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Hello and welcome to the latest Boss 101 Update! 

Some quick development updates and then onto the main development blog!

Very Super Early Beta Testing has begun!

Yep, you heard right – we have started to send out Steam keys to selected groups for play testing feedback. If you think you are on that list and haven’t gotten a key – please be patient. You can always mail us at hello(at)donleytimefoundation(dot)com if you have any questions.

General feedback is positive and we’re doing gameplay tweaks to make things smooth for the end user. All in all though – no major hitches and we’re moving forward with wrapping the game up.

Making an In-Game Wiki

You know about the Professor’s Wiki in Boss 101! Originally this was the place for neat lore about the various people you meet in the game but has expanded a bit.

You can see here we have the main Command Center and the WIKI itself.

Each page here ORIGINALLY started as a straight piece of art displayed all at once. This art included the words, images and placement or everything. This was my personal idea (me being Tim) and let me assure you it was a terrible one. HAHAHAHAHA! Joshua had a much better idea about how to do this. Basically, do it the right way (like almost everybody else would). We broke the page into pieces, art, words in an XML file, animations, etc. All this is created separately and then assembled in the AMAZING editor that Joshua created for our game.

Editor

Samples of the art

In the editor here you can see we have places to assign art, images and the like as well as write up the words for the page. REALLY NICE STUFF and a huge speed improvement over the old way.

Now – of course, we just had to go and fill it with awesome information for you – which we DID!

Design a Hat for Boss 101. Well, more like SUGGEST a Hat for Boss 101! HAHA!

Suggest-A-Hat Contest Ends Next Sunday August 20th

So yes, we are planning on getting Boss 101 in your hands soon and ONE LAST THING we are doing is running a contest to YOU to suggest a hat. Drop us a line anywhere (details follow) and we will collect all the submissions and pick on to go into the game in true Boss 101 style. Suggest what you like but realize that we will have to respect various licenses and copyrights. Also we will be taking any suggestion and Boss 101’ing in our own way. You only need to supply a suggestion and we will put it on the list.

General Contest Rules and Guides:
– Entry is free and thank you for your support!
– Suggest any subject, theme or person you might like to see as a Boss 101 hat
– You can suggest anything – animate or inanimate!
– Please use common sense. Offensive or tasteless suggestions aren’t needed or welcome.
– If your idea is chosen we will do our best to bring it to life
– You can suggest in the replies here or mail us at hatcontest @ boss101.com (remove spaces)
– The contest will run three weeks

Don’t forget the Suggest-A-Hat contest wraps up next Sunday. We have a ton of entries and many good suggestions, drop yours in if you haven’t. You may be happy to know we MIGHT be able to open up a few more slots for suggestions. We’ll keep you posted!

Thanks for joining us today and we appreciate your support. With the Early Beta testing going on you can be assures we are wrapping things up. Look for more news about a release date soon and thank you for hanging in there with us as we wrap Boss 101 up.

We know it’s not always easy to wait for something you are excited about but we also want you to get our very best product. Thank you again and talk with you soon!

Remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!

Boss 101 Screenshot

Liftoff for adventure with Boss 101!

Reminder

We have a ton of great suggestions but could always use another if you have one!

Design a Hat for Boss 101. Well, more like SUGGEST a Hat for Boss 101! HAHA!

So yes, we are planning on getting Boss 101 in your hands soon and ONE LAST THING we are doing is running a contest to YOU to suggest a hat. Drop us a line anywhere (details follow) and we will collect all the submissions and pick on to go into the game in true Boss 101 style. Suggest what you like but realize that we will have to respect various licenses and copyrights. Also we will be taking any suggestion and Boss 101’ing in our own way. You only need to supply a suggestion and we will put it on the list.

General Contest Rules and Guides:
– Entry is free and thank you for your support!
– Suggest any subject, theme or person you might like to see as a Boss 101 hat
– You can suggest anything – animate or inanimate!
– Please use common sense. Offensive or tasteless suggestions aren’t needed or welcome.
– If your idea is chosen we will do our best to bring it to life
– You can suggest in the replies here or mail us at hatcontest @ boss101.com (remove spaces)
– The contest will run three weeks

Thank you for your time and we appreciate all your support!

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!

Hello and welcome back to the Boss 101 development update for the week! Thank you for joining us!

Help us design a hat!

Do not forget the hat contest is still going on for this week and NEXT. All you need to do is reply to this post and suggest a hat you would like to see in Boss 101. THAT’S IT! If we choose your idea we’ll make it and YOU and YOUR FRIENDS will get to see it in Boss 101. Some basic notes about the contest.

