Ph33r my 1337 drawing sk1llz!!!!!111one

<img src="http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q210/HeadShot-X/stickboss.png" border="0">

Actually, I can draw much better than that, I'm just trying to illustrate a point here.

I drew a big looking stickman to represent your boss, then I used a blue rectangle to represent the boss' collision box, and a red rectangle to show the space being contested, much like in that Street Fighter tutorial I posted.

First, there's the ground stomp (you may want to use a different trajectory than the one my arrow shows, that's not set in stone), with the red box over the boss' feet, extending a bit to the sides because of the shockwave. Then there are the projectiles. For the high projectile, I drew it both straight and angled. It's really your choice which one you want to use, or you may even want to use both.

The combination of a high and low projectile, both horizontal, is actually a pretty common thing to see in the Mega Man X games, with

from X4 being a good example. Since the dash lowers your stance, you're supposed to jump over the low flames and dash unter the high ones. Another good example, also from Capcom, is Sagat from Street Fighter. His basic playstyle involves alternating between high and low Tiger Shots, forcing the opponent to duck or jump accordingly. If your game has some way to reduce the player character's height, this can be a good pattern to use.

I figure a boss's moveset is easier to design after designing the looks of the boss itself. Then you know what it looks like it's capable of doing. But the opposite can also work for some people, make up a pattern first and then draw something that can match that pattern. Whatever you're more comfortable with, really.

Designing a boss encounter is much like designing a fighting game character. After all, what is a fighting game's single player mode if not a series of boss battles?

With that in mind, you need to be aware of the concept of zoning and controlling space. Each attack the boss makes claims a certain area of the screen, and you have to get out of that area. It makes it easier to visualize the boss, player and attacks as basic shapes instead of their sprites. While this video is a Street Fighter tutorial, you can see the concepts I'm talking about illustrated there. youtube.com/watch

As for the AI algorithm, there are three main methods. Some bosses cycle through a list of moves in order, but as you might guess, that's not too impressive. Some choose their moves randomly from that same list. The third one is the best, but hardest to implement. The move used is chosen according to a certain variable, with the player's distance to the boss being commonly used. Mega Man bosses are a good example of distance being used to determine the attack choice, so maybe you could study them a bit if you want to implement the AI that way.

Hope I helped.

Well, what do you know, it worked!

I thought that since I was using a bullet movement, the action to modivy that movement would be in the bullet group as well. I didn't even see that one, so convinced was I that the bullet one was right.

Now I'm curious as to why "Set bullet angle of motion" makes it go horizontal.

Anyway, thanks a lot!

So, as some of you might have already seen, I'm working on a breakout style game as my first project. It was working fine when I had the ball being released automatically, but I set it so that the ball follows the paddle at first and is only released after the space bar is pressed. Even though the process seem the same, now when the ball is released, it always goes horizontally instead of the angle I specified. I basically have the events set like this:

If variable "Played" is 0, when Spacebar is pressed;

Set Playing to 1;

Set angle of motion of the ball to something between 45 and 135;

Set ball's movement speed to 300;

I see nothing wrong with it, yet this always happens. And then, if I have the paddle next to a wall, the ball bounces up.

Here's a link for the exported game. And one for the .capx.

Thank you for the help.

CyberDagger: Fine analysis, I'd like to learn more about the concept of "horizontal upgrade" (and possibly the megaman mechanics you're talking about).

Would you mind post something about it in the general game design forum when you have some time ?

And now I know what I'll write about in the first post of my brand new blog! Thanks a lot for the sugestion. I'll make sure to also post it in the general game design forum, of course.

It was the zoom. I feel stupid. My friend tested it on his computer and it opened with 300% zoom too, so I assumed the problem was not on my end. It's still weird how both of us opened the game with 300% zoom when none of us touched the zoom settings.

And this is how it looks to me.

i137.photobucket.com/albums/q210/HeadShot-X/gamezoom.png

It's annoying and I have no idea why it happens only in Chrome, but not to everyone.

I have been working on my first project, a breakout style game and I have encountered a strange problem when testing in Chrome.

When I run the layonut from Construct 2, the game is the right size, but most people, myself included, seem to have the game blown up to around 3 or 4 times its intended size when they open it with Chrome. I have no idea why this is happening.

Here's the exported project.

And here's the .capx file. Yes, I am aware that the barebones stuff I have now is horribly unoptimized.

If anyone could shed some light into the subject and tell me why this is happening, I would be very thankful.

Hello one and all. I hail from that small country at the edge of Europe called Portugal. I'm a Computer Engineering student, and I have hopes of one day being a professional game designer/artist. For now, game design is mainly a hobby that has the benefit of filling my portfolio.

Outside of games, I have a passion for animals of all kinds, even the ones that are not much popular. I also enjoy building stuff, all the way from Lego to the Gundam model kit I built not too long ago.

I belong to the Pok�mon generation, and never really stopped enjoying the games. There's a fantastic strategic element in those games for those who take the time to look for it. Sonic's also one of those classics that influeced me, with part of my childhood being spent looking at Sonic 2 on display at the local toy shop. I never actually owned a Sonic game before Sonic Advance, but Sonic games would frequently be my first picks for games to play at friends' places.

One really big, though more recent influence in my game design philosophy is Mega Man. I got to that late, but I loved it as soon as I started playing it, especially the faster-paced X style gameplay. One very important thing I got out of it was how to develop a character horizontally instead of vertically. The so-called "RPG elements" feel empty when all they do is increase numeric values and then the enemies scale with them, so you really don't feel any stronger. Should be called "NCG (Number Crunching Game) elements" instead. Megaman is a good example of doing this right. While there are the occasional vertical upgrades like health bar expansions, most of the upgrades are horizontal. You get to do more stuff instead of just doing the same stuff but better. It's easier to get a feel of powering up when the options you have increase.

Also, fighting games. I love them, especially the more over-the-top ones like Guilty Gear. One of my dreams is to one day work on the fighter and design the cast.

I did the tutorial, and started work on a breakout style game as my first project. I'm thinking of having boss battles on this one. What a twist!

And it's getting late here, so I'll stop here. If anyone wants to ask anything, go ahead!