#bossesforever

[toodx-blog1]

Weekend project. #BOSSESFOREVER #AmazonFireTV #Haxe @TOO_DX

[toodx-blog1]

Too DX Tuesday - Iteration is no Vacation

Y'know what's hilarious? Watching somebody try a dozen or so online "solutions" to a vertical blue line on a brand new LCD. and none of them working. This is not Kuma's week.

  Iteration - Auston

            Check out last week’s bit for the first part of the story here.

This is when TOO DX started forming, but that’s not what this story is about. This is about BOSSES FOREVER. What is important was that after playing the game with some friends I realized that there were a number of tweaks that could be made to the game which would vastly improve it and warrant a re-release. Seeing the potential for the game brought me to an understanding that I couldn't release the game as is. I had to make it realize its potential.

  First, I wanted to give better tells to the boss’ attacks. Instead of forcing the current code to do this, as it was very fragile code, I performed a huge re-factor on the entire weapons system. It’s hard to decide when to do code re-factoring  After thinking about it I realized that it would likely take less time to do the re-factor than to hack the adjustments, and I've have a much better understanding of the code, allowing me to do more with it.

  During this time I got feedback from some fellow devs. Save for watching friends play the game, the largest impact was of feedback came from Jason Rohrer. He gave some small comments about the mechanics and their special implementation, and I did try out his suggestions, but it was the comment on the art that really made big changes to the game. It was the overall lack of cohesive art that made the game feel unpolished. After thinking about it for a week, trying to figure out how I could improve the art with my limited time and skills, I made a decision. This was going to take a lot longer than planned, and the game was going to have a solid visual style.

  I ended up making some samples for a possible new style. It was still simple, but it would be much more consistent across the different areas of the game. Fortunately I’m friends with many artists. And while I struggled to create the art style I wanted, they helped me out and started making assets for the game. I learned how much better you can make something if you just ask. Most of the game’s art was done in a single night as we all sat in a room and jammed on it. The animations took more work, but most effects (such as that thick beautiful pompadour), were achieved with a small amount of time.

  The game was looking better, and the code was streamlined, so we started releasing versions of the game. But each version showed an area we could improve. The boss wasn’t attacking at the pace we liked, so we changed the attacks. No one was understanding how to wall jump, so we changed its interaction with the dash. At one point we made the call that the boss wasn’t responding enough to the player, so we completely redesigned and rewrote the boss algorithm. Each tweak made the game vastly superior to the previous version.

  I’d like to keep going, and keep iterating. But, the game has a purpose, and eventually, if we are to keep changing it, the game would start to become a whole new game. Although that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in this case we want to finish this game and get it out to everyone. Eventually when making a game, you realize that you’re never quite done with it, but there is a time where you make the choice to stop working on it.

  BOSSES FOREVER 2.BRO – Iteration Nation

A few years back a friend of mine was all like “you should totes play this awesome game I made that’s up on Kongregate bro-sef”, and I was like “yeah man, sure, what kind of game is it” and he was all “man it’s a totally radical endless megaman-esque boss fight with adaptive AI patterns that learn from how you attack and it’s totally the coolest ….(ten minutes of rambling) and you should totally play it. Mike loves it”

We may differ on the particulars but that is pretty much how Auston described the first Bosses Forever to me and got me to play it. We have a long history together, he and I, but I’ve been playing his games since he started making them and, while I don’t always like them, I always can appreciate the hard work and dedication required to create and share them.

I enjoyed the first game a lot. Held the highest score for a while too, but I like this one better. It feels better to me – the difficulty is more enjoyable, my preferred way of playing isn’t as completely useless as it used to be, the art and animations are so much better… I could go on. However, you can look back and see the core gameplay is still the same. There are still bosses to be slayed. There will ALWAYS be more bosses to slay. There are still more floors to get to. There is still dashing, wall-jumping, shooting the gun, dodging ever-increasingly brutal waves of bullets in an attempt to survive for just. One. More Shot!

The game is still exciting to me, in the way that I can still get to the razor’s edge of life and survive a round. In that sense, the game has been improved upon immensely. Non-core components? Eliminated. Unbalanced upgrade system? Fixed. Unstable boss patterning causing havoc at level 5? Ok, that might still be there, can’t have things too easy now can we?

Kuma out (slaying bosses)

[toodx-blog1]

Too DX Tuesday - BOSSES FOREVER 2.BRO

Kuma and BOSSES FOREVER 2.BRO

I didn't do much with BOSSES FOREVER 2.BRO I’ll admit. I did some community management on Steam, sure. I've done some facebooking, yep. Lot of play test time, but not too many bugs found. Made the website, made some suggestions, helped develop the new boss A.I in the early stages (no coding).

So to me, with BOSSES FOREVER 2.BRO, the creativity stems from the creator. He’s the one who would say something like “y’know what would be better? If he had more attack patterns” or “y’know, the laser feels strong but isn't, I think I’ll experiment with having different base damages” or “I want the difficulty curve to vary based on player skill within a narrow floor/ceiling tunnel that provides a variety of different experiences but isn't punishing to the completely new player”.

Creativity is adaptation. Creativity is new things. Creativity is taking a complex situation and developing a way to make a system work for everyone.

I’m lucky to be working with a creative person.