General Contest Rules and Guides:
– Entry is free and thank you for your support!
– Suggest any subject, them or person you might like to see as a Boss 101 hat
– You can suggest anything animate or inanimate!
– Please use common sense. Offense or tasteless suggestions aren’t needed or welcome.
– If your idea is chosen we will do our best to bring it to life
– You can suggest in the replies here or mail us at hatcontest @ boss101.com (remove spaces)
– The contest will run till August 20th 2017

On Screen Warnings

As you may know already we have a series of status effects in the game that can trip up your fight against the bosses. Of course we provide you with PLENTY of counters for any move a boss can make but we are always accounting for the times when you may get caught flat footed. For those times we have on screen warnings to tell you what is going on and what you need to do.

In the great effort to clean up and polish the game we have been re-examining assets we made one, two or even three years ago. THREE YEARS! Holy moley!

The status arrows and warnings were done a while back and when we were tuning the game we wanted to add a little punch to them so they stood out and you could see them a little better. Let’s take a look at some of the before and after shots so you can see what we are talking about.

First off is the basic struggle arrow. This is what you would get when you are frozen or webbed in the game. It is designed to inform you about how to deal with your current status. We have a countdown that speeds up if you wiggle your control directions. Classic struggle stuff. Check out the before and after. You will notice things were scaled up and we added a nice glow around the edges to pop it off the screen a little better.

Old Version

New Version

Here’s another status indicator that got a touch up. Check out this before and after.

Old Version

New Version

Finally we have MISTER SNAIL! Some of the boss weapons can slow your movement speed so we have Mister Snail to tell you about it. LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS!

Old Version

New Version

Some examples of the Work in Progress shots from the game

Old version WIP in game – old number countdown and old art

New version WIP in game – old number countdown and new art

Screenshot mock up with the new number countdown

OK – that was a lot to cover and we hope you enjoyed this look at the progress towards final. We expect to do a status update about where we are in the next week or so. Generally speaking – it’s all good news so stay tuned and THANK YOU for all the support.

Please always remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!

Boss 101 Screenshot

Shower and stay clean even in the middle of battles!

Hello and welcome to the latest Boss 101 update!

Thank you for joining us and we have some exciting news YOU can participate in right now!

Design a Hat for Boss 101. Well, more like SUGGEST a Hat for Boss 101! HAHA!

So yes, we are planning on getting Boss 101 in your hands soon and ONE LAST THING we are doing is running a contest to YOU to suggest a hat. Drop us a line anywhere (details follow) and we will collect all the submissions and pick on to go into the game in true Boss 101 style. Suggest what you like but realize that we will have to respect various licenses and copyrights. Also we will be taking any suggestion and Boss 101’ing in our own way. You only need to supply a suggestion and we will put it on the list.

General Contest Rules and Guides:
– Entry is free and thank you for your support!
– Suggest any subject, theme or person you might like to see as a Boss 101 hat
– You can suggest anything – animate or inanimate!
– Please use common sense. Offensive or tasteless suggestions aren’t needed or welcome.
– If your idea is chosen we will do our best to bring it to life
– You can suggest in the replies here or mail us at hatcontest @ boss101.com (remove spaces)
– The contest will run three weeks

Check out a few of the lids you will share space with if you get selected!

Ok – onto BOSS INTERACTION!

We always enjoyed the idea of a little boss interaction with the player during the battle. It’s something we built into the bigger boss encounters. The general idea here is we are always looking for ways to entertain you. Occasionally as you battle the boss will blurt out a little phrase while he’s attacking. It’s mostly a nod to the idea the bosses are like you. They are screaming at their opponent as they look for the best shot or try to get in the winning blow. Check out some of the possible things a boss might say as you whale away.

The riddler!

The comedian!

The cheater!

The challenger!

OK – just a small sample of what you can expect when YOU play Boss 101. There’s more to come of course and we will be showing you as much as we can leading into the release.

Thank you for stopping by and drop a suggestion below if there is a hat idea YOU would like to see!

Thank you and remember to always LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!

Boss 101 Screenshot

You want power armor? You want a team that rocks?

YOU GOT IT!

Boss 101 Armor Brigade!

YEAH BUDDY!

Hello and welcome to the latest Boss 101 update!

Thank you for joining us again as we talk this week about the Boss 101 Steam Achievements! Exciting stuff right?

Steam Achievements

So you know we have spoken about the various in-game alerts for things like minor quests and story related activities. Well, a few of these dovetail into the main game achievements you can get. We have a list below of all the main achievements as well as the name of the achievement.

As you might guess the goal of these is to give YOU some fun challenges as you are playing the game. There are a few about collecting things and to get some of them you will end up doing a little dive into the story and background we have in the game. Mostly though – we aimed the majority of them at the core game loop with a bunch of hidden ones for people who want to explore all the aspects of the game.

