Thank you all for attending. Here are the unstructured notes for those who couldn’t make it. I’ve bolded the key points.
Panel
Paul Stephanouk - Design Director of Candy Crush. Previously EA, Zynga, Bossfight, Schell Games, Big Huge Games. 20 years experience building and running creative teams.
Kelly Tran - Game Design Professor researching games and players. PhD in learning and tech. Personal Twitch - Group Twitch - Website
Jon Radoff - CEO Beamable. Previously Disruptor Beam. Entrepreneur, game designer, metaverse builder. Founder of Game Industry Club on Clubhouse.
Xelnath - Game Designer World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Snackpass Tochi. Founder Game Design Skill.
Kristina Drzaic - Narrative Director and Game Designer. Previously Halo, Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Galak-Z, Twitch, Amazon Game Studios.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik - Co-Founder Karnak Studios, Creators of The Daily Tut webcomic and Game Director on Tut Trials, an upcoming high action 3D platformer. Currently fundraising.
Notes
Think of building a boss battle as a dance between player and monster and each one challenges the other and pushes back in alternating patterns.
Boss battles are a form of assessment to the player, “have you mastered what we’ve taught you and learned the tools we gave to you?”
“Is the player ready to progress beyond this point?”
Narratively, it’s important for enemies to have a connection the the player. In Bioshock Infinite, Songbird boss transforms throughout the story in order to build that relationship overtime to build up towards an epic battle.
Nintendo has a model of introduce, escalate, permutate. This model is simple, clear and prevents the boss battles from being stale or difficult.
Bosses are a great moment to connect players to the game through fear.
Bosses are a great moment to connect players in multiplayer events.
Boss strategies becomes social currency. It’s a very global thing that spans across cultures and countries.
Boss battles gives a common enemy that players can rally around to beat.
World bosses in MMO games that are on patrol are great as they gather people to beat them which creates player and server stories.
Designers must warn, telegraph and communicate to players. An example would be the warning of an alien before the player sees the alien.
Designers need to create a sense of dread.
Designers can surface the dread of the boss through lesser enemies.
Designers should be wary when designing a puzzle that’s disguised as a boss battle. Shadow of The Colossus was an example that was debated.
Designers should figure out their three big moments.
Designers should find their lore piece or mechanic piece and start with that.
Designers need to create agency hooks, which gives the players a chance to show off their awesomeness.
Designers need to create tests where players feel the need to adapt or grow. Boss phases is a good technique to do that.
Designers must think of the ecology of the world and understand how the boss related to other AI or other elements of the world. Designers must also think what the boss can do before you encounter it so you can think about it and breadcrumb it like Songbird in Bioshock Infinite or audio logs in Bioshock.
Designers must think what sets the boss apart. Good examples of unique bosses are Cuphead and Bloodborne.
Hades tricks you. There is rolling mechanics and you get stronger with each assessment.
The builds accordingly are about giving the speed so the player doesn’t have to deal with mechanics.
Eventually a player could beat it with no skill. Essentially it’s flavoring on how the player wants to pull off that final dance.
Variance is high but all positive variance (how much easier can it be as opposed to can you do it or not).
There is power in the fact that the player is redoing and trying again.
Boss runs train the player.
Accordingly Hades fights wouldn’t work well if you chain them back to back.
Pace the battles. High investment to get to the boss means that each boss battle is worthwhile.
Sequencing is important in boss battles. An example would be Shade of Aran. The battle has three phases but players start with a random one. Inevitably players would feel a sense of streakiness. It was changed so the order of first two phases would guarantee the third and never would two phases be chosen back to back. This is an example of taking randomness and turning it into variance.
Lore reward is great.
Best rewards are not power or tactical. It turns loot as a method of progression.
Everyone loves a great death, big explosion, satisfying effect, VFX.
Designers need to preserve the integrity of your gameplay. Too many early boss designers focus on animations and leave the weak soft spot which makes the game underwhelming.
Designers should create meta goals and progressions around the boss.
Surprise/ambush boss battles are great in singleplayer games but suck in multiplayer games when there could be a player lagging behind.
Economy building games require different skill sets than boss battles.
Raid boss HP template. Have a DPS number you expect players of a caliber to hit, multiply by number of players and minus 5%.
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Thank you for reading the notes, hope you found them useful. The upcoming Design Dive will tackle Complexity on May 5th 3pm EDT.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik
Co-Host Design Dive