Boss Fights 101

I know the lot of you really like cool retro arcade games that sport huge, monstrous, ridiculous bosses throughout their span. But thing is almost every kind of game is taking advantage of this feature. And why wouldn't they? Boss fights in their core are overhyped, outrageous gameplay segments that decide your worth and mastery of the game. They get you tense, they make you feel good about yourself, they make you lose your cool and mind over them, as you waste countless hours of button smashing and thinking around the box in the process of overcoming the improbable odds and coming out victorious.

Sometimes, it hurts.

But what does a boss fight consist of? What are the main elements it requires to be classified as such? Usually boss fights take a set of moves previously used by the player as part of the gameplay and make you use them in a different way. For example, in Portal you are taught the incineration mechanism used in the final boss fight by doing so in the earlier game with the Love companion. Additionally, placing the portals to make a turret shoot missiles at itself is also introduced earlier in the game. That's the way the game designer is teaching you the elements/attacks that you will require to execute under different conditions and parameters to accompish your goal(s).

But what about genres that are less action-packed? Can boss fights be equally effective across genres? The answer is simple. If done right, yes. Take the sequel to Monkey Island. Le Chuck's Revenge was published back in 1991 and happens to be a shining example. Initially helping the player construct a basic voodoo doll by categorizing the basic four items it requires into four big differentiated themes, will prove immensely helpful when the player is required to repeat the process towards the game's finale. To me, even if Guybrush is almost immune to Le Chuck's attacks, the mental stress and tension that is built during the introductory scene, helps making this boss battle one of the most memorable and stressing I've ever encountered.

 Does it get more soul-tearing than this?

And said tension and story-driven pace is what dictates all boss fights. It's about facing the last obstacle standing in your way in order to advance the story. It's not just solely to prove your mastery of the game's mechanics; these fights drain you both physically and emotionally. It's the confrontation of two diametrically different, yet so alike, paths.

This is posted at Gnome's Lair

Press Start To Begin

This post also appears at Gnome's Lair, so this just a crossspost, go there and share your thoughts, I will be writing there every Monday, and will post the articles here as well. Gnome himself has kindly shared his webspace with me.

Posted @ Gnome's Lair:

In Greece we have a saying: "The beginning is the half of everything." I'm not sure this is in fact a proper translation, so please do excuse me in advance, if that's the case. Thing is, it sounds so much more impactful in my native language.  This ancient saying by Pythagoras is something I've always kept in mind when I started work on a project. Whatever that may be, it applies for everything, videogame production included.

For some reason lack of composure and motivation - common difficulties that every developer has faced - were always magically transformed  into challenges. Challenges that I *had* to overcome. And I knew, thanks to this particular piece of wisdom, that if I could get by the initial hurdles, the best was yet to come. Even when I was designing the boring parts of a game or a program, I knew that all that was needed, was to actually begin work, and then I'd see it through.

Recently, Mark Yohalem, member of Wormwood Studios and writer of Primordia (which I personally coded *cough* self promotion *cough*) wrote a blog post releasing information about Cloudscape. Cloudscape is a now abandoned project and Yohalem wrote a very interesting piece regarding the reasons behind said decision from his point of view. So, with that in mind, I came to solidify my thinking about abandonded projects throughout. It's not about there being enough talent on your team (regardless of team member number), but about whether someone/the team actually creates a portion of the product.

To begin

The baby steps of any project shouldn't be exclusively about brainstorming over a wonderful idea. Even though it does help to keep everyone excited and hyped, brainstorming alone doesn't contribute any actual work towards the main goal - which is to deliver a finished product to the market. Endlessly coming up with new, exciting ideas is a common loop in which even the most talented teams have found themselves.

Gradually the initial emotions get toned down and then everything is about creating the silliest, most dysfunctional alpha version of your dream, regardless of its countless faults. It stands to show to everyone in and out of the team, that this is doable. It's a proof of concept, it's a motivational wheel, it's to put it bluntly - the half of everything.

I Give Up

This is the best and most repeated word/phrase/sound/thing you'll encounter in this MAGS September entry by Emont. I caught myself grinning whenever it played or appeared in my screen, or both. 

The entry is a very simple game, called Man Giving Up. 

And it's all about that. Perhaps a philosophical approach to our everyday's loserism, or just a funny game. Your call. I do have to say there's not much to it, apparently, but the music and sound effects are a high point. The game is quite polished itself, but the sound effects and the music composed for this game are 100% spot on.

So without further ado I present: 

MAN GIVING UP

 

How many times can YOU give up?

Choose from a variety of colourful settings and see how far you can go. You might just surprise yourself. You might find the power was inside yourself all along. Welcome to the world of MAN GIVING UP.



FEATURES:

* Multiple locations
* Complete music soundtrack
* Sounds
* Colours
* Pointing
* Clicking

Download here

It's always for shameless promotion and not for AGS news.

You should have realized this by now. Well, occasionally there are some news here and there. Look at the last three posts, that's prolly a first around here. So, this happened yesterday.

The smart! It hurts!

I've also come to realize that this blog has little presence down in Twitterland.Should we change things? Should we keep the crazy from the hip? I don't know. But if you guys want, I'd like to lurk the living heck out of some of you. I already have for a while now, but it was getting impossible to do so without an account, so I went in there. I saw some familiar faces in there, I don't know, it felt as if I've been missing a part of the scene, AGS and generally.

Have I truly gone fishing?

A Golden Wake Is Awake

Francisco Gonzalez's (try saying that three times in a row) latest project, "A Golden Wake" being published by Wadjet Eye Games, is available for pre-order. Dave said so!

Twitter link.

Where is Primordia 2?!

You know, I could write my personal reasons and explain them, and bore the living heck out of you, or the writer could do it for me. And he has. Everything is explained by Mark Yohalem, on why the world never got to see a sequel to Primordia, even a spiritual one.

So clickity here, I promise, amazing screenshots will make you want this even more.

This will be your downfall, friend!

So, Downfall, a commercial game created by Remigiusz Michalski released back in 2009, also rated with the five cups of AGS glory, is now free. I also did something with it, but I forget. It's a lovely game regardless so you should get it. Plus I believe Grim is remaking it, so it's a bold move to set the non-upgraded version up for grabs. Have I reviewed this in the past also? God, I don't remember much.

FOR PLAYERS 18+ ONLY. CONTAINS DISTURBING SCENES, BAD LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE & SEXUAL REFERENCES. 

GET DOWNFALL FOR FREE