boss101

Happy New Year and welcome to the first Boss 101 update of 2016.

Today we are diving into the dialog and storytelling in Boss 101. Specifically, we are going to look at how we deliver the story to you via cinematics and  in-game dialog panels.

Back in the web version we had a pretty basic communication line to the player. There was a small dialog box at the top of the screen and that was about it. The beginning of the game round had chatter between you and the boss and there were after round talks back at home base. Well, in the new Boss 101 we expanded that quite a bit to allow more storytelling fun.

In the Command Center we still have the basic dialog window where you receive communication from your friends, family and new associates. Whether or not the information is important is up to you…

We have cinematics of course…

and things like Kite Hill where you get insights and relax…

Rounds start with a little back and forth…

and making a boss always has some commentary…

All this comes to you via the scripting system developed by our programmer Joshua. It’s really the heart of the interaction and a blast to use. Believe it or not we start all dialogs in Excel (not Word). The reason for this is twofold.

The first reason is Excel allows us to clearly see spacing and formatting better than Word. We can set margins to be the exact size of the game dialog boxes and this makes my life (as the writer) a LOT easier. You might think it’s just about writing the dialog and letting the computer figure out all the spacing and carriage returns but a LOT of times that is not really what you want at all. Many sentences have to be adjusted so you don’t get one letter or short word on a second or third line. There aren’t many programs I know of that can handle that kind of dialog adjustment automatically.

That’s right kids! All the dialog and conversations in Boss 101 are handled with manual love and care. Each line is crafted for maximum impact and hilarity – at least that’s the intent. HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Setup In Excel

Two – we can take all the lines directly from Excel and do a cut and paste into the game scripts. Makes things MUCH easier than trying to deal with weird formatting issues we used to get with other programs. You see, there are tons of little codes inside the dialog scripts we can easily create inside Excel (and we color code them for easy identification). When we move things from Excel to the game it’s just a CTRL+C, CTRL+V and BLAMMO! All done! All the Excel specific stuff goes away and we are left with a clean, nicely formatted dialog script.

Setup In Script Engine – from the above Excel example

YOU SEE HOW WE ARE!

Hope you enjoyed that look at the insides of the scripting engine and look for more inside peeks at the makings of the story and the game in coming weeks!

Thank you for stopping by and remember to live your dreams!

-Tim

Hello and welcome to the end of the year Boss 101 update.

2015 was a banner year and 2016 is the planned released of Boss 101 to YOU. We wanted to take this opportunity to review the last year. So let’s look at some of the progress we have seen (and this is only a small glimpse)

The Main Game

The Player Hat Store. The underlying functionality hasn’t changed but we upgraded the cosmetics and flow of the room to make it easier not only buy hats but see what you are wearing.

The Hat Store from the Boss 101 Web Game – A LONG TIME AGO! HAHA!

Version 1 – Early Development

Version 2 – Before the equipped panel was in

Version 3 – Adding in the Equipped panel for player readability

Professor Gopher Wiki
We also put in the Gopher Wiki so you can reference all the cool goodies in the game and get backstory on items and people.

Early version of the Wiki

Current version

More Gameplay Modes for you the player

We implemented to hat upgrade systems and the ability to have hats change your base bullets!

Command Center Layout

Here is the main room you launch all your adventures from.

Upgraded the look and feel of the arcade machine

In an effort to make the player’s main room feel cooler and give you things to do between rounds we looked at improvements to the Command Center. The arcade machine is one of those items we love and want the player use and enjoy. You can win goodies to use in game so why not make it cool too look at?

Old version – not too shabby!

New Arcade Screen – more space and info for the player

Early Diagrams – Pass 1

Adjusted Pass for the game

Current pass of the arcade interface in game

Endless Boss Gameplay Mode

In what might be one of the biggest gameplay upgrades we implemented the Endless Boss Gameplay mode. In this you can grab your best gun and hat and hammer bosses to your heart’s delight. We like to think of it as pure arcade action. We are planning leaderboards and tracking so you can compare your best against your friends and the rest of the world.

Early Look at the design of the Endless Boss Launch room

First pass of art and code

Endless Boss Win Screen (between rounds)

Yes, you can fly around the Clicks ship during the break between bosses

Base Gameplay

Of course we are always working on the core game mechanics to keep the game a fun styled action adventure with cool mechanics.

Battle the bosses

Escort the baby robos level

Watch out for that water cannon!

A distant world

Some Special Notes

We got our steam store setup this year! YES!

We were featured in Indie Games Mag

We won the IRX Most Revolutionary Game award

Storytelling at the heart of Boss 101

It’s fitting we end on what might be the most important aspect of Boss 101 and that is the story and storytelling happening in the game. We think the game is at it’s best when bringing you along on the adventure of Max and STEVE. Their story is your story and journey. We have taken a lot of pains to make sure we deliver you an interesting and fun experience and that means making you part of the magic. You make choices with the guys about how things will progress and along the way you get to see Max, STEVE, ROB and their buddies learn and grow. Things aren’t always as they seem – just take a look at some of the in-game screens below to see the setups the guys can get in.

