So continuing on from where I left off in my last post, how do I make my boss character feel adequately powerful.
During the boss creation stage I mentioned previously, the boss will gain stat buffs based on the stats of the enemies it absorbs. Considering the boss can absorb any number of enemies between zero and potentially hundreds, the values that each stat increases by should be quite small, however still noticeable in the long run. The player should notice a difference in strength between a boss that absorbed no enemies and one that absorbed one hundred, the latter being challenging without being impossible.
To achieve this I will use the current code, or at least something very similar. Of course the following code will be subject to change as we balance the game during our alpha stage.
During the boss creation stage I mentioned previously, the boss will gain stat buffs based on the stats of the enemies it absorbs. Considering the boss can absorb any number of enemies between zero and potentially hundreds, the values that each stat increases by should be quite small, however still noticeable in the long run. The player should notice a difference in strength between a boss that absorbed no enemies and one that absorbed one hundred, the latter being challenging without being impossible.
To achieve this I will use the current code, or at least something very similar. Of course the following code will be subject to change as we balance the game during our alpha stage.
In the above code, cell is the enemy that the boss absorbs and GetChromosome() returns the value of a gene between 0 and 1.
Essentially, for every enemy the boss absorbs it will gain a bonus to its total health, damage, attack speed and movement speed. Therefore it will take more bullets to kill, move around the level more quickly, leave less time between attacks making them harder to avoid, and deal more damage with each attack killing the player faster.
I would say that is the power aspect of the boss taken care of, but now comes the final and possibly most important area; Fun.
Currently, the boss is fun to fight, but it isn't anything special. To fix this I believe the bosses attacks must become more exiting and memorable. Currently each boss has unique attacks, but the attacks themselves are quite boring and irrelevant to the overall theme of the game. Therefore, to make the game more fun, I believe that the boss should have a much larger pool of attacks, and that the attacks should be relevant to other aspects of the game. For example an attack that is based off the player's special laser attack, but amplified and more dangerous. Based on this idea I implemented a quick version of an attack that fires a laser in 4 directions while slowly spinning.
Essentially, for every enemy the boss absorbs it will gain a bonus to its total health, damage, attack speed and movement speed. Therefore it will take more bullets to kill, move around the level more quickly, leave less time between attacks making them harder to avoid, and deal more damage with each attack killing the player faster.
I would say that is the power aspect of the boss taken care of, but now comes the final and possibly most important area; Fun.
Currently, the boss is fun to fight, but it isn't anything special. To fix this I believe the bosses attacks must become more exiting and memorable. Currently each boss has unique attacks, but the attacks themselves are quite boring and irrelevant to the overall theme of the game. Therefore, to make the game more fun, I believe that the boss should have a much larger pool of attacks, and that the attacks should be relevant to other aspects of the game. For example an attack that is based off the player's special laser attack, but amplified and more dangerous. Based on this idea I implemented a quick version of an attack that fires a laser in 4 directions while slowly spinning.
To create this attack I attached 4 cubes to the boss prefab that would act as the lasers. When the boss activates this attack the colliders and renderers for those lasers are turned on and the GameObject they are children of starts to spin.
Each of the lasers has a simple script attached that deals damage over time to the player when the player touches the laser.
This one attack already gives more character to the boss and makes it more exiting to fight, and after adding even more powerful special attacks I foresee it becoming even more fun again.
If you would like to see the code in greater detail, feel free to refer to the original source available at: github.com.
If you would like to see the code in greater detail, feel free to refer to the original source available at: github.com.