Added a nice ambience to the level because it was far too quiet. I changed the fog color to white because it is more natural and it is more pleasing to the eyes. Fighting the bosses made me realize how hard it was to distinguish them within the level because they were covered in the green mist. After more fights the white fog is definitely better.
I made sure both bosses reacted to each other’s deaths appropriately. This way it has an effect to how the fight will work. While testing the combat I noticed how buggy the hammer attack was. I forgot that the scale of the weapon I used was incredibly different and the collision of the weapon was tied to the model so it would basically just have all the wrong sizes. To fix this I separated the weapon collision from the weapon itself so it doesn’t change when the weapons changes.
I then started on more interesting attacks for the boss, a big reason for it was so that there was a purpose to turn the arena. Turning the arena can help buy the player some time and also get away from some dangers. I did my usual attack of an object that just slowly grows. But I had a lot of other technicalities to figure out because of the rotation possibilities. Since there are essentially two sides to the arena I needed a way to tell these attacks to only appear at the floor that they are supposed to be on. Thankfully I was able to figure out that since I had two flowers I could use those as my references of which way is down. I had to tie it into the boss so it could know which flower’s location it was supposed to use. It is a rather simple method but it took a bit to figure out just to make sure it worked every time with no issues. At least so far there have not been any problems.
The attack itself also needed a reference to the castle, because I wanted to render it inert when the castle was rotating. There’s just a lot going on just because I made it so complicated with the rotating level. I probably won’t do something this ambitious for the following stages.
The other similar attack I added was a circle the appeared under the player, it didn’t grow but it did explode after some time. It at least adds another danger for the player to avoid and move around. I made it an interesting fight by making the bosses able to hit each other. At least I thought it is interesting. After a lot of testing I find the fight quite difficult. Which is a good thing. It is frantic and leaves no room for breaks or errors. But since I know how they fight I do have the advantage. It is a difficult thing trying to balance a fight.
I realized that you could sprint forever while whipping the enemy, something that can be abused in any fight. It is a slow process but it is a very safe method for fighting. To fix this I made sure the sprint stopped when the player did the whip attack. Hopefully that should remove any abuse of the sprint while attacking.
I’m nearly done with the stage, all that is left is making sure the boss fight is fully functional then after that is just small improvements here and there. I will continue to make sure the fight is fair and fun while also trying to see if I can make more interesting interactions between the two bosses.
GoldenGratus Games 