Boss battles are a really important part of many video game genres. They are present in RPG’s, adventures, platforms, horror, survival, and even puzzle games! They work mostly as a kind of “skill check” where you have to prove that you have learned enough of the game to move on or get a certain reward. And although all of us (whether we play more or less) have faced a boss at some point, we often remember some of them for being impressive, difficult or fun and others for being tedious and even with a somehow unfair difficulty for players.
This is mainly due to design virtues or problems, something that definitely is not easy to do, since there are many factors to coordinate in order to create a satisfactory fight.
Igor’s combat on Seeking Light
During this year, in which I have worked as game, level and narrative designer in Seeking Light, I have been able to learn a lot about the design of these fights, since we have a total of 5 in our game. That is why, without considering myself an eminence in this subject, I have decided to expose the points or tips that I consider most important in terms of design and that have helped us to make a more fun and interesting game.
Make the most of the resources you have. During the development of Seeking Light, we didn't have a lot of staff and means to make very complex bosses in terms of variety of attacks and movements, since we didn't have enough development time to make many different animations or effects. That's why we decided to make variations of the same base attack in many bosses to make the most of the animations and effects already available. For example, different patterns in a bullet hell style attack, variations on mortar style attacks, throwing lasers or adding some extra effect to an existing attack. This allowed us to make the player feel that each boss was different and to make it as less monotonous as possible, often with not too many animations required or with monstrous lines of code, just with design adjustments of some variables already done.
Spider boss fight in Seeking Light, in which there are different mortar attack patterns
The player must understand the combat. One of the things that make a boss really enjoyable is that the fight feels like a dance between enemy and player, where once you know the boss, you can “read” when it's your turn to attack and when it's your turn to defend or dodge. This is something that Dark Souls does very well, and is one of the reasons why the saga has been so successful. Basically it is achieved by creating good anticipations of attacks for the bosses, either by a small loading animation, by a sound effect or by a visual effect (or by all of that at once). In addition, it is a good idea to space out some attacks or combos of the boss or make them have clear cooldown, so that the player can identify when it is time to attack without fear of being hit suddenly. This part is one of the most important in terms of design and iteration of bosses, as it is what delimits a fight from being difficult and dynamic to being unfair, for not being able to read the timing of the fight, even if you are an experienced player of the game. Showing the ranges of attacks with some particle effect (such as slashes in some weapons' swings or waves in explosions) and adjusting them correctly also helps the player to understand that he has suffered damage because he has failed in the game and not because the boss is badly made.
The importance of the camera and the arena. When we started to think about designing the bosses, almost all the ideas were around attacks, combos and ways for the player to attack. However, during the development of the game, we realized that defining the camera and the arena is a very important part of the fight, especially in a top-down view like our game had. Whether it is a fixed distance in which the entire arena is seen or interpolating the camera distance to the distances between player and boss, it is important that the enemy does not go off screen and to have a good overview of what is happening, to avoid situations that could be unfair to the player, such as anticipation of attacks that are not seen or the loss of reference of the fight. For this, the shape and design of the arena according to the type of camera we have in the game can help a lot to not lose detail of the fight and the position of the boss. In addition, in the arena you can easily add environmental mechanics that make the fight much more dynamic without the need to add new animations to the boss or use other resources that are more complicated to do.
Mannequin boss fight in Seeking Light, where the arena plays a fundamental role
Vary the boss during the fight. To make the fight fun, dynamic and challenging it is important to add variations of the boss or phases as the fight evolves, especially since a player will usually make several attempts and to avoid the fight from being monotonous and boring. For this, you can add some new attacks to the boss or modify values of the fight or the environment, such as decreasing cooldowns, increasing movement speed and attacks, changing the size of the arena or adding between phases simpler enemies to also be able to get some health pickups after defeating them if it is considered necessary from design.
Testing, a lot of testing. Especially with people external to the game development. This seems silly and obvious, but by testing a combat over and over again, new ideas or adjustments arise to get a great fight. In addition, external testing allows us to know if the players understand the fight and how they face the possibilities of defeating the boss from a perspective often different from how it was originally designed, functioning as a kind of "thinking outside the box". It also allows you to better calibrate the difficulty, since it is not the same for the boss fight to be tested by someone who already knows how it works and it may seem easy that to someone who fights for the first time.
Clown boss combat in Seeking Light
Use what u taught the player during combat. It is a very comforting situation for players when one of the pillars of defeating the boss is a newly learned mechanic or a union of the use of different game mechanics. This makes players feel like they have learned how to play the game and reinforces the mechanics taught so that players can make use of them in other situations in a more organic way. From the design aspect it creates a kind of perfect circle that makes the game more interesting and satisfying to play.
Designing boss fights is a very important and complicated point to make on games, however, it can greatly enhance the quality of a game and the good memories of the players when they have a memorable fight against challenging and well designed enemies. And if some of these points that I have been able to learn during the development of Seeking Light can help other people to make higher quality videogames then I am glad to have written these recommendations.