Monday, 22 May 2017

Dead Metal Punks - Boss Planning 4

Finally got to creating the design for the final boss/level. I originally left it as I was a bit burned out from doing the rest of the bosses at once. After discussing with Josh about creating the ending early on I decided it needs to be done.

Also as a test I created some directional snow based materials in UE4 to see if I could make any model look like it was covered in snow. It worked really well and should save me a lot of time since I wont have to re texture objects like static vehicles with a snowy variant. In the image notice that the crates are both the same object and material but get different variants of the snow based on their orientation. 

I made 2 versions in the end. The first is used for literally any model to add top down snow and the other version is a subsurface ice with the same algorithms for snow (This should look great inside ice caves). Both of these materials have additional parameters so that the level and softness of the snow can be controlled.



 In terms of mechanics each of the 2 main battle sections are half a boss each and the rest is a series of fast gauntlets. I decided to use the giant hands from the 1st lily level as part of this fight as I feel they are underutilized at the moment for the amount of work that went into their creation.

In the final section I'm planning on making the player win a round of rock paper scissors vs the space station. I think a comical final fight like this would really suit the theme of the game.


**Boss Placeholder Name :** 

Concord Spacestation

**Gameplay Type:** 

Both

**Description : ** 

At the start of the level/boss battle, Lily (inside dead metal) jumps out of the rocket and slams into a section of the ship exploding through the wall and into the space station. The ship is divided into sections using both modes. The tank parts will be in large open areas outside core rooms. The lily sections are gauntlets inside the core rooms, the doors to these areas are shielded until the corresponding tank section is complete.

**Tactics:**

There is a checkpoint after each section on normal difficulty or lower and a checkpoint after each lily section on hard.

**Section 1: Tank**

Each section of the tanks gameplay will start with a short moving section to get to the next core. 

In this first section  the room will spawn a variety of different enemies to fight the player. 

The orb robot will fly in an erratic fashion and only stops moving during its attacks.

There is giant robot hands that will periodically come out of the levitating orb. When active a hole will appear in the side of the Orb and the hand will come out a second later.

The Orb robot flying around the arena is the part the player is required to damage in order to turn off the shields leading the core.

This section should last around 5 minutes

**Section 2: Lily**

This section will be very platform heavy and have mining drones spawn periodically to keep the player on their toes.

The player must be able to get back out of this area.

When the player destroys the core they will have 3 minutes to get out of the section before it explodes.

**Section 3: Tank**

In this section the main robot will work in a similar way to whack a mole. 

It can pop out of several sections on the floor or walls and fires a series of bullets before retreating again.

If the player hits it with enough damage before it retreats it will be stunned, stay out of the hole and take extra damage for several seconds before returning to its normal mode.

As the bosses heath decreases it will start opening more sections at the same time. Only one will be the body, the rest will launch bouncy bombs around the arena (random direction)

**Section 4: Lily**

This section will be very trap/platform heavy and have mining drones spawn periodically to keep the player on their toes.

The player must be able to get back out of this area.

When the player destroys the core they will have 3 minutes to get out of the section before it explodes.

**Section 5: Tank**

Now that both cores are destroyed a final countdown sequence comes online. This last section will be a fast paced escape run to a docked rocket.

Parts of the ship will begin breaking apart with platforms to bridge the gap.

There will be a lot of standard enemies in the way that are less difficult to kill than normal (Increased pace of fighting)

If its possible - At the end of this section the player must win rock paper scissors vs a the robo hand that is shielding the exit. There will be 3 large buttons at the top of the screen that can be shot to choose a pose. A 3 second counter displays on screen before the hand chooses its pose (Player can have as many attempts as they want as long as they have the time)

**Unlocks**

Slow time special for Lily

Concept art

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