For a first boss, the cultist guy is pretty cool. Especially given it's a roguelike, where a very hard first boss might accidentally shut down half of the possible builds before they even grow their wings. As for improvements, I think just having multiple possible first bosses is better than a single, super complex first boss, but you did say you want memorable fights. Well, time to dig through the old brain I suppose. A first boss that's stuck with me for a decade+ is Narmer from Etrian Odyssey 3. He's a giant coward catfish, and cuts the fight off at 50% HP and runs away, and then you have to give chase while avoiding encounters that might cripple you too much to finish Narmer off. A boss running away to a later node in a roguelike would be pretty sick. During actual combat, he encourages AOE in a fight with a single enemy by making a bunch of holes, and failing to hit the one he's hiding in will allow him to cast a powerful attack on your whole party. He also has blind inflicting skills, a mean design choice but a staple to the Etrian series lol Another is Ghirahim from Zelda's Skyward Sword... but I'm unsure how one would translate that fight to a roguelike. Doomsday Beast from Honkai Star Rail is pretty cool for bringing out the "boss with destructible limbs" + two health bars super early into the game. Maybe just bringing out tropes usually associated with mid-game to late-game can help? I could probably talk about first bosses forever, so I gotta stop myself here
Thanks for taking the time digging into the memory bank lol, I really do appreciate it! Yeah these definitely sound like good ideas and I will definitely look into them. I especially like the Narmer reference. I currently only have two bosses but having 2-3 more options for the first boss would be a good idea and align with other rougelikes
Great video editing and the prototype is looking cool! I like what you said at the start - "bosses are meant to test the player's understanding of a core set of mechanics." I'll definitely need to keep that in my back pocket when I implement boss fights in my own game. Had to watch the video a few times to absorb all the mechanics that were packed into it (I'm not always great at following fast verbal dialogue though, so it's probably not an issue for most people). Something that I noticed as I watched the video is that boss mechanics seem a little complex (at least for a first boss). I guess it depends how much practice the players get with the 4 different crystal mechanics in the lead up to the boss though. I do like the crystals and there a ton of great ideas in this boss design. You might be able to spread some of those ideas out over multiple bosses (maybe introduce one new crystal per boss or something) in order to gain more gameplay/content out of it while also preventing it from being overwhelming for some players. I know bosses take time to implement though, so you might not want to do that for the prototype. Are there plans to incorporate the crystals into the world (give an explanation for them to be there)? I haven't watched all of your previous videos so I don't know how much of a story there is going to be in this game. But maybe they could be bursting forth from another dimension similar to the fade in Dragon Age. Just one idea, I'm sure there are more unique ideas that could be incorporated and you said you may replace them with eldritch monsters anyway so it might not matter. By the way, have you made a discord server yet? If you haven't, it can be a great way of gaining additional feedback, building a community around the game, and setting up playtests. If you HAVE made one already, I'd love to join it!
Thank you very much! I do agree with you that this boss design might be a little bloated haha. But as you mentioned I can always take away ideas and repurpose them for something else. Regarding the crystals, they probably won't be crystals in the end haha. I just chose crystals as a starting point but it will very likely be exploding eldritch monsters in the end. As for discord, I haven't made one just yet but you're not the first person to ask haha. So I might actually start planning one in the near future! Definitely will have one once I have an official demo ready. Right now I'm doing internal playtests with a small group of people to fix a lot of the games readability and core design issues before I open it up to more people! But stay tuned I should have some more public tests in a few months :)
I think you should allow the possibility of the boss having more than one crystal at the time, this prompts the player to be more careful when dealing too much damage to the boss instead of taking out the crystals first... or, inversely, it can prompt the player to hurry up and kill the boss asap before all the crystals explode. Anyway, the game is looking great, keep up the good work
Thank you! I'm probably just gonna leave it in the game because it would take quite a bit of damage to knock out that boss lol not even I've been able to do it but we'll see! Power creep might become crazy with time
The game is great. Can you maybe do video on your in-game particles cause im impressed but your particles animations, i mean i know they are inspired by Octopath Traveler just wanted to know did you make them by yourself or had artist help. Thank in advance
Thank you very much! Admittedly my particle effects are actually from asset packs that I've slightly adjusted so they can match to an extend. It's mostly from one group (Hovl Studio). I take what they make and customize it! What I do add to it is the lighting effects. But that's really just adding a light particle effect onto the particle system. But I can probably make a video about it one day because I know a lot of people are interested!
I've been considering that one for some time! I might make it soon but the reality is most of my VFX are editing particles from the asset store haha. So we'll see how I can structure that
For a first boss, the cultist guy is pretty cool. Especially given it's a roguelike, where a very hard first boss might accidentally shut down half of the possible builds before they even grow their wings.
