Fangames > Game Design

Boss Rush

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tehjman1993:

--- Quote from: bananaguy12 on September 09, 2015, 03:01:36 PM ---Interesting, tj. I will think about maybe trying something like what you listed. I don't really want to add mores bosses to my game (it's a lot of work to make bosses) so the shuffling option might not fall through. Do you think it would be better to have them placed one after the other or all in one room? Maybe it would feel more like progress if you did one after the other but I'm not sure I like the idea.

--- End quote ---

It sounds like you want to stick with the traditional style, possibly lottery-style. Honestly, I think your best course of action is one of the two options here:

1.) Traditional boss rush that is either a.) one room after another in a pre-determined order or b.) one room with many hubs.

For a.) If you choose a pre-determined order for 4 bosses, make sure these are easy enough to beat in a very reasonable time. Do not make these a grind-fest (only a very vocal minority enjoys this). Although I don't want to tell you how you should make your game, I think you should consider a "skip" item/option in the game for 1 of the bosses. Maybe an insta-kill item that the player can use only once on one of the 4 (or however many) bosses. A slight increase in difficulty for each boss would probably be best here, as well.

b.) If you choose a hub with many rooms, you could follow the above advice and use an insta-kill item on one of the portals. Again, I don't want to tell you how you should make your game according to how I think it should be made. You decide what's best for your game, however, in a hub setting, there is less of a progression feel and more of a grind feel overall. I would only use hub if you were planning on a target-score boss rush, honestly.

A good example is to take a look at Rekt - we used a lottery-style boss rush for stage 4, while using a hub-like pre-determined order boss rush for stage 5. Ultimately we ended up with a traditional boss rush stage 6, but Get Rekt literally has every piece of boss rush I talked about. Every stage feels unique to itself, rather than just copying boss fights over and over again.

Once again, this is just how I feel you should go about it. Despite stage 4's boss design flaws, I think Get Rekt's overall stage design for 4-6 was each unique in its own way, and didn't feel copied. Try those out, and see what you like best.

Derf:

--- Quote from: bananaguy12 on September 09, 2015, 03:01:36 PM ---Interesting, tj. I will think about maybe trying something like what you listed. I don't really want to add mores bosses to my game (it's a lot of work to make bosses) so the shuffling option might not fall through. Do you think it would be better to have them placed one after the other or all in one room? Maybe it would feel more like progress if you did one after the other but I'm not sure I like the idea.

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I liked how Kirby did it where you climb a tower and you can see the room above you as you travel emphasizing progress as each boss beats allows you to ascend to the next floor.

I would personally suggest doing it like this: You have to beat all three bosses, but you can choose the order in which you do. The gimmick here is that every time you beat a boss, the remaining boss(es) get stronger. So the last boss you fight is the hardest one. This can be done through buffing health, buffing projectile speed/frequency, locking certain attacks at lower difficulties etc. You could even play around with different colour palettes for the bosses at different levels, and increasing their sprite size etc. What this would do is it would give a sense of progression through the bosses getting tougher, add variety to different play-throughs by experimenting with different bosses being left till last, and it would allow the player to tailor the experience to their own strengths, by doing the boss they find generally the hardest first etc. This could work well if you gave the bosses individual styles etc.

Arclooper:
Tbh drawing directly from boss rushes of other styles of games is kind of a possible trap for yourself, even if you were doing it with a game that's closer in style to fangames than FF, like megaman, which is at least a 2D platformer.

For instance, FF is a turn-based game relying merely on strategy and no execution, where you can level up your characters, while megaman is a more action-based platformer than your typical fangame, so it gives you more movement/attack options and by the boss rush you have the weapon each boss is weak against, and most importantly, in these games making one mistake doesn't mean insta-death. I at least always thought that in these style of games a boss rush was more for the purpose of giving the player a confidence-boost with "look at all these bosses I had so much trouble with before and now I'm making short work of them" before the true finale of the game. In some cases you can go the other route and make the revisited bosses actually harder than before, but that takes more careful planning, to avoid making it feel like unfair buffs with grindy learning to them, or just uncreative and repetitive.

If you want to use a style similar to this in fangames, I think it should go together with an idea like this to be enjoyable, it can't be just "fight the bosses again" with no kind of difference to it, or else it's just annoying.

For fangames though I think the best idea for boss rush is taking a bit from each boss and remixing them into one fight, without making it longer than a boss fight normally should be, like having an actual boss that summons previous bosses you fought to borrow their attacks, maybe tweaking the attacks a bit, but it's not them that you're fighting, although other ways to do it can be good too, if you take care to not make them a huge roadblock for the player and not just a repeat of already beaten-bosses.

bananaguy12:
I will probably just go with three bosses in one room like traditional boss rushes in fangames. All these replies really are awesome though. I guess I'm just too attached to the plan I already have for my game.  :3

Denferok:
The fact that you are planning and have a vision for your game is fantastic. Follow your vision and make sure the game is fun for you to play. If you like it, other people are bound to like it as well. Don't try to cater to all types of players.

If you think your boss rush is fun, fitting and an important part of the game - by all means, go for it!

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