Help with Boss Mechanics

NeoCHI

  • Posts: 523
I'm trying to design my last two bosses in an action roguelike dual stick shooter game I'm creating. You can see some short gameplay gifs on my twitter: https://twitter.com/mrhenrychi.

The game is broken into 9 days in which the player needs to survive. Each day broken into 3 sections:

- 1st portion the player is within a scene that slowly auto pans upwards. Animals and scenery are randomly generated. The player has a chance to collect spirits by killing animals but needs to stay alive by not being attacked by predators.
- 2nd portion is the boss fight.
- 3rd portion player uses spirits to buy random upgrades.

So far I have the following bosses:

- Male deers: 3 male deers attack the main character by charging in a straight line for a short distance.
- Wolves: 3 rounds of wolves that make a beeline for the main character.
- Tiger: Flickers in and out of stealth with a small hit box while slowly approaching main character. If hit, becomes visible and runs towards character. After taking x dmg goes back into flickering stealth.
- Boars: Similar to male deers but only 2 but faster charge acceleration and more health.
- Coyotes: Similar to wolves but waves contain more.
- Bear: Need help.
- Rhino: Similar to male deers and boars but only 1.
- Hyena: Similar to wolves and coyotes but more.
- Lion: Need help.

TBH, this game is become something far from my original idea because of ....well many reasons. At this point I'm just trying to FINISH. I understand the boss mechanics I already have aren't the best or most intuitive but they were the easiest to implement...

I now need help coming up with the final two boss mechanics for the bear and lion boss though.

I'm also super open to ideas on how to improve my game.

Thanks!

squeeb

  • Posts: 1617
Wow this looks great.. I like the art.. And the tiger mechanic sounds cool! Makes it seem like a tiger and it'll  flicker in and out of stealth.. like in real life.. cool idea..

Bear should leave you alone more if you're quiet and moving slow or stop moving all together.. and come at you fast if you run.  Or make noise.. like move too fast something .. I don't know your game :)

Lion could leap and have more of a a mid range attack.. like leap towards you from further away and attack at you


Bombini

  • *
  • Posts: 1401
Hi,
very cool stuff! Good work!

One idea:
The bear could have a pattern of directly attacking the player (moving towards player) and going to one of three locations where stones are. The player would grab a stone throw them up (out of screen) and a shadow would increase near the palyer location. The stone would hit that location short after.



Cheers!

NickamonPoppytail

  • Posts: 1141
For the lion, you could have him roar at the player, temporarily stunning them, allowing for the lion to get in for close-ranged attacks.
Upcoming Projects
Poppytail 5 and Pixeltail: Fifth and sixth main instalments in Poppytail series. A Game About Trimming Hedges: Final Version: An updated version of the original AGATH. One Million: Last-one-standing style small project. The Poppytales: Platformer boss rush with character collecting. Skies n' Fall: Boss rush shooter prequel to Rise n' Brawl. Precious: Weird platformer. Christmas Time 2: Sequel to Christmas Time 1.

NeoCHI

  • Posts: 523
I love the Lion stunning roar idea. I think I'll go with that!

I'm still looking for ideas for the bear though. The ones mentioned so far seem complicated or doesn't really pan out in actual gameplay.

I have been mulling over the idea of having to kill animals near the bear which will lure it to those dead bodies instead of the main character, giving it a chance to shoot it...but not sure about it yet.

NickamonPoppytail

  • Posts: 1141
Maybe for the bear, you could with the idea of luring it away, maybe with food. I haven't actually checked, but I think bears eat fish.  Naybe if there is some way for the player to collect and drop fish on the ground, that could be the mechanic. To add more difficulty, you could make the bear slightly more aggressive than other bosses, so that luring it away is a priority in the boss fight.
Upcoming Projects
Poppytail 5 and Pixeltail: Fifth and sixth main instalments in Poppytail series. A Game About Trimming Hedges: Final Version: An updated version of the original AGATH. One Million: Last-one-standing style small project. The Poppytales: Platformer boss rush with character collecting. Skies n' Fall: Boss rush shooter prequel to Rise n' Brawl. Precious: Weird platformer. Christmas Time 2: Sequel to Christmas Time 1.