Boss 101 hacks the player base!

Picnic Time

Conference in the generator tube

Boss 101 playing board games

Thank you for checking in on us and keep coming back. We’re getting there and your support is appreciated!

Happy New Year to you and all the best!

-Tim

Happy Holidays from our family to yours! Wishing you the best in the coming year and beyond.

Remember to live your dreams!

-Tim

Fighting robo-pirate ships. A day in the life of Boss 101.

Welcome to the weekly Boss 101 update!

Today we are talking about one bad ass mo-fo, the Train Boss. This dude is found on one of the later planets and he is not one, not two but multiple parts and weapons you battle as you make way from the caboose to the front of the train.

Though he shares some of the base abilities of the earlier bosses (flames, lasers and ultra shots) he also has a new ones you haven’t seen. He has a train car which fires balls of plasma which can destroy YOUR shots. What the heck!?! Don’t fret, you have counters for all his tricks but you do have to be careful. This dude requires patience and a steady hand. Blasting away might not get you too far. Let’s look at some of the cars and the process behind the boss.

First off – he’s a train. HAAAAA!!! YOU KNOW THAT! Well, we had to create a track system and when I say “we” I mean Joshua, our uber programmer. I think the conversation went something like this

Me: Hey, what about a train boss thing?
Joshua: Yeah, we can do that.
Me: Man, we can have it race across the bottom of the screen all awesome.
Joshua: yah, totally. It will look cool.
Me: Dang, wouldn’t it be cool if the track actually had hills and stuff the train could move up and down on?
Joshua: I thought that is what we were just talking about. I was going to make that happen.
Me: WHAT!?! You mean you can code all that train shiz to work? Like a real train on sloping hills.
Joshua: Oh yah, S’easy.

Welp, guess what – he sure made it look easy. Once those tracks were in we started creating the cars and the play space you will fight in. Check out JUST A FEW of the awesome possum things we have.

Mine Layer Car – this guy will teleport in mines to block your path. Not something you want to hang around for a long time. Be sure to take this clown down quick.

Mortar Car – Lobs one of the biggest shells in the game at you. Sure you can shot it but if you’re caught in the explosions don’t blame us. We warned you.

Flak Cannon Car – designed to keep you in place and pound you out of the sky. He has to take a break between blasts so make the most of the time you get.

Laser Beam Eyes – fires trick shots

Gas Car – goes boom

Some early work on the process of the train boss and how we do art in general!

Hope you enjoyed that peek at the latest and come back for more. We do regular updates and intend to keep this up until the game ships AND BEYOND!!! YES!

And remember – live your dreams!

-Tim

Hey all!

Tim here and I wanted to ask you for your help in making Boss 101 the game you want to play! We post here every week, twice a week with the intent to give you a glimpse into the game and what we are making. Also, we love to hear what you think! Please keep the feedback coming via your letters and comments in the comment sections here. This game can only get better with MORE interaction from you.

We are heading into a crucial point in development. The all important tuning phase. This is where we making decisions about the pacing, speed and general feel of the game. Some of you are already on the BETA list and will be helping us out there and some will be reading these updates.

Comment, email, tell us what you are liking. Positive reinforcement is a good thing and it’s great to hear to focus on the stuff you are liking or want to see. We do want all feedback to be sure so let us know.

At any rate! Keep the comment and emails coming and expect a lot of looks at the game as we head down the long road to final!

-Tim

Welcome to the weekly Boss 101 Update!

Max’s (and your) Chain Gun in Boss 101

Max’s Chain Gun aka your MAIN GUN. This is the gun you use throughout the game and always have with you. Of course you have an alternate gun you can equip but the chain gun stays. It’s your go-to item for battling bosses.

Well, since we are making it the main gun we wanted to make it worthwhile to use and not go out of style. You might be asking yourself, “Self, how did they accomplish that?” Good question!

We give you the ability to upgrade the gun as you acquire bounty money. The gun starts out as a rusty old beater but you can get it into “whoop-ass” territory soon enough. Heck, pair it with the correct hat to boost its power and you will be rocking the bosses to the floor in no time.

When we started development we didn’t originally have this many levels of chain gun upgrades. As we played and progressed over the year we looked at the player guns and specifically this one. Since it was used so much we felt it needed to have some oomph and after checking out the bosses, intended gameplay and progression we came up with the current upgrades. Make no mistake the main question we ask of anything put in the game is “Is this fun?”

If I had to break down the thought process in the game features I would say this:

“What is this trying to do?”
“Is it fun?”
“Does it succeed at the above?” (this question is asked from the perspective of a fan who has paid for Boss 101)

The more reasons and yes answers for the above the better. We love the idea of cool for cool’s sake but at the same time we think it is even more awesome if something can be cool AND make some sort of sense in the game world and to the player.

We CANNOT wait till you are holding a controller and player Boss 101 yourself.

