Today, let’s discuss the dretch.

Starting with the dretch, I am going to be doing a spotlight article series on the entire alien team, discussing the current state of models and what our plans are with regards to gameplay. Some of the models are already in-game. We may be able to fix texture or animation issues if you point them out in these discussion threads. Otherwise, you can give us feedback on how things are or how they’re going to be. You can also suggest new names for things. Now, let’s look more closely at the dretch.

Concept: Gregstein
Model: Dandoombuggy
Animation: gavlig
Status: complete

The dretch is the most basic form available to the alien team. All players can spawn as it for free, and thus, mastering the dretch is crucial to getting far with the alien team. Its main form of attack is an automatic bite, which does an impressive amount of damage considering the size of the dretch and its relative fragility. A couple of bites at a human’s head will take it down, and coupled with utterly silent movement, the dretch is the ultimate stealth form. Poison from a booster enhances the dretch at later portions of the game, allowing for even armored humans to be steadily damaged over time. However, the dretch loses some of its utility once the human team gains access to the radar upgrade, and the form is relatively useless against a human in a battlesuit.

At the moment, our main gameplay change involving the dretch has been the addition of an advanced form. The upgraded dretch has additional health, and has a new pounce attack that it can use to quickly leap at an opponent, or perhaps towards safety or over obstacles such as human base defenses. A pounce can also be performed from a wall or ceiling, unique to the form. However, this might not be enough, as we are attempting to make the dretch easier for new players to pick up on. One suggestion is to allow the dretch to gradually turn invisible, or at least exceedingly difficult to detect, which would allow for a dretch player to make up for stealth mistakes against humans with radars. However, there may be other ways to go about this.

What are your thoughts?