I apologize for the week long gap between articles. Partly this is because I’ve been working an odd job that takes up my entire day, but mostly I stuck on this new boss style. This may seem odd, as I certainly thought bosses more similar to existing enemies would be easier to design than bosses in the more shmup-style. Instead it’s been the opposite.
This was in part because I went about things in a silly way. Enemies exist on a sort of gradient, from trash mobs to traditional bosses capable of putting up a good 1v1 fight, and everything in between. I should have started my experimentation with something akin to a mini-boss, then built from there. Instead, I got overly excited about the prospect of designing my dream enemy. One that had teleportation, unique minions, two different kinds of projectile attacks, one of which would tunnel through cover, multiple AoE attacks, lasers and sentries spawned intelligently throughout the arena, a plethora of defensive options, combined with sophisticated AI that ran it all.
Of course, I ended up with a total mess, so the new plan is to churn out a bunch of candidates that have just a few abilities, and a more easily defined gameplan. For example, the main attack of the below boss is the blue laser, which it combines that with the AoE x’ thingies that you can see below, and the bouncing projectiles which add a nice bit of predictable chaos to the encounter.
The other two test bosses in development have a similarly limited number of abilities, which makes them easier to program and playtest. As these are just gameplay tests, no attempt is made for any narrative plausibility. That will come later.
Unfortunately, I have learned that it isn’t as simple as making a normal enemy stronger. This is a game with a fairly quick time to kill. Massively increasing the health of a boss while retaining the basic combat system almost necessitates relentlessly wailing on the enemy to exploit its hitstun. It also doesn’t lead to an interesting flow to the combat encounter, which is why a lot of genres with bosses – such as shmups, character action, platformers – give their bosses multiple stages or some other creative change of pace, but I’ll write more about that after slapping together a few more prototypes as my thoughts on solutions here are a little hazy.