Things like the hat collection and gun collection are not small things to do as we have nearly 260 hats in the game and about 50 or so guns. You do get some freebies but the rest you will have to earn. Ideally though – that will be enjoyable for most of you (at least we hope so). Every single hat and gun is crafted to be a cool addition to your game. It’s pretty exciting for us to be heading into the finish since we want to know how YOU will feel about Boss 101.

OK – check out the latest…

Part  1

Part 2

Part 3

In Steam!

Making Boss 101 and heading into the finish

I need to take a break here and tell you about two people who are working with me to bring you the best game possible. They are none other than Manon and Joshua. I know I have spoken about our team in the past and you might guess I have the utmost respect for their efforts and commitment in bringing you Boss 101.

You already know we are the people who MOST want to see Boss 101 come out. It’s in our best interests to get you the game sooner than later and every day it’s not in your hands is a day we aren’t generating income from the release.

The thing is, and this is the point I am driving at, we want you to have the best game possible. That gets a LOT of lip service in the game development community. Along with the words “Metroidvania” or “Souls-like” you probably hear “bring you the best” just as much. The final proof will be in the shipped game but we are indeed committed.

This take a lot of effort and willpower and I can tell you right now if it wasn’t for those two the Boss 101 you would be getting would be vastly different and in many ways a much poorer game. These two have gone all in and together we have a game we are really proud of. Again – I know you might hear this little line a lot but we are living our dreams.

I guess I’ll leave it with this. It’s not been an easy road since we effectively did everything the ‘hard’ way. We didn’t take shortcuts on quality. We WERE efficient but we didn’t skimp on the extras we wanted to give you. The game is about high value for you the player.

I was speaking with Manon earlier this week and we were talking about how none of us expected the game to go past ONE year much less turn into THREE years. Think about that. Sounds crazy right? Now go back and look at our development blogs from one year ago, from TWO YEARS ago. See that game there? That’s the one you would have gotten at the time. It would have been OK I guess but it wouldn’t be THIS Boss 101 and honestly this is the BEST one we can give you.

There’s not much time left in the polish and bug phase. We expect to announce a date soon and WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE. We know you want the game. We know you have been waiting. WE KNOW YOU MIGHT THINK US CRAZY TO PUT ALL THIS EFFORT IN.

Really though – it is what we need to do to feel good about shipping Boss 101.

Thank you Manon & Thank You Joshua.

If anyone is still reading this and has any doubts about following a lifelong desire or dream. Do it. You will never regret it. You will never look back on taking a bold risk to make your life better. It’s in the EFFORT we improve.

Do that and remember to always – live your dreams!

Best,

-Tim

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!

Boss 101 Screenshot

Go, go power beatdown armor!

Hello and welcome back to the Boss 101 Weekly Update!

Quick update about the release and progress towards it!

This week was mostly bug fixes and a lot of sound system polish. There’s a long story in there but the summary is – we found a way to improve the sound and music in the game and implemented it. The end result for you should be a better aural experience.

Beyond that we continue with polish and testing. We are also beginning to do limited testing with close friends and fans to help identify and clean out bugs.

Overall progress is good and we are jamming along 24/7 on bringing you Boss 101!

Lore and world building continue

So when we were putting together the characters for Boss 101 we wanted to add little personality traits and identifiers for each of the people you will meet. Part of that implementation is the passport system and the Gopher Wiki system. These are mostly for people who might be interested in the background and history of things in the game.

A key point for us in doing this is to make even the READING of the stuff fun for you. This means an interesting presentation of the info and as much as possible making the information itself fun and meaningful to read.

Enter the Boss 101 Galactic Horoscopes!

Ok – we thought it might be nice to do something along the lines of a horoscope or a ‘blood type’ guide. Way back in the day I remember reading things like the Street Fighter II manual and seeing Guile had Type O blood or Ken had Type B. Now to me, as a kid, this didn’t mean anything since I wasn’t familiar with blood types as they relate to personalities. HOWEVER, I did think it was super cool they included this. Basically, even not getting the whole picture gave me the sense there was a lot going on with these characters I didn’t know.

So here we are with Boss 101. Well, we added a horoscope of our own and gave each of the characters you meet a personality type. Now, we have this entire behind the scenes system of why each person is classified the way they are, it has to do with age, personality and function in the game. Beyond that though we added this little icon to each of the passports as some sort of galactic guide.

Of course we like to think that each character is much more than just a horoscope rating but we do think it’s fun to have these little touches in the game. Heck we use them ourselves and it does help with the writing and conceptualization of the character.

Also – look how dope those little icons are! SO CHARMING!

Check out the images!

Visitors with passports

Even your gopher friends have passports and horoscope traits!

OK – that will close it out for this week. Thank you again for your support, comments and messages. We appreciate it and are doing our best for YOU!

Remember to always – LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

Best,

-Tim

Boss 101 Info Roundup
Release Date: 2017
Planned Price: $9.99
Boss 101 Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please wishlist us if you would be so kind!