As for improvements, I think just having multiple possible first bosses is better than a single, super complex first boss, but you did say you want memorable fights. Well, time to dig through the old brain I suppose.
A first boss that's stuck with me for a decade+ is Narmer from Etrian Odyssey 3. He's a giant coward catfish, and cuts the fight off at 50% HP and runs away, and then you have to give chase while avoiding encounters that might cripple you too much to finish Narmer off. A boss running away to a later node in a roguelike would be pretty sick. During actual combat, he encourages AOE in a fight with a single enemy by making a bunch of holes, and failing to hit the one he's hiding in will allow him to cast a powerful attack on your whole party. He also has blind inflicting skills, a mean design choice but a staple to the Etrian series lol
Another is Ghirahim from Zelda's Skyward Sword... but I'm unsure how one would translate that fight to a roguelike. Doomsday Beast from Honkai Star Rail is pretty cool for bringing out the "boss with destructible limbs" + two health bars super early into the game. Maybe just bringing out tropes usually associated with mid-game to late-game can help? I could probably talk about first bosses forever, so I gotta stop myself here
Thanks for taking the time digging into the memory bank lol, I really do appreciate it! Yeah these definitely sound like good ideas and I will definitely look into them. I especially like the Narmer reference. I currently only have two bosses but having 2-3 more options for the first boss would be a good idea and align with other rougelikes
Great video editing and the prototype is looking cool! I like what you said at the start - "bosses are meant to test the player's understanding of a core set of mechanics." I'll definitely need to keep that in my back pocket when I implement boss fights in my own game. Had to watch the video a few times to absorb all the mechanics that were packed into it (I'm not always great at following fast verbal dialogue though, so it's probably not an issue for most people).
Something that I noticed as I watched the video is that boss mechanics seem a little complex (at least for a first boss). I guess it depends how much practice the players get with the 4 different crystal mechanics in the lead up to the boss though. I do like the crystals and there a ton of great ideas in this boss design. You might be able to spread some of those ideas out over multiple bosses (maybe introduce one new crystal per boss or something) in order to gain more gameplay/content out of it while also preventing it from being overwhelming for some players. I know bosses take time to implement though, so you might not want to do that for the prototype.
Are there plans to incorporate the crystals into the world (give an explanation for them to be there)? I haven't watched all of your previous videos so I don't know how much of a story there is going to be in this game. But maybe they could be bursting forth from another dimension similar to the fade in Dragon Age. Just one idea, I'm sure there are more unique ideas that could be incorporated and you said you may replace them with eldritch monsters anyway so it might not matter.
By the way, have you made a discord server yet? If you haven't, it can be a great way of gaining additional feedback, building a community around the game, and setting up playtests. If you HAVE made one already, I'd love to join it!
Thank you very much! I do agree with you that this boss design might be a little bloated haha. But as you mentioned I can always take away ideas and repurpose them for something else.
Regarding the crystals, they probably won't be crystals in the end haha. I just chose crystals as a starting point but it will very likely be exploding eldritch monsters in the end.
As for discord, I haven't made one just yet but you're not the first person to ask haha. So I might actually start planning one in the near future! Definitely will have one once I have an official demo ready. Right now I'm doing internal playtests with a small group of people to fix a lot of the games readability and core design issues before I open it up to more people! But stay tuned I should have some more public tests in a few months :)
@@EdomGames1 Sounds great! Will definitely stay tuned
I think you should allow the possibility of the boss having more than one crystal at the time, this prompts the player to be more careful when dealing too much damage to the boss instead of taking out the crystals first... or, inversely, it can prompt the player to hurry up and kill the boss asap before all the crystals explode. Anyway, the game is looking great, keep up the good work
Thank you! I'm probably just gonna leave it in the game because it would take quite a bit of damage to knock out that boss lol not even I've been able to do it but we'll see! Power creep might become crazy with time
Wow this is really cool.
PROTYPE BUILD HYPE!
Almost there!!!
The game is great. Can you maybe do video on your in-game particles cause im impressed but your particles animations, i mean i know they are inspired by Octopath Traveler just wanted to know did you make them by yourself or had artist help. Thank in advance
Thank you very much! Admittedly my particle effects are actually from asset packs that I've slightly adjusted so they can match to an extend. It's mostly from one group (Hovl Studio). I take what they make and customize it! What I do add to it is the lighting effects. But that's really just adding a light particle effect onto the particle system. But I can probably make a video about it one day because I know a lot of people are interested!
Curious will you be doing the soundtrack as well ?
I plan on working with a musician when the time is right as no way I can make music for real. I do have someone in mind though if everything works out
You should ask Frank Tedesco , dude makes magic with his fingers, he’s a gamer and I’m sure he would love to help .
Amazing video. Vfx video when 😊
I've been considering that one for some time! I might make it soon but the reality is most of my VFX are editing particles from the asset store haha. So we'll see how I can structure that