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[JasonPickering]

Hey guys. So I am working on a new game, that going to require a lot of pre-production work. The main gameplay loop will be a player going out and defeating a boss. I dont want the hack and slash feeling you usually see in games and want something more akin to old NES games. where the boss will have attacks you must dodge, then for a brief period be vulnerable and thats when the player can attack. The player contols will simply be moving left and right with their large sword always being in front of them as they charge.

I basically wanted to start this as a way to spit ball ideas and seeing what kind of enemies I could come up with. I am looking for some good boss fights to begin with. Anything that requires a lot of dodging on the heroes part.

[Superb Joe]

guy in a suit and tie who's kind of a prick but you want to steal his essence and usurp his position without havign to fuck his frump elemental wife or endure his dullard children

[baconman]

Player abilities and related mechanics would help here a lot.

[Graham-]

maybe hazards that change in the arena. the player dodges the boss, leads him around, to run into hazards.

[Kyle O]

A boss you have to go inside him!

[Deathassassin05]

Possibly a boss that has to lunge forward to attack? Eg.Boss slams it's arm down, trying to attack the player, the player dodges, which exposes an attackable spot on his arm.

[valrus]

A boss where the camera represents its point of view, not yours.

[Damycles]

What about a larger boss that you have to vault onto, in order to get at the one weak spot? When I thought of your idea, I immediately thought of the Legend of Zelda series, and how you had to wait for the boss to do something in order to find the vulnerability. Maybe you could look up some of those fights and see what works and what doesn't work?

[JasonPickering]

Thanks for all the comments guys. This is getting the ball rolling. As for character abilities. I really only wanted left and right movement with the abilities coming more from the room, the Boss is in.

currently looking at a bunch of games for inspiration including:

Zelda Series
Castelvania
Titans Souls

[Graham-]

zelda

[jeffgmelton]

When you mentioned the character can move left or right to dodge the bosses attacks I immediately thought of the original Punch Out for the NES.  That game is essentially nothing but boss fights and with dodging.  Everyone you fight has a slightly different pattern and it is all about mastering the timing.

[JasonPickering]

yeah that is pretty much my exact goal. that pattern recognition in punchout.

[Graham-]

left-left, pause, right, duck, left, then punch if he pauses. ...?

[Derqs]

Boss that charges towards the player. player dodges, boss gets stuck in wall for a moment. player attacks from behind.

[Ammypendent]

Since you only move Right/Left with sword in front, perhaps you can have a sort of "Sword Duel" version of Punch Out. Here's the possibilities of actions:

• Move Right Left to dodge Boss lunge attacks
• If you have animation of a sword sweeping (counter)clockwise, player can parry Boss's lunge attacks
• Move towards Boss's sweep attack to block (sword against sword)
• Likewise, if player sweeps across to block and meets Boss's sword, they can parry him
• If player has sweep animation, changing direction can feint, this could be useful if an advanced Boss tries to block/parry the attack to defend itself
• Double Tapping direction can have player dash,which opens up a whole other range of possibilities.

[Danny Hayes]

I guess it depends on the environment the battle is taking place in... if it's a cave then stalactites and stalagmites that hurt the player and regrow could be nice. It could also cool to try something like the boss's attacks changing the environment so the player can deal with the next move:

So imagine the boss standing at the right side of the screen, and he does a jump and stomp attack to the player, leaving a little dip in the ground where he was, then he does a charging attack, but the player can use the dip to make sure the boss runs over him? There's other ways to do this, but could still be cool.

[Graham-]

Here's a simple idea that maybe has no relevance but fits in well with "simple pattern" bosses:

• establish your basic do-damage pattern
• 3 "hits" on the boss moves you to stage 2
• stage 2 is faster (or more difficult in a different way) than stage 1
• 2 "hits" on the boss moves you to stage 3
• repeat for the 3rd and final stage: even harder, 1 hit to kill

General notes:

• taking damage or "screwing up" (like taking too long) drops you down a stage
• the only difference in stages is difficulty. here is a simple example: boss becomes slightly more red at each successive stage, moves 20% faster

This gives the boss a nice warm-up pattern, is flexible, works with any kind of attack pattern, and adds challenge diversity. You can adjust how each "stage" works independently, add/remove stages. Hoorah.

[Venomlemon]

Boss that throws around bombs in different patterns, so they land on floor in different patterns and you need to dodge them. At some point boss leaves down a big bomb that can be picked up and thrown back at him?

[valrus]

Boss that has a psychic ability to reverse your vision left-right, and does this unpredictably so that you can't know which side to swing/dodge/etc.

The trick is to not watch *him*, but watch the words on the signs in the background.  When they're backwards, aim for the other side from where he appears.

[Elzy]

It sounds like you want to make Megaman style bosses. So I would check out some Megaman youtube videos.

Here is a link to a string of them