Bosses

Bosses are entities that have been in shmups since the beginning (okay, early '80s). Almost every scrolling shmup since then has had at least one by the end of the game, at the end of each level, or sporadically throughout the entire game. If a particular game ended a level without a boss, it would immediately feel as if something were missing, some challenge - a test - to prove one's worth to be able to continue to the next section. And then, sometimes, a boss has issues - it's easy, it's weird, it's unfair, etc. As I've learned in the world of story telling, the ending is the deal breaker. It can make a poor experience tolerable, make an amazing experience mediocre, and in some special cases, turn a waste of time into a reason to live.

The important thing to keep in mind when dissecting what exactly makes a good boss is that there is no universal answer. The boss must be dynamic in both design and execution, tailored specifically to the level in which it resides. Generally speaking, there are five main factors to consider when designing a boss: difficulty, variety, length of battle, pay-off, and character.

Difficulty
If this is the first boss of the game, make sure anybody who's at least trying will beat it without losing all of his or her lives. Losing on the first level - even if there are only a handful - is a buzz kill for even the most seasoned of veterans.

The types of attacks don't necessarily have to mimic the same enemy types seen earlier in the level, but they shouldn't be so vastly different that the boss and level feel separated in function. A level with homing rockets can have a boss with homing lasers. This is a simple evolution of what trials the player has already passed. You can also have the boss use weapons that won't be seen until the next level. The key is transition. If a boss uses attacks completely unrelated to both the theme and enemies found earlier in the level, it will feel unattached (and so will the player).

Variety
The player is going to want an intense battle. Intensity is not found through force, but through dynamism. The more varied attacks from the boss, the better. Many shmups visually separate the boss's health bar to show when the current attack pattern will end and a a new one will begin. However, within each of these sections of the boss's health, multiple different kinds of attacks can be cycled on a loop until the player dwindles enough health.

The weapons themselves can be the same, but the ways in which the player is to both dodge and attack should be different to some degree. If a player needs to find a sweet spot to camp and shoot, then find a different sweet spot for the next pattern, there wasn't a change in strategy. Thusly, the player won't be as engaged upstairs to feel as if he or she is up against something of challenge. Keep them on their toes, even when they know what pattern is coming up next. If they don't have to think during battle, then they won't think much of the boss when it's gone.



Length of Battle
Relatively speaking, if you know what you're doing to a boss, it's okay to defeat it in half the time it should normally take. On the other hand, if you have no idea what you're doing, it shouldn't take four times longer than expected to defeat it. The sense of accomplishment from grinding a tedious and unfulfilling battle is quickly diminished, no matter how great the pay-off (discussed below).

Globally speaking, the time it should take to defeat a boss should be relatively proportional to how long it takes to get through the level. Radiant Silvergun takes over an hour to complete not only because the bosses have such lengthy battles, but also because the levels themselves are lengthy. The durations of boss battles in Touhou games follow this same formula, as do most R-Types, Gradiuses, and Cave shooters. There are of course exceptions, such as having all or most of the final level be a boss battle, because the player expects to have one grand finale at the game's end. Consider this the one free pass you get.

As far as mid bosses go, they should never take longer to beat than the end boss (obvious yes, but still apparent in some shmups floating around online). This not only lets down the player with more battling after the mid boss, but the end boss is already considered a push over before the battle even begins (given previous playthroughs). Having an easy decoy boss that leads into a surprise harder boss is great, though the effect is only successful the first time around.

Pay-Off
The pay-off isn't necessarily just about the bonus points, collectible gems, bonus life, piece of triforce, or even a granted entry to the next level. The pay-off is what the player has gained by defeating the boss, whether it comes from programming within the game code or an experience that's been developed within the player's soul (too deep?).

This one is probably the hardest to explain, mostly because it's a different experience with every player. There's a rush that can be created through clever pacing of attacks and a false sense of impending doom.

Recent Cave shooters (Mushihimesama, ESPGaluda2) love having bosses that spit out everything they're made of immediately before being killed off. This creates an immediate thrill and sense of danger for the player, but it doesn't last so long as to erase his or her extra live stock within seconds.