Check out some shots of the chain gun in action:
Your starting gun (there is a joke in there somewhere)

Chain Gun Level 3

Chain Gun Level 6

Chain Gun Level 9

Will you wield the golden Level 10 gun?!!?!? Reach for the sky and achieve it I say!

Remember folks – live your dreams, no one else will!

-Tim

Boss101 – the gophers and their marvelous flying machines. Catch ’em all when they fly around the levels.

They’re living their dreams and so should you!

Welcome to the weekly Boss 101 update

We’re getting in to the final stretch of 2015 and wow, the year has FLOWN by. It seems not long ago we started the weekly updates with the intent to keep you informed of our progress and communicate what Boss 101 was about.

HOLY CRAP TIME FLIES!

Heading into 2016

I guess we have already spoken about the 2016 plans but it bears refreshing. Boss 101 is currently heading towards a mid 2016 ship date. That is the result of the amount of polish and storytelling we want to do. The game COULD be done a lot sooner if we were willing to cut features and development time but ultimately we don’t feel it’s the correct thing to do. We think you deserve our VERY BEST EFFORT so we are giving you that!

Current Developments

A lot of the upcoming weeks are about tuning and polishing the underlying systems for guns, hats and boss weapons. As you might imagine these systems are connected so we are taking the time to refresh and reevaluate how things work. The last week has been breaking down the way the boss weapons are working with the hat system. A lot of this is ‘rock, scissors, paper’ balancing and sometimes that can go pretty easily if you have a solid foundation. We had long ago put a system in place which allows us to drop in and test values for weapons and abilities.

Random Bosses

Boss Tuning Work

Boss 101 is about bosses being made by you from a collection of boss parts. This leads to a lot of situations where you are mostly likely facing something completely new and unseen. Since that was probably the norm rather than the exception we are making sure you have options when you fight. One path is to pick your favorite gun and just start blasting, hoping your skill will carry you through. Another is to analyze the boss you are about to fight and make some deductions on HIS weakness versus YOUR strengths. You can play it as you want and both ways have benefits. For me, I do a bit of both. I have some favorite guns I tend to use a lot but sometimes I want to really out the hurt on a boss so I ring a hat or gun that will directly counter something he has. It’s a pretty fun system we hope you will enjoy too. Some images!!

Tuning

Some Boss Status Effect Icons you might see

Remember to keep living your dreams folks – no one else will do it for you!

-Tim

Welcome to this latest Boss 101 update!

As you might know we are well into tuning the game and making it as fun as we can for YOU! An area of interest is the amazing HAT STORE and all the wonderful goodies you can purchase in it.

We have over 200 hats and most all serve a practical purpose when it comes to playing the game and winning with style. If you have been following the dev blog you know hats provide a good amount of buffs to your character. They can beef up your weapons, give you more money when you win and they can protect you from boss attacks. That right there is a MOUTHFUL so let’s look at how we are balancing and tuning the numbers to make the most sense for you the player.

We start with a gigantic Excel sheet with all the hats and abilities listed on it. From there we can see how things relate to each other and how to scale the cost and performance of the hats. We actually do a similar thing for guns and other products in the game too.

The beginnings of all tuning – the planning stage

You can see we have a specific layout here to help speed up the inputting of abilities into the game. The Excel sheet (or Google Docs if you prefer) contains the names of the powers as well as the associated sprites and code which is called to use the hat. Once everything is nice and tidied up here it is a small matter of some cut and paste to bring this into the game.

The sheets have the sprite names for easy cut and paste

We are using GameMaker for Boss 101 and here are the kinds of fun things you too can expect when bringing your game to life. CODE and lots of it. Don’t be afraid! Well-structured code is your friend and mine. Boss 101 has a rather orderly code base to make things easy for a low level code guy like myself. That is all due to the powerhouse abilities of our lead programmer Joshua. He’s helped setup a situation where I can go in and implement easy changes and adjustments to the game. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a strong group of people on your team. It makes all the difference in your day to day.

Opening up Gamemaker and diving in

Handling the hat scripts

Once things are setup you can see the result in the Hat Store. Here we have a Kell hat ready to go for testing!

Over in the Make a Boss we have a typical situation you, the player, will encounter. A new boss with abilities you want to counter. So, pop open the Equip panel and search for the perfect lid to bring into battle. As you can see, boss abilities are listed on either side for easy comparison to your abilities. For instance this boss looks to have a web shooting arm. Well, thankfully the Kell hat looks to have a pretty decent amount of web resistance.

If you are feeling froggy you can even hit the ole RANDOM button to try your luck. Better yet, maybe you want to trust ROB with your battle plan. He will pick what he feels it the best hat and weapon you have for any particular battle.

So there you have it. A short look at the kind of work we are putting into one small aspect of Boss 101. There’s more to come each week as we look at more of the systems going into the game. In the meanwhile – thank you for stopping by and for your support!

Remember always to live your dreams!

-Tim