In the early days of working on Blight, I was trying to think of something interesting for the character to be able to do. After testing various things, it dawned on me just how few games really focus on defensive maneuvers when compared to offensive. I decided that a shield/protective barrier spell would be the main focus.
There are two versions of how the shield move is accomplished. The first is when you're on the ground--whether running or stopped. You cast a shield in front of you to block from in-coming projectiles. This can also be used to destroy a couple minor enemies, but most enemies aren't actually defeatable--only avoidable. Players should take care since they can't block from behind. This move can also destroy or affect certain environmental elements.
The second way to use the shield is when you're in the air. The shield will automatically be cast beneath you to protect from vertical attacks from below. This has a secondary function of letting you float temporarily as well. This is for either fine-tuning your landing before you make it, or extending your jumping distance for hard-to-reach platforms.
The enemies will get increasingly projectile-heavy as the game progresses so that the use of these tools will be absolutely necessary. The game is indeed challenging, but is far from the masochistic levels of difficulty in some platformers. The player has multiple 'hitpoints' that can be recharged by grabbing a number of glowing orbs scattered about the levels. If the player dies, they generally start at the beginning of the area (with some exceptions). Any defeated enemies or destroyed objects remain gone, but orbs remain collected as well. Skipping them while you're at full or high health may be beneficial if you don't quite make it through to the end on that current level attempt.
That should be enough for now :-P Leave me some comments if there are any questions!