Ikaruga's boss in Chapter 3 does the same thing, except instead of filling the screen with bullets, the whole boss spins radically faster and fires its lasers at a higher frequency (all while you're trapped inside).

In this sense, the boss battle intensity itself is a diagram of the level's difficulty leading up to and including the boss. To put it simply, the end of the boss battle should be more intense than the beginning.

Character
This kind of ties in with the thematic connection of attacks between the boss and the level in which it resides. Here, character is meant to describe the purpose for the boss being at the end, the reason why your progress is being halted by this dominating force. Everything is under subconscious scrutinization by the player: the reason that it breaks apart the way it does, the way in which it explodes (loyal readers must know by now how imperative it is to me for there to be a satisfying explosion for everything), the way it reacts to obvious flaws in its armor system, the sounds that are made when it charges up an attack / releases a final blow / gets angry at your skills, etc.

The villain is always the most important character in any story. Obviously, without him, there wouldn't be a hero (or anti-hero), yet there can still exist a villain without someone to combat him. It's in this sense that the villain is the source of there being any conflict (i.e. a hero cannot create a conflict, only solve it).

Great villains in cinema are tied very closely with movies that are successful. Biff from Back to the Future. Jafar from Aladdin. Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. Captain Hook from Peter Pan / Hook. Agent Smith from the Matrix. Darth Vader from ...yeah. I could go on, but these villains aren't just bad guys. They have a story behind why they turned out the way they are. And in turn, they behave in their worlds in response to whatever it is that ticked them off in the first place.

The same goes for videogames, although [unfortunately] they hardly ever seem to be as developed as those found in the movies (and to be honest, there really is no excuse). Sometimes a boss is never seen until the final battle. Sometimes we only know about the boss through cutscenes. Every story has two sides, and it's a bit unfair to the player to only see one side and not have the opportunity to enjoy what's going on behind the curtain.

Some excellent bosses in videogames would be GlaDOS from Portal, Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong, and the Stone Like from Ikaruga (and Radiant Silvergun?). All of these bosses / villains made themselves present throughout the player's gameplay experience, providing both a motivation to move forward as well as a satisfying pay-off at the end. To be fair, the Stone Like never was seen until the end, but everything that it put the player through was a marvelous final exam of everything that the player was supposed to learn throughout the game.



Putting It All Together
So what have we learned here? I, for one, know that I expect a lot when it comes to a good boss battle. However, I don't consider my expectations to be set too high. After all, we're talking about a boss battle here. This is the final challenge standing between the player and what the player set out to do: play the game.

The boss is a summary of what came before. It's a vision of what to expect next. It's the whole of the parts (which in turn shoots parts of the whole back at the player). It's the element by which to judge the entire game, as the boss itself is what the game eventually leads to.

So, the next time you play against a boss and feel remarkably underwhelmed, perhaps this attempt at categorizing the reasons will assist you in understanding why. Or, if you're developing your own boss to terrorize others, hopefully you've learned something along the way that you can implement into your creations (or at the very least, disagree with me hardcore and set out to prove me wrong :D)

[cross-posted on Gamasutra] [continue]...

Boss Rush Mode: Boss Yes, Not So Much Rush

I'm pretty sure that every time I hear that a game has a boss rush mode, I become much more excited than I should be. Granted, learning that any additional mode is included with a game should raise the excitement bar if even by a small amount, but a boss rush is nothing really to be praised. For those of you who find no greater pleasure than to embrace the boss rush in shmups, I'd love to hear what it is that makes it better than any other mode (well, at least arcade and score attack). But first read through my rambles for some good dirt to fling back.

The basic idea of a boss rush is that you face all of the bosses in a game, in order, from start to finish, with limited to no breaks for refilling health, upgrades, lives, sanity, etc. At a glance, it's a true test of one's ability to face against the roughest sections of each level - the boss itself.

