Boss Design

Boss Design, How far can one take it?

For some reason creating a boss feels foreign. Maybe its because i have never did it before. Like where would one start. Creating a fake AI system would work i guess. I would have to now venture into For loops and advanced sequences. I gotta start somewhere XD.

Has anyone made a game with a boss in it. I would like to play it to see what can be done.

I figure a boss's moveset is easier to design after designing the looks of the boss itself. Then you know what it looks like it's capable of doing. But the opposite can also work for some people, make up a pattern first and then draw something that can match that pattern. Whatever you're more comfortable with, really.

Designing a boss encounter is much like designing a fighting game character. After all, what is a fighting game's single player mode if not a series of boss battles?

With that in mind, you need to be aware of the concept of zoning and controlling space. Each attack the boss makes claims a certain area of the screen, and you have to get out of that area. It makes it easier to visualize the boss, player and attacks as basic shapes instead of their sprites. While this video is a Street Fighter tutorial, you can see the concepts I'm talking about illustrated there. youtube.com/watch

As for the AI algorithm, there are three main methods. Some bosses cycle through a list of moves in order, but as you might guess, that's not too impressive. Some choose their moves randomly from that same list. The third one is the best, but hardest to implement. The move used is chosen according to a certain variable, with the player's distance to the boss being commonly used. Mega Man bosses are a good example of distance being used to determine the attack choice, so maybe you could study them a bit if you want to implement the AI that way.

Hope I helped.

awesome. You are a wealth of knowledge CyberDagger. That street fighter tutorial was amazing. Im gonna play Megaman 8 too see how the bosses work.

All i want my first boss to do is maybe a ground stomp, throwing a projectile and maybe throw a ground projectile. This should be interesting XD.

Ph33r my 1337 drawing sk1llz!!!!!111one

<img src="http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q210/HeadShot-X/stickboss.png" border="0">

Actually, I can draw much better than that, I'm just trying to illustrate a point here.

I drew a big looking stickman to represent your boss, then I used a blue rectangle to represent the boss' collision box, and a red rectangle to show the space being contested, much like in that Street Fighter tutorial I posted.

First, there's the ground stomp (you may want to use a different trajectory than the one my arrow shows, that's not set in stone), with the red box over the boss' feet, extending a bit to the sides because of the shockwave. Then there are the projectiles. For the high projectile, I drew it both straight and angled. It's really your choice which one you want to use, or you may even want to use both.

The combination of a high and low projectile, both horizontal, is actually a pretty common thing to see in the Mega Man X games, with

from X4 being a good example. Since the dash lowers your stance, you're supposed to jump over the low flames and dash unter the high ones. Another good example, also from Capcom, is Sagat from Street Fighter. His basic playstyle involves alternating between high and low Tiger Shots, forcing the opponent to duck or jump accordingly. If your game has some way to reduce the player character's height, this can be a good pattern to use.

wow this is great. I love the drawings. They convey what i saw in that street fighter tutorial. My character actually can turn small coincidentally. He also can become a magnet and stick to walls. And he can duplicate himself. I should start drawing those type of illustrations to figure out what would work best.

Thanks for the help.

Im making a top down game like 1942. How can this mechanic be applied to a game like that. I made a mock up version to test the theory. Tell me what you think.

imageshack.us/photo/my-images/844/imagerok.jpg

I was thinking if it was possible to create a game like Street Fighter and now I see that it is really possible, but will take a lot of coding..

amazing tutorial ->

the people must see it again <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

someday I will propose a collaborative game, where we could select 12 game designers (from different countries), and each one create the fighter character with the AI coded.. then, we put all togheter and make a kind of street fighter game. it will be funny <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">

Here is a guide to make a good boss fight...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... hp?print=1

I hope this helped! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">