How do you create your bosses?

[Admiral Crayon]

I've come to the part of my project where I need to setup my first boss! But here's the thing: I'm really lacking some creativity right now.

According to me, a boss isn't just another normal enemy that hits harder and has more hp. No, a boss needs to implement something that's new to the game, something that's different, something that the player doesn't expect. Minigames? Sure. Switch from Side-view to ABS? Great. A boss fight needs to create something that you can't just see in any other fight.

Here's the thing though, this "new" system has to be matching the boss itself. What if you created a huge behemoth that would steal items from your inventory and then use them? That would make no sense.

My boss here, is mainly a reference to James from Pokemon:

Spoiler

And I'm not sure what's so special that he could do. No I won't make him cast pokemons during the battle as I am not creating a pokemon game. (But that's also mainly because I'm using animated battlers and I can't draw for poop.) I would like to remind you that Jake (My boss) is not the exact copy of James.

Every idea is welcome as I am pretty exprienced with eventing, creating skills through common events is a pretty daily thing for me.

In the end, what about you? How do you design your bosses? Do you have requisites?

 

[Tyrfang]

Hmm... i usually divide my bosses in 2 categories: the monster-type and human-type.

Generally, I design the monster-type as formidable opponents, with the "big monster bundle": hp and strength, of course, but also moves that help me introducing new feature, like stunning blows or AoE attacks. Just to tell the player "Here, a challenge for you. You better be prepared".

The Human-type bosses are more tools for the sake of the plot: a cutscene, dramatic revelations, horrible deeds that force the heroes to attack him.. so that the player is emotionnaly moved and WANT to kill the boss, not just to go on his path, but to obtain justice (for the good heroes, of course). The fight itself is usually not that hard, but I ensure that the Boss has (slightly) annoying capacities, like self-healing, retaliations or minion summoning. And I make them talk during the battle. This help building that precious hate toward the boss.

Your idea of a boss stealing then using an item from the inventory is a pretty nice idea :)

For your Jake...hmmm... I don't know the story around him, but... If he's a reference to James form Pokemon, I believe that the team rocket used a bunch of trap and machinery, why not using/facing traps and whatnot? Disarming minigames before and during the battle could be fun

 

[Admiral Crayon]

I already made a small setup and the boss talks nonsense throughout the whole battle, so that's something done.
I won't have a huge scene overflowing with dramatic revelations as my game is mainly meant to be funny. I wouldn't have much to reveal either since this is the beggining of the game and I'm pretty much setting up the universe through the first dungeon.

I myself don't know that much about pokemon, but the reference made in my game was just a joke, the whole plot won't be centered around pokemon at all.

Yes that's right, they did use lots machinery though- And I just got a whole lotta new ideas too because I just found this: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Team_Rocket's_mechas

So thank for actually mentionning that! That's going to help a lot.

 

[Tyrfang]

Nice! I'm glad that I could be of any help!

Of course, what I said about bosses is only my way of doing things, and given that your game is meant to be a funny one, dan't pay to much attention to the dramatic part of my speech.

I hope that your boss-fight turns out great :)