Another blog post about design decisions, and this one is about bosses.

Boss fights have been one of the biggest hurdles for me both as a programmer and designer - I don't think I'm especially good at either, yet here I am tackling both essentially on my lonesome (though for a few of the fights I've had some programming help for friends, at least) and it's been quite a wild ride.

When designing a boss fight, there's a lot that I have to keep in mind:

1) How realistic is it for me to pull off what I want?

2) How do I want this to fit into the gameplay loop of the game?

3) How much of a threat should the boss be? What's the punishment for losing?

As I write this, I'm still struggling with coming up for an answer for issue 3. Right now my current line of thought is to implement a lives system, where the player can revive on the spot but only has a limited number of times they can before theyre forced to leave the level and restart at the most recent checkpoint. The way I have levels be contained in a large room (in GM's technical terms, at least) is quite unfriendly for bosses, because I can't really just force them to restart the fight without making such a solution *very* hacky. It's definitely something I should have thought of much earlier in development, and I'm really suffering because of it x_x

As for the bosses themselves, I've come to a conclusion about how they should generally go. I considered for a long while that I should make them more puzzle-ish, but I realized that since most of the game is already like that, it might be a bit exhausting if there wasn't room to breathe and have some more 'dumb' action moments to keep things varied. With the late-game bosses I can allow myself to have some more fun and make them more difficult to figure out, but I've opted to try and have the bosses more of a setpiece to keep the pacing of the game more interesting. 

Bosses can be approached by each character in a different way, and each character has their own strengths and weaknesses that can make the boss's approach different. For example, Izzy can basically chew through any boss in no time at all, due to her high attack. However, her ricochet can cause difficulties with timing and evasion, which could put you in more danger than you would like. Wendy is slower, but her ability to attack at a distance will keep you safe and perhaps more ideal for low-damage attempts. 

Admittedly, I'm not the BIGGEST fan of this conclusion, but it's really the only one that's helped me keep any semblance of a schedule. Keeping the bosses more basic and visceral has helped me get them done quicker, focus less on details that are difficult to iron out, and having to deal less with the complexities of intricate AI. That isn't to say that the bosses themselves are simple, and I'm very proud of what I've managed to accomplish and I've certainly pushed myself to lengths I haven't before as a designer and programmer.

I hope you enjoy when the game comes out! ^~^