Note: This is one of several devlogs originally posted on our Steam Greenlight Page. With the official Boss 101 Store Page open we have moved selected updates here for people who might be interested in the development of Boss 101. Going forward, all new devlogs will be posted here as they occur.

Thank you!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our devblog! We're busy making magic in the Boss 101 universe so let's get on with it!

Making a Boss (art-wise)

In Boss 101 you can roll bosses sure but let’s talk about HOW they get in the game Boss 101. A couple notes – we use GameMaker Studio (from YoYo games) and Spine (from Esoteric Software). Spine works with Unity and a few other engines I believe, so this applies even if you are not using GameMaker.

Basic Setup: Organization – we organize the bosses into separate files. The layout of the files is exactly the same so when they load into the game they all can be interlocked with each other cleanly. Let me assure you organization is a giant step in ANY process - so sort your shiz out FIRST then start working. Don’t be afraid to constantly ask yourself “Is this the best way?” either!

Step 1: Layout and create all the parts to the Boss. We go back and forth here. We start with the fact the boss has five major systems (head, turret, engine, main body and main weapon). We start with the theme of the boss (we have several general themes like Animals, dinosaurs, samurai-esque, etc)



Step 2: Make any notes relevant to the boss as we draw the parts. In the case of the kitty boss we already had a reference to work off. We wanted to upgrade the look so we pointed out some ideas and design decisions to follow when doing the art.



Step 3: Black and White version! Generally speaking for MOST of the art we do a black and white version THEN we color it. Seriously folks – it makes your life a lot easier to concentrate on contrast and silhouettes FIRST then color it in as you like. If you are John Singer Sargent you can disregard this advice.



Step 4: Color it up. We work on Photoshop generally but you can achieve the basic coloring we do in nearly anything you choose. The advantage of doing black and white is we can color block in areas quickly in a SEPARATE LAYER over the black and white art, apply a layer effect (like “Color”) and then experiment with colors and shading until things work. You see how we are!?! Efficiency folks – that’s how to do it!



Step 5: Bring all the pieces into Spine. We load each section (head, body, weapons, etc) into Spine as an individual skeleton and then arrange them in space accordingly. From there we add firing, prefiring and idle animations.



A Note on Spine – if you are serious about getting animation done I would recommend Spine. The low cost version of it would be perfectly suitable for most all indie needs and the TIME saving would be tremendous. Doing all this by code or hand would have tanked Boss 101 at the starting line.

Step 6 KITTY BOSS! (example animated gif)



Those are the basics and next time we can delve into animations practices or perhaps something you are curious about! We'll check here for feedback and question!

All the best and live your dreams,

-Tim

Note: This is one of several devlogs originally posted on our Steam Greenlight Page. With the official Boss 101 Store Page open we have moved selected updates here for people who might be interested in the development of Boss 101. Going forward, all new devlogs will be posted here as they occur.

Thank you!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our devblog! We're busy making magic in the Boss 101 universe so let's get on with it!

Making a Boss (art-wise)

In Boss 101 you can roll bosses sure but let’s talk about HOW they get in the game Boss 101. A couple notes – we use GameMaker Studio (from YoYo games) and Spine (from Esoteric Software). Spine works with Unity and a few other engines I believe, so this applies even if you are not using GameMaker.

Basic Setup: Organization – we organize the bosses into separate files. The layout of the files is exactly the same so when they load into the game they all can be interlocked with each other cleanly. Let me assure you organization is a giant step in ANY process - so sort your shiz out FIRST then start working. Don’t be afraid to constantly ask yourself “Is this the best way?” either!

Step 1: Layout and create all the parts to the Boss. We go back and forth here. We start with the fact the boss has five major systems (head, turret, engine, main body and main weapon). We start with the theme of the boss (we have several general themes like Animals, dinosaurs, samurai-esque, etc)



Step 2: Make any notes relevant to the boss as we draw the parts. In the case of the kitty boss we already had a reference to work off. We wanted to upgrade the look so we pointed out some ideas and design decisions to follow when doing the art.



Step 3: Black and White version! Generally speaking for MOST of the art we do a black and white version THEN we color it. Seriously folks – it makes your life a lot easier to concentrate on contrast and silhouettes FIRST then color it in as you like. If you are John Singer Sargent you can disregard this advice.



Step 4: Color it up. We work on Photoshop generally but you can achieve the basic coloring we do in nearly anything you choose. The advantage of doing black and white is we can color block in areas quickly in a SEPARATE LAYER over the black and white art, apply a layer effect (like “Color”) and then experiment with colors and shading until things work. You see how we are!?! Efficiency folks – that’s how to do it!



Step 5: Bring all the pieces into Spine. We load each section (head, body, weapons, etc) into Spine as an individual skeleton and then arrange them in space accordingly. From there we add firing, prefiring and idle animations.