The term itself is either an oxymoron or a redundancy. A boss rush should be just that - a rush. What constitutes something as a rush? That would be the contrast of a calmer state of being elsewhere in a level / game, in this case that would be each level's travels leading up to each boss. Take all of that build-up away and you're left with just intense action with hardly any contrast (not exactly a complaint... yet). An analogy I always enjoyed is that there can't be a superhero in this world without a super villain to validate the other's existence. Contrast. Now, looking at the term from the other side, the boss is the rush. It's like asking someone to pass the red ketchup (please disregard and burn all memories you have of the purple and green ketchup from the 90s, for the sake of both keeping my point valid and letting you sleep at night).

Yes, there are a bunch of other games out there that have boss rush equivalents. I'm pretty sure every standard issue MegaMan has a mandatory reunion of -Mans during the final level (and -Womans, for those of you enjoying MegaMan 9). Klonoa has one, Rez has one, Metal Gear Solid too, and even Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Let's take Rez for example. How I love Rez. I heard there was a boss rush mode, I went and unlocked it, I played it with much glee (initially), and then I beat it. Something was missing. Oh, that's right - the rest of the game that was designed to build up to the bosses. I guess it's a cheap shot to use Rez as an example, as we all know by now that the entire game was designed to be played in one continuous session to allow Mizuguchi-san's personal message of l♥ve to flow through the bloodstream and cause a euphoric understanding of the inner workings of the universe, the predicting of the future, and knowledge of how to get him to actually make a sequel. My point is that the bosses, at least in shmups, were designed to push you that extra mile at the end of each level, when your supplies are diminished and you have little left to live for. Taking away that whole energy-draining build-up not only lets you perform much more triumphantly (at first), but it gives you less of a reason to be excited that you finally made it to the next boss.

One of my few counterpoints to the boss rush is in WARNING FOREVER. Those of you familiar know all too well why this stands as a combatant to the despised boss rush; it's because the game was designed from the ground-up to be just that - a rush of bosses. The idea is both executed and enjoyed flawlessly here, as the intent of each boss is to serve as a level that you work through. Blow off a wing here, dodge a vulcan blast there, and ultimately shoot the core for a fantastic explosion (abbridged version for post-level-5 scenarios).

And so, the next time you decide not to play the entire game, but only eat the candy at the end of each trail, I invite you to also go watch Luke blow up the Death Star, Lando blow up the other Death Star, and Vader toss the Emperor to his infinite doom all in a matter of minutes. Again, it's fun at first, but you'll begin to understand why you appreciated them in the first place when you rewatch Greedo shooting first or C-3PO piggybacking Chewy or Ackbar yelling something about tarps.

And here's video of a shmup with a boss rush. Raiden Fighters Jet, but who cares? I'd rather see the full game. Better yet, I should go play the full game. And I will :]


[cross-posted on Gamasutra] [continue]...

Squares 2: Is [not] a shmup.

It really shouldn't be a matter of opinion whether a game is a shmup or not. It either falls into the defined characteristics, or it doesn't. However, just like the many anomalies of the English language, so too do the rules of defining shmups (or any video game genre for that matter) delve into the realm of uncertainty.

First off, a "shoot 'em up" is more of what you do in the game, not what type of game it is. The same goes for "first-person shooter," which is simply a point of view and what you do. Calling Resident Evil a "survival horror game" is halfway there, though the survival part is just a tacked-on noun (and honestly, there are hundreds of other games that require you to survive, but don't mention it in the genre). I'm not even a fan of calling games "role-playing games," as I naturally enjoy playing the role of whatever character I'm playing, even Dr. Mario. I understand these genres put extra emphasis and dedicated TLC into their respective areas, but those same characteristics can be found in many other games. In these examples, it becomes clear that we can't simply use the literal meaning of a genre without getting into fisticuffs with ourselves.

That's why I find it interesting that there are games credited as - without a doubt - shmups, yet I can't help but disagree. And then there's shmups that shouldn't be deemed so, but have me welcoming them into the genre with open arms. Take for example Rez, which most definitely has you shooting things up. In fact, it's the only action you can do in the game other than moving across an X-Y plane. Yet I can't bring myself to call it a shmup. Something doesn't feel right about letting it into the genre, knowing all of the other fantastic characteristics that require mentioning. Calling it a shmup removes all of that effort made to hook up the soundtrack to your heartbeat; it makes us not wonder why there's so many different visual styles in which to play the game in one continuous sitting; it makes us not question the purpose of the hard-earned Trance Mission mode. To put Rez in a genre already occupied by so many dissimilar games would be inappropriate. I wouldn't dare place it somewhere it doesn't belong and I won't even mention the "s" word (but I'll gladly link to it). Also of note is how Space Harrier is near-identical in what you do, but I have no problem calling it a shmup.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Geometry Wars 2. How can this game not be a shmup? You play the role of an abstract ship that flies around, can shoot out what look like bullets, can detonate bombs that clear the screen, and have various enemies to shoot until you run out of lives. That passes my test. Now let's take a look at one of the six gameplay modes, Pacifism, in which you have no bombs, cannot shoot, and must simply dodge the never-ending swarm of quadrilateral foes while collecting multipliers for a high score. This cannot be a shmup, for you physically can't shoot anything, and yet it still feels like a shmup. Granted, it helps that you can shoot things up in the other five modes, but this example brings me finally to a look at Squares 2, by Gavin Shapiro, in which you play the role of an abstract shape that cannot shoot, has no bombs, and must simply dodge the never-ending swarm of quadrilateral foes while collecting black squares (and sometimes circles) for a high score. Sound familiar?

There have been games like this before, including the popular GBA homebrew game bulletgba, which is credited by the author as a "Bullet-Hell Simulator." However, those are bullet patterns right out of famous shmups, so it's too easy to associate the two. I'm focusing on Squares 2 because of how distant it is from the genre, yet it feels right at home. The game itself is not just my favorite addicting Flash game on the Internet (a simple search for "squares" in Google yields the game as the first result, showing a global popularity).

I find shmup charm in Squares 2 in how you have very limited time to react to on-the-fly patterns of things to dodge, all the while trying to collect as many black squares and circles as possible (thus giving you a reason to move and a motivation to survive, other than that shiny high score). And who cares if you have mouse-precision control over the shmup-traditional arrow keys / d-pad / joystick? Who cares if there's no end to the game? It's an endurance test (unless of course you're a cheater). The design of the game also helps out in its success: eye-catching red objects must be dodged, circular powerups / powerdowns stick out like sore thumbs, an annoying and undesirable buzzer sounds upon your failure, and the addictive audio crack that is Daft Punk plays on loop forever as you struggle to outdo yourself.

It's a beautiful formula that works to improve both your reaction time and how quickly you can interpret rapidly-changing patterns for the purpose of survival (a skill most definitely transferable to a traditional shmup and even reality). Keep in mind that the game is not perfect. The two biggest factors that take away from its appeal are how red squares sometimes spawn under black ones (quick fix: always have red squares at a higher depth than black ones) and how there are red circle powerdowns at all. If I had the choice to either touch a red square (knowing it ends the game immediately) or touch a red circle (knowing I'll continue with the game but suffer a minor penalty), I'll always choose the red circle. Why, then, are the red circles treated as these special-case "watch out for us!" entities, when it's the everyday red squares that are the real threats? I suppose only Gavin himself can fill us in.

The point I'm trying to make is that putting a game into one genre can be tricky and oftentimes unjust (a point also made by Mike Lopez from Gamasutra in relation to the racing genre). I like my shmups top-down, vertically scrolling, with lots of explosions, and a memorable experience that makes me wish I had more time in my life to perfect a playthrough... but that's just me.

Normally, I'd link to a video of the game at hand for those unaware of how it looks in motion. This time around, it's much more appropriate to just post a link to the game and have you play it yourself.

Speakers up, mouse area clear, and eyes alert: Here's Squares 2.

[cross-posted to Gamasutra] [continue]...