The Witch

Responsibilities:

Design concept

Top down map

Enemy creation

Encounters setups

Iteration and balancing

 

This boss fight is the first one that was implemented by the team. It was created to workout some of the finer parts of the combat systems. It was also a chance for me to create an encounter that was bit different than those leading up to this moment. Up to this point the player has been mostly hitting and shooting their way through encounters. I wanted to create something that was focused on the throwing system.

 

The other goal for me was to use the tool of elevation changes to spice things up. I found that most of the game followed along a rather flat transition, especially boss encounters. By having the phases of the encounter punctuated by an elevation change it allowed for an escalation in the drama of the encounter.

 

I should also point out that the hidden collectable was not part of my original design. I could see why someone added it in later. I suspect the thought of the person that added it was that it was something unexpected and neat. For me though it is something that breaks the flow and focus of the encounter. You can see in the video how I have to go out of my way to get it. I have to shift my focus from the boss to something else. You will also see how it flat out interferes with the encounter when on one occasion I accidentally throw a head at the blocker because of how the targeting works.

 

These things are all counter to how I think an encounter, especially a boss, should be deigned and implemented.