A Note on Spine – if you are serious about getting animation done I would recommend Spine. The low cost version of it would be perfectly suitable for most all indie needs and the TIME saving would be tremendous. Doing all this by code or hand would have tanked Boss 101 at the starting line.

Step 6 KITTY BOSS! (example animated gif)



Those are the basics and next time we can delve into animations practices or perhaps something you are curious about! We'll check here for feedback and question!

All the best and live your dreams,

-Tim

Note: This is one of several devlogs originally posted on our Steam Greenlight Page. With the official Boss 101 Store Page open we have moved selected updates here for people who might be interested in the development of Boss 101. Going forward, all new devlogs will be posted here as they occur.

Welcome to our first Devblog on Steam. We will be doing the regularly twice a week. Normally the format is a big update and a brief one. We went big today - JUST FOR YOU! hope you enjoy!

Steam Greenlight

THANK YOU! Our first few days have been amazing on Greenlight. We are getting there and want to thank all of you who took a moment to visit and check out the page. A huge thanks goes out to all of you who voted YES. It means so much and we are moving along towards being Greenlit.

OK - some updates!!!

Boss Designs:

We spoke a little about this previously and we want to show more of the initial implementation that goes into making a boss weapon. The idea is we give each weapon a weakness (one, maybe two) the player can use to stay alive longer and gather up points. It's been tried and tested in MANY games so we aren't claiming any new ideas on the "boss weakness" front.

What we are looking to do is give you the player a reward for trying out things like the kinds of hats and weapons available to you. We do imbue certain weapons and hats (and upgrades) with abilities for your player. Some weapons are more effective against a boss, some hats allow you to take far less or no damage against certain weapons. That's all for you to find out. Is it possible to win without all the tricks? Let's just say it would be tough. Bosses will naturally hit harder on the later levels and if your skillage is low AND your upgrades aren't there you might get pasted pretty quick. Thankfully though, we are working to give you lots of playing options to suit your tastes.

Here's a boss trying to smoke Max and STEVE...



and here's that boss bullet pattern layout...



Tuning

Now comes the fun part - once that is in we start playtesting the various parts against the baseline Max, Max variations and generally just try to do everything we can to simulate play styles. Not surprisingly this can be very hilarious at times and leads to a lot of fun insights and ideas. Sometimes things we THINK are going to be super overpowered end up being pretty ineffectual at first. (some of the large death beam type weapons come to mind). Some of the little minor weapons like small homing missiles end up being the deadly things!

A peek at some hats and more!

Savage: The Shard of Gosen Hat
Our good friend Matt Fitzgerald is working away on his opus called Savage: The Shard of Gosen. You can check it out here:Savage Steam Page

Matt has been a Boss 101 supporter from the get-go. He's helped us with wisdom about getting onto Steam Greenlight as well as lending his Gamemaker skills and tips when it was just one guy trying to figure out the basic language of GameMaker. Welp, we figured we could drop this in for him - a hat based off his main character! Check it!



The ShMUPS Website

A few of the kind folks at http://shmups.system11.org/ have been dropping tips and feedback about how we can make Boss 101 a better shooter game overall. Some of the suggestions are pretty keen and we thought it might be nice to create a special hat with SPECIAL powers - and by special powers we mean this one will probably be a one hit - you're dead hat. HAHAHA! HEY - you can't always go for the easy way in everything! Seriously though, we are looking at risk and reward balancing for any hats that have, how shall we say, some 'detrimental' effects.

We call this hat "1940"



Random Gameplay Screen!



How to Make a Game Series - Part 10

>>Link to full article<<

Here is a short snippet from this week's article written by your truly (Tim). I think it encapsulates the exact feeling happening right now as we go through Greenlight and look back on the progress the game has made.

Gratitude. That is the topic.

When you are making your game and following your dreams it can be a humbling experience, especially when you start out. During those times when you are drawing on your inner reserves and powering through, you might want to take a moment to be grateful. Perhaps, just perhaps, this can help you get through some of the rougher moments.

I’m now going to give you a powerful method to increase your energy, make you a more positive person, generally more likable and undoubtedly increase your earning power along with your productivity. Start saying “Thank you” a lot more. Add “I appreciate your help/time/assistance” into your everyday vocabulary. You will be surprised at how this will brighten your day by brightening other’s days.

What does this have to do with indie game development? Everything really. Like it or not, the world is full of people and these are the same people you want to buy and support you with money. The quickest way to get anyone to help or support you is to present a sincere pleasing personality. This is one of the strangest and truest things in the universe but when you help others get what they want, you actually end up getting what you want.

Ok folks - that's it for today and THANK YOU for checking in!

Remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Note: This is one of several devlogs originally posted on our Steam Greenlight Page. With the official Boss 101 Store Page open we have moved selected updates here for people who might be interested in the development of Boss 101. Going forward, all new devlogs will be posted here as they occur.

Welcome to our first Devblog on Steam. We will be doing the regularly twice a week. Normally the format is a big update and a brief one. We went big today - JUST FOR YOU! hope you enjoy!

Steam Greenlight

THANK YOU! Our first few days have been amazing on Greenlight. We are getting there and want to thank all of you who took a moment to visit and check out the page. A huge thanks goes out to all of you who voted YES. It means so much and we are moving along towards being Greenlit.

OK - some updates!!!

Boss Designs:

We spoke a little about this previously and we want to show more of the initial implementation that goes into making a boss weapon. The idea is we give each weapon a weakness (one, maybe two) the player can use to stay alive longer and gather up points. It's been tried and tested in MANY games so we aren't claiming any new ideas on the "boss weakness" front.

What we are looking to do is give you the player a reward for trying out things like the kinds of hats and weapons available to you. We do imbue certain weapons and hats (and upgrades) with abilities for your player. Some weapons are more effective against a boss, some hats allow you to take far less or no damage against certain weapons. That's all for you to find out. Is it possible to win without all the tricks? Let's just say it would be tough. Bosses will naturally hit harder on the later levels and if your skillage is low AND your upgrades aren't there you might get pasted pretty quick. Thankfully though, we are working to give you lots of playing options to suit your tastes.

Here's a boss trying to smoke Max and STEVE...



and here's that boss bullet pattern layout...



Tuning

Now comes the fun part - once that is in we start playtesting the various parts against the baseline Max, Max variations and generally just try to do everything we can to simulate play styles. Not surprisingly this can be very hilarious at times and leads to a lot of fun insights and ideas. Sometimes things we THINK are going to be super overpowered end up being pretty ineffectual at first. (some of the large death beam type weapons come to mind). Some of the little minor weapons like small homing missiles end up being the deadly things!

A peek at some hats and more!

Savage: The Shard of Gosen Hat
Our good friend Matt Fitzgerald is working away on his opus called Savage: The Shard of Gosen. You can check it out here:Savage Steam Page

Matt has been a Boss 101 supporter from the get-go. He's helped us with wisdom about getting onto Steam Greenlight as well as lending his Gamemaker skills and tips when it was just one guy trying to figure out the basic language of GameMaker. Welp, we figured we could drop this in for him - a hat based off his main character! Check it!



The ShMUPS Website

A few of the kind folks at http://shmups.system11.org/ have been dropping tips and feedback about how we can make Boss 101 a better shooter game overall. Some of the suggestions are pretty keen and we thought it might be nice to create a special hat with SPECIAL powers - and by special powers we mean this one will probably be a one hit - you're dead hat. HAHAHA! HEY - you can't always go for the easy way in everything! Seriously though, we are looking at risk and reward balancing for any hats that have, how shall we say, some 'detrimental' effects.

We call this hat "1940"



Random Gameplay Screen!



How to Make a Game Series - Part 10

>>Link to full article<<

Here is a short snippet from this week's article written by your truly (Tim). I think it encapsulates the exact feeling happening right now as we go through Greenlight and look back on the progress the game has made.

Gratitude. That is the topic.

When you are making your game and following your dreams it can be a humbling experience, especially when you start out. During those times when you are drawing on your inner reserves and powering through, you might want to take a moment to be grateful. Perhaps, just perhaps, this can help you get through some of the rougher moments.

I’m now going to give you a powerful method to increase your energy, make you a more positive person, generally more likable and undoubtedly increase your earning power along with your productivity. Start saying “Thank you” a lot more. Add “I appreciate your help/time/assistance” into your everyday vocabulary. You will be surprised at how this will brighten your day by brightening other’s days.

What does this have to do with indie game development? Everything really. Like it or not, the world is full of people and these are the same people you want to buy and support you with money. The quickest way to get anyone to help or support you is to present a sincere pleasing personality. This is one of the strangest and truest things in the universe but when you help others get what they want, you actually end up getting what you want.

Ok folks - that's it for today and THANK YOU for checking in!

Remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Hey all!

First off, thank you for all your support. We were Greenlit due to your generosity and we aim to return that great favor by giving you the most entertainment we can with Boss 101. The store page is early but we will be putting up dev-logs and updates regularly.

Please feel free to ask questions about the game or whatever else we can help you with. We'll answer as best we can.

Finally - your support is everything to us. Boss 101 is your game too. Everything we add is to make the game better and the time we spend between now and release will be making the game as polished and fun as we can.

Talk with you soon and thanks again!

Best,

-Tim

Hey all!

First off, thank you for all your support. We were Greenlit due to your generosity and we aim to return that great favor by giving you the most entertainment we can with Boss 101. The store page is early but we will be putting up dev-logs and updates regularly.

Please feel free to ask questions about the game or whatever else we can help you with. We'll answer as best we can.

Finally - your support is everything to us. Boss 101 is your game too. Everything we add is to make the game better and the time we spend between now and release will be making the game as polished and fun as we can.

Talk with you soon and thanks again!

Best,

-Tim