs on the tentacles and abdomen will cause virulent poison damage. At stage two the Beekeeper brightens in color, both the red orb and the green exoskeleton, and launches the stinger at the player. Replacing the stinger is a spawn point for the smaller versions of this creature, which are comparable to the Watcher’s medusas. The Beekeeper also stops relying on trees for movement and levitates instead. The Beekeeper and its spawn give off a glow at this stage. The Crystallizer This eyeball has one tentacle that serves as a hind tentacle, but only using that would make it pretty boring to fight, eh? The spikes on its icy shell can shoot out in different patterns, the tentacle can retract and the eyeball rolls around like a runaway mace ball, and it spawns blizzard breath that basically freezes everything it touches. The nest is basically a blueish-white sac that was frozen into a glacier, and the only way to hatch it is to melt the surrounding ice. Once it’s pissed off enough, the Crystallizer creates a blizzard so intense that everything is barely visible. This continues as long as it’s alive, and the eyeball starts floating around. Its attacks appear with short warning as tentacles pop out of nowhere, yet everywhere at the same time. It appears to have more than one tentacle at this part, because of its rapid attacks out of the snow and wind. The Stalker This is the reason why little kids are afraid of the dark. Anyone who’s a fan of The Darkness and Doctor Who’s weeping angels will find some resemblances in this monster. The first stage is pretty complicated. When the player is spelunking in a large cave formation with nothing but a flashlight, a line of five red dots may appear behind them. Ignore the five red dots, and the player is basically screwed. Turn around, and the player will be face-to-face with a large snake’s maw, turned into stone. Turn the flashlight off and on again, and the stone snake disappears. If the player places a torch and leaves it out of the screen, he or she may come back and find it magically blown out. The mechanics of the tentacles is that when there is darkness, the tentacles can travel through it, but when exposed to light, the tentacles turn into stone. During this whole stage, the player never sees the eyeball; only its front two tentacles (shown in the picture above) in a stone form. If one manages to follow the tentacles, they will lead to a large chamber lit by purple, but visible, light. Any other sources of light from the player will be deactivated. In the center of the cavern is a half-sunken sphere with red dots pulsing on and off. When it rises, it reveals its eye, the two tentacles you were so familiar with, and the hind tentacle as a glove. The eye is engulfed in an evil, purple flame. The glove tentacle can pick up loose blocks and throw them, punch, poke, slap, and grab the player. The mouth tentacle is more constrained on blocks, but can be camouflaged at times for sneak attacks. The whip tentacle acts like any other tentacle. The Purifier This is sort of an eyeball crossed with a snake crossed with a bird. The picture explains it all. It soars around the sky, dive-bombs the player with its tentacles (hidden under the wings) and actually drops bombs on the player. The Purifier spawns when the slayer shoots a shotgun at the sky in a specific rhythm, while drinking the Purifier’s summoning potion. After a while, the tail and wings fall off and the eyeball explodes, taking a new form that resembles a miniature star. The tentacle shoots out of the star when needed. Attack methods include a solar flare, which is basically a set of waves coming from the eye, and the cleansing beam that shoots out of the pupil. The Purifier turns from yellow to white/blue when using the cleansing beam. The Lurker The Lurker appears when all of the other eyes were killed at least once. When the player travels to an aquatic planet with a sandy plain, the Lurker has a chance of rising out of the sand. It has an additional attack where it releases jets of either boiling water or ink out of the tentacle pores. When the Lurker appears to lose all its health, the sprite sinks down to the bottom, and the screen shakes. After a few seconds, its full form shoots out of the sand: (The first form is there to compare the sizes) The Lurker’s second form on occasion coils up and breathes blue/green fire. Should be cool to watch, except for the fact that the player’s getting burned to death. The tentacles are still operational, now being several times longer. I didn’t bother to look for spelling/grammatical errors in the update; it’s pretty late and my parents are looking at me askance. The Lurker shouldn’t be the largest boss; the developers should be given the honor to do that. Good luck to everyone else attending the contest, and thanks for considering my creature.
