Short Giraffe Post 5: Rethinking Bosses

Bosses in Short Giraffe due to time constraints have had to go through several iterations and a bit of reimagining in order to get right. Originally we as a team wanted to do several boss fights, one per biome within the game. Since then we have had to cut it down and focus on two encounters instead which we now refer to as set pieces. These set pieces will be story focused moments which the player will encounter within the third and fifth biomes.

The first set piece design will be when Agent G encounters the head honcho meerkat on an oil rig set to blow. This encounter is going to be a chase sequence in which Agent G must run away from the Meerkat boss. The meerkat boss happens to have the antlers of Agent M, Agent G’s former ally and will use them during the chase to hurt Agent G. As the chase goes on, Agent G must make his way to the boat at the other end of the oil rig structure as it blows up. It won’t be the last time you see the meerkat boss though..

The second set piece design is more of a proper boss fight with the meerkat boss. Agent G finds himself in space and must destroy the main generator that powers the meerkats death star like weapon. Armed with his neck and a jetpack to help him traverse the void of space, Agent G must destroy weak points of the generator by running into them with his jetpack. As Agent G attempts to do this, the meerkat boss will be trying to block your attacks by getting in between you and the generator weak points. Once Agent G destroys the generator weak points, this will trigger phase two of the fight in which more weak points will spawn on the generator and the meerkat boss will go on the offensive. Instead of just blocking your attacks, the boss will actively try to rush the player and if they successfully touch, Agent G’s neck will automatically retract as if he had lost all of his energy to keep it extended. Once the player successfully destroys the generator, the fight ends and this triggers the end of the game.

I’m very happy with how far both of these encounters have come. I think they will be a great change of pace from the standard levels that we have while injecting story driven action within the game world. Building them has been quite fun, repurposing other systems within the game to make these encounters simple to prototype has been lots of fun. There will be more to come on this subject as we get further along in their creation.