boss101

2016.08.28 Boss 101 Dialog Box Advancements

Welcome to the Boss 101 Weekly update!

Let’s talk about dialog, specifically about the way we interact with YOU in Boss 101 through the dialog box.

If you recall the dialog boxes from recent updates, they were pretty practical affairs. Got the job done. Readable and overall pretty straightforward. Well, as you know in Boss 101 land “good enough” ISN’T! No it is NOT!

Improved Dialog Box

Look at some of the new features we added to make your reading engagement easier, better and more entertaining. We have things like font style changing, pausing, more interesting text draw-in and allowing you to interactively speed up and slow reading down to YOUR pace.

Name Tags

We added the ability to put a small animated name tag above the current speaker. Previously we had it above Max and Steve on special occasions but now EVERYONE gets a tag!

Below are some examples of colored text for highlighting those super important (or funny) phrases. We also added triggers for text effects to add a little oomph to the reading experience.

Check out Rob giving us one of his deep though moments here with some of the new effects in place.

A small set of samples of effects

OK – the whole idea is to make the game and the enjoyment as awesome as we can. This is just a small example of the things we are making daily. Everything we are putting in is about YOUR entertainment. Boss 101 is more than just an action adventure game and as we edge every closer to shipping we will be bringing you more looks at the game making magic we employ.

As we have said before, it’s very important to bring you the best game and value possible. We want you to be right there with Steve and Max while they battle the bad guys and discover things about the universe AND THEMSELVES!

How do we do that you might wonder? Well, we are keeping you in mind as we work and most importantly – WE LIVE OUR DREAMS!

Remember to live your dreams too and we’ll see you soon!

-Tim

Boss 101 on Steam Wishlist us if you would be so kind. Thank you!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920

2016.08.13 Boss 101, Polishing the Stores

Welcome to another Boss 101 Development Update and thank you so much for stopping by to see what’s up!

The Team Makes the Difference

I want to start this week with something I have mentioned before but it bears repeating. The team bringing you Boss 101 is one of the finest teams I have ever had the privilege of working with. It may be boring to hear that but I can assure you the work is anything but. These are dedicated people who are going the extra mile at every single turn to bring you the very best game we can make.

Manon (pixel artist) and Joshua (lead programmer) along with myself are the core of the Boss 101 experience. The game would not be this awesome without their help. There is an old saying I heard a long time ago that you can judge a leader by what his team does when he is NOT in the room. Well, I think it is better to say when you give the right people good direction and let them run free they will deliver the goods whether you mapped things out perfectly or not.

What I am getting at is there is a TON of stuff in Boss 101 that was not plotted out perfectly at the beginning. The thing is, when it came time to make an A or B decision – both Joshua and Manon have consistently picked the highest quality outcome. This in turn is being passed directly back to you in the form of value and gameplay.

I really am a fortunate person to get to work with these fine people and I think you will agree when you see the final game.

Gun Store Touchups

Moving into the polish stuff for this week. First up is the gun store. As you have seen before, the gun store has had a couple upgrades over the time we’ve been working on Boss 101. All the upgrades have been about making the user interface clearer and easier to use.

Something you might already suspect is good looking does not always equal easy to use. We have adjusted a lot of little interface items due to this. When things first go in we tend to be pretty proud they are in and working. From there on out it is pretty easy to get used to a functionality and forget the end user will likely see the interface in an entirely different light. (probably a much less forgiving one too!).

We have gone through several of the panels in the Command Center and the idea is we touch them up to provide the information needed quickly and without any fuss. Where things were unclear we worked to make them MORE clear. Check out the gun panels below being lightened up so you can see the gun hardware you are getting.

Old Version

New Version

Now we understand there is nothing technically wrong with the old version. The thing sticking out for us was that it was a) very old in terms of implementation and design and b) a bit dark compared to other store panels. The corrected one is much more in-line with all the other stores and the Command Center in general.

Hat Store touchups

We have a bigger update planned for the hat store but check out the jazzed up hat room. Again – these are some other items we are excited to talk with you about but the deal here was to add some space for UI elements and also clean up the background. Of course you can have tech in the Command Center without Professor Gopher and Friends!

Old Version

New Version WIP

Screenshot of the Day

Adding in a hat inspired by the great J Hause! (check out his page here https://www.facebook.com/Ghosthause)

Thank you again for stopping by and hope you enjoyed this look at the game. We appreciate your support and emails!

Remember to always LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

2016.08.07 Boss 101: UI Work and Sweating the Details!

You asked for it and you got it! Welcome to the Boss 101 update where we sweat the details and share the secrets behind the making of Boss 101 the game.

Speaking of details, this week we’re looking at more of the little touches we think make Boss 101 a special game. Things like interface cleanup as well as various UI screen niceties to enhance your game experience are covered. We feel the ONLY way to bring Boss 101 into your life is by giving you OUR VERY BEST EFFORT and then some. We also believe the way to make a mark, give you value and bring you back for more is to put forth an effort so spectacular you can’t ignore the joy we had making it.

Every day we look at ways to make each element of the game as fun, engaging and charming as possible. No screen, character or BUTTON is immune to this thinking. It’s not enough to have a great gameplay feature or some neat looking loading screen. We feel each part of the experience must match up and equal the rest. We have themed the entire game around the Boss 101 look so let’s check out samples of what I am blabbing about shall we?

Main Screen Options Panel

Once you get to the main screen panel you can access the base options for the game. Among other things you will be able to configure your keyboard controls. Let’s talk about that for a second.

When we first looked at this panel we had static icons to represent the various controls you were going to remap. That’s all well and good but how much cooler is it when the buttons move and activate? MUCH BETTER WE SAY! Check out the screen:

Work in Progress Movie Room Icons

You can see here in the movie room the start of the process for labels. We are adding in animated icons for the movies you can replay. Again, a static icon would do just fine but that’s not us and we think we can do better FOR YOU! We’ll post more in progress images here as we go forward.

The room! The work in progress area:

Close up


The Endless Boss Win Warp Screen

Winning a round in the Endless Boss mode will toss you to the warp screen where you can catch your breath and ready yourself for the next round. Here is where ROB and the Cosmic Clicks ship will meet you for a refueling stop. We thought about this room and felt ROB would definitely want to be on this journey with you so we had him join you in the win area.

Of course the gophers show up to give the Clicks ship a bit of polish and top off the fuel tank. YOU KNOW!

OK – that is it for the week’s highlights. Hope you enjoyed seeing the plan come closer to fruition. Boss 101 will be released sooner than later and though we can’t put a pin on the EXACT DATE we can tell you this – it will be the most fun, most charm and the very best value we can possibly give you. YES!!!

Take care and remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

2016.07.30 Boss 101: World Building the Main Rooms

Welcome to the latest Boss 101 update!

Let’s talk some more about world building in Boss 101. Specifically we are going to talk about the way we setup environments in the game and make them consistent during your stay in the Command Center.

Let’s look at how this evolved. We have the Start Screen and early on we wanted it to have a variety of environments (rain, night, day, etc). The idea was to give you a sense of time and life in the game. You leave, come back and time has passed.

Well, you can imagine that opened up a rabbit hole of possibilities for us. The moment we had a changing Start Screen we talked about changing the pet window in the Command Center. Of course, once you do THAT you start to think about all the other screens built off there which would likely have the same environment.

Start Screen – Sunset

Ok – so we looked at Kite Hill and thought “That’s in the same area but maybe off to the left or right from the start screen.” It wasn’t long before we hooked up that location to have the same type of environment (with slight tweaks) as the start screen. From there we ended up going through all the locations you can access directly from the Command Center and creating custom but similar looks for you to see.

Kite Hill – Sunset from another vantage point

We have the Endless Boss Launch area. The Clicks ship in there shows and open sky that now reflects the rest of the Command Center. Pet Hill as well as the Options and the Credits Movie area are all part of the main game environment you see at the beginning.

Endless Boss launch area with opening to sky

Pet Hill

Options Screen WIP

The thing we wanted for you was to make something special and interesting when you played. A lot of our time is put into making the game feel like a place and the people you meet as interesting as possible.

Examples with a Rainbow Sky

Pet Hill with Rainbows!

Endless Launch rainbows

We really do believe it is ALL of this which adds up to make a special game. As we heard Racer X once say “When YOU care, THEY care” and who are