Welcome to the latest Boss 101 update and thank you for stopping by!
Polishing a Weapon in Boss 101
Today we are taking a look at the process of polishing up one of the many boss weapons. As we’ve mentioned there are a lot of bosses and you will be able to create your own boss to battle. In game you use the Make A Boss to assemble a boss from parts available. The specifics of how this is done depends on the game mode you are choosing but needless to say there are a lot of possible breakdowns.
Here is a look at a debug breakdown of just a FEW bosses you might see.
Did you know there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION combinations of bosses possible? Neither did we, until we did the math.
The Tiger Gas Weapon
Despite all the combinations we create bosses as grouped units and allow them to be broken up. Here we have the Tiger Boss as a complete unit. Note the weapon on top is his dreaded poison gas weapon.
From the debug screen…
So initially he sprayed a gassy cloud from his back onto the player. We have below a VERY early version of the weapon. You can see the gas cloud looks quite a bit different from a lot of the regular pixel art in the game.
Early version of Tiger Gas Weapon
Well, that look stood out a little too much so we did tweaking and created pixel art for the gas. Ended up with something looking like this…
Revised gas pixel art
Ok – that is a little bit better but there was still a problem and that was the gas firing out of the weapon. This make some BASIC sense but the issue was gameplay and we were noticing the player was normally out of range of the cloud unless we made it linger for a very long time or move somewhat fast. That wasn’t the direction we wanted to go.
Inspiration soon struck though – we had ANOTHER boss, the T-Rex whose weapon created fire breath to blast from any bosses mouth. Kind of like a Godzilla thing. Here it is in action. The main flames coming from the T-Rex mouth here are being generated by his back weapon.
Sample of T-Rex boss unit firing main weapon via the mouth…
Well, it wasn’t a big jump to take the idea there and re-work the Tiger weapon to fire a gas cloud from the mouth of a boss like so.
Sample of the gas weapon update
Of course – since this is Boss 101 you might see these weapons on a variety of bosses…
Example 1 - Gas
Example 2 - Flame
YES! Once again we’re peeling back the curtain for you! These decisions may seem obvious hindsight but sometimes these thing elude you until you see it all in action. Hope you enjoyed this look.
TIGForums – Devlog Gold of 2015 Results - We got a Favorite Devblog Award!
Did you know the Boss 101 Dev Log placed third in the FAVORITE PROJECT category? We did! Thanks to you and your support. Check out our TIGForums Devlog here: Boss 101 Dev Log
As always – remember to live your dreams and thank you for your support!
Welcome to the latest Boss 101 update and thank you for stopping by!
Polishing a Weapon in Boss 101
Today we are taking a look at the process of polishing up one of the many boss weapons. As we’ve mentioned there are a lot of bosses and you will be able to create your own boss to battle. In game you use the Make A Boss to assemble a boss from parts available. The specifics of how this is done depends on the game mode you are choosing but needless to say there are a lot of possible breakdowns.
Here is a look at a debug breakdown of just a FEW bosses you might see.
Did you know there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION combinations of bosses possible? Neither did we, until we did the math.
The Tiger Gas Weapon
Despite all the combinations we create bosses as grouped units and allow them to be broken up. Here we have the Tiger Boss as a complete unit. Note the weapon on top is his dreaded poison gas weapon.
From the debug screen…
So initially he sprayed a gassy cloud from his back onto the player. We have below a VERY early version of the weapon. You can see the gas cloud looks quite a bit different from a lot of the regular pixel art in the game.
Early version of Tiger Gas Weapon
Well, that look stood out a little too much so we did tweaking and created pixel art for the gas. Ended up with something looking like this…
Revised gas pixel art
Ok – that is a little bit better but there was still a problem and that was the gas firing out of the weapon. This make some BASIC sense but the issue was gameplay and we were noticing the player was normally out of range of the cloud unless we made it linger for a very long time or move somewhat fast. That wasn’t the direction we wanted to go.
Inspiration soon struck though – we had ANOTHER boss, the T-Rex whose weapon created fire breath to blast from any bosses mouth. Kind of like a Godzilla thing. Here it is in action. The main flames coming from the T-Rex mouth here are being generated by his back weapon.
Sample of T-Rex boss unit firing main weapon via the mouth…
Well, it wasn’t a big jump to take the idea there and re-work the Tiger weapon to fire a gas cloud from the mouth of a boss like so.
Sample of the gas weapon update
Of course – since this is Boss 101 you might see these weapons on a variety of bosses…
Example 1 - Gas
Example 2 - Flame
YES! Once again we’re peeling back the curtain for you! These decisions may seem obvious hindsight but sometimes these thing elude you until you see it all in action. Hope you enjoyed this look.
TIGForums – Devlog Gold of 2015 Results - We got a Favorite Devblog Award!
Did you know the Boss 101 Dev Log placed third in the FAVORITE PROJECT category? We did! Thanks to you and your support. Check out our TIGForums Devlog here: Boss 101 Dev Log
As always – remember to live your dreams and thank you for your support!
Hello and welcome to the Saturday Update for Boss 101
The Gopher Recovery Pad – aka the end of round ambulance
So, you just fought a hard battle against the bosses and despite all your best efforts you don’t come out on top. Well, what happens then? Easy, your gopher buddies come to your assistance with a lift back to base. They do it in style too with the GRP – the patented Gopher Recovery Pad.
We needed to design a swift pad for bringing you back home with style and here’s what we did. First there was a look at the type of style the gophers would use. We created a sheet to outline the kinds of things the gophers would build. Here’s the first pass design.
Most all of the gopher tech is supposed to have a nice level of charm to it. Nothing too harsh or angular. Most of it is fun and open looking.
From there we made the art and animation. Below are some looks at the way it was animated for the game. The pad has lots of lights and whizzy stuff. For us it’s important to bring a level of entertainment to everything you will be seeing and experiencing in the game. Lights and animations are just one way we do it.
The idle for the GRP – check out all the cool action
Of course – it’s important to be able to activate the sirens in case people are in your way.
Here’s a closeup of your driver and the gopher nurses who will be along for the ride
So once that was all done we brought the GRP into the game and placed it at the end of the round. We set up the game to allow you activate the sirens.
In the image below are two bottom of the round UI bars. Top one is for victorious rounds and the bottom one is for the rounds you lose.
After all that is done we give it tests to see if everything is working as expected.
Once any system is put into the game we allow it to sit and gel for a little while. The idea behind this is any feature will need to settle. During that time we just watch and see how things work in actual gameplay. A lot of times features will get further modified and occasionally changed from the original. For us those are normally good changes since they are organically created and come about through testing. For the player it represents our efforts to make the world a real place and bring you the best we possibly can.
You win either way!
Thanks again for stopping by and as always – remember to live your dreams!
Hello and welcome to the Saturday Update for Boss 101
The Gopher Recovery Pad – aka the end of round ambulance
So, you just fought a hard battle against the bosses and despite all your best efforts you don’t come out on top. Well, what happens then? Easy, your gopher buddies come to your assistance with a lift back to base. They do it in style too with the GRP – the patented Gopher Recovery Pad.
We needed to design a swift pad for bringing you back home with style and here’s what we did. First there was a look at the type of style the gophers would use. We created a sheet to outline the kinds of things the gophers would build. Here’s the first pass design.
Most all of the gopher tech is supposed to have a nice level of charm to it. Nothing too harsh or angular. Most of it is fun and open looking.
From there we made the art and animation. Below are some looks at the way it was animated for the game. The pad has lots of lights and whizzy stuff. For us it’s important to bring a level of entertainment to everything you will be seeing and experiencing in the game. Lights and animations are just one way we do it.
The idle for the GRP – check out all the cool action
Of course – it’s important to be able to activate the sirens in case people are in your way.
Here’s a closeup of your driver and the gopher nurses who will be along for the ride
So once that was all done we brought the GRP into the game and placed it at the end of the round. We set up the game to allow you activate the sirens.
In the image below are two bottom of the round UI bars. Top one is for victorious rounds and the bottom one is for the rounds you lose.
After all that is done we give it tests to see if everything is working as expected.
Once any system is put into the game we allow it to sit and gel for a little while. The idea behind this is any feature will need to settle. During that time we just watch and see how things work in actual gameplay. A lot of times features will get further modified and occasionally changed from the original. For us those are normally good changes since they are organically created and come about through testing. For the player it represents our efforts to make the world a real place and bring you the best we possibly can.
You win either way!
Thanks again for stopping by and as always – remember to live your dreams!
