Devlog 2 - Basic Level Boxing

Basic Level Blocking

Level Blocking is creating the general structure of levels in games, it can be as simple as just placing blank white squares around the place until you have the sort of shape you are looking for.

In my game, there is very little level block as there is very little "level." For the most part, the game will take place in a small rectangular arena, which inside sits a platform. This platform will change it in some ways between each battle, such as splitting in half and moving to the outer sides of the screen for the second boss.

Due to this design choice, making collisions was very simple. I had one object handling and colliders for the "walls" of the arena, in other words, it alone controls where the player can or cannot move.

In the image below you can see the four walls (represented by the green boxes) which block the player from moving off the platform. Naturally, these will not actually be shown in-game but will still stop the player.

Enemy Attacks

The attacks that the enemy can use will be an integral and highly controlled part of the game. The boss will have a variety of attack patterns that they can use during the fight to attempt to defeat the player. At first, the battle will begin with relatively simple and easy-to-dodge attacks that will warm the player up, then after losing some certain percentage of health, the boss will start using more dangerous attacks.

Initially, I plan for the boss to use two to three different attacks for his first phase.

1. The boss will launch a small number of missiles onto the platform, they will land and then explode after a short while, dealing damage to the player if they are within range of the explosion. Additionally, the player can destroy these missiles by shooting at them. At this point in the fight, it is mostly useless as the player can easily dodge the amount that are on the platform but later in the fight or on high difficulties the player may decide to destroy missiles to make a safe space.

2. The boss may spawn flying drones that shoot a burst of slow-moving projects toward the player. These drones as well can be destroyed much like the missiles. Unlike the missiles, drones do not explode or disappear after any amount of time, they must be destroyed by the player. This means that if not destroyed quickly enough, the player may find themselves overwhelmed by an army of them.

3, The third attack will be an eletric pulse, emitted from the boss's hands which will cover a large portion of the arena. While this will be quite a powerful attack, it will also expose a weak point on the bottom of the boss's hands which can be shot and destroyed. Once both hands have been destroyed the boss will be in a vulnerable state where it will take much more damage.

The aforementioned attack is a slightly more complicated attack than the other's I have created.

As with any more robot boss worth it's salt, I made a laser attack, where his chest opens up and then fires a laser. If you read the previous Devlog you'll recognise it from the end.

Player Damage/Death

With a few enemy attacks added and the player's health system working I decided to add a basic player death system.

Each time the player is attacked, the player loses some amount of health, in the case of my game, the amount of health lost is indicated by the colour of telegraph part of an attack or the colour of the projectile if it lacks a telegraph. If you look at the first attack listed in "ENEMY ATTACKS" you can see that the missile has a yellow circle on the ground before it explodes, this telegraphs (shows the player) both the attack size and strength. In this case, the strength is yellow or "medium strength." dealing 10 damage to the character. However, In the second attack, the drones shoot green projectiles which deal 5 damage. All of these damage values are subject to change as I balance the game and its mechanics.

From when the game starts till when the game ends the player has a maximum of 100 health. This health will be restored to its maximum whenever the player loads from the main menu or between boss fights. Once the player has 0 or less health the player will die. For now, dying simply plays an animation and sends the user back to the main menu where they can choose to fight again. However, in the future, i plan to add checkpoints between each boss that allows the player to continue from their furthest progression.

Redesign

Towards the end of this week, I started working on adding a background to the arena. This ended up being a slightly more tedious process than I thought,

Boss Rush Hour's art style is supposed to be dark and somewhat grimy as it is set in a run-down facility. The issue with having many dark colour images is that they tend to blend into each other. The first boss was drawn in a style that had defined black borders between different parts of its body. After implementing the background and adjusting it to the right darkness I notice that the parts of the boss seemed to disappear into the darkness of the background

To fix this I had to do a seemingly small but overly complicated change to the boss's sprites. Getting rid of these black borders made it impossible to tell one part of his body from the next, e.g. his shoulder wings/fins would appear to blend into his shoulder pads, and the darkness of the background would blend into his head making his head look even more oddly shaped.

In turn, I had to more aggressively shade differing parts of the boss, making each part distinct without changing the style I was going for or without making different parts of its body appear to be made of different materials.

This also helped the boss feel more similar to other sprites I had already drawn.

The main downside to this redesign is that the face and hands look a bit off now. I will likely touch up these aspects before I finish.

Main Menu/Difficulty Selection

In the end, I wanted the game to have difficulty options because I would people of many different skill levels to be able to play the game and hopefully enjoy it. The unfortunate thing about this ideal is that now I have to essentially balance different versions of each boss in the game. Fortunately, it isn't like I have to remake everything, it is for the most part as simple as writing different AI for each enemy for each different difficulty.

Currently I have decided on having three different difficulites: Easy, Medium, and Hard.

Easy will be a difficulty where almost anyone with gaming experience should be able to complete. Most non-boss enemy attacks will be reduced in speed, and number. The boss will have reduced health and will use their more stronger attack patterns less often while outright not using their most powerful ones.

Medium will be the "standard" difficulty where the players will struggle somewhat against the bosses, they will be required to learn the attack patterns and have a decent enough reaction speed and ability to strategize. Non-boss Enemies will have a standard amount of attacks and will put pressure on the players. The boss will have a normal amount of health and will utilize all of their attack patterns.

Hard difficulty will be a genuine challenge, where players will need to actively learn enemy attack patterns while responding to the more advanced way enemies will act, they will require good reaction speeds and will need to strategize on the fly with efficient plans. Non-boss enemies will attack much more aggressively, some with additional special attacks. The boss will, like easy difficult have reduced health, this may seem like an odd decision but with the increased difficulty of the fight. I wouldn't want players feeling like it is a drag or have players feel like they have to concentrate for too long a period of time. The boss will utilize all of their attacks at a much higher speed. The player will need to learn how each attack pattern works so that they can learn how to find opportunities to attack.

The player will only be given the option to change the difficulty on the main menu. Once i implement the checkpoint system, the player will only be able to lower the difficulty from whatever they chose to begin with. They player may however choose to restart from the first fight again and choose whichever difficulty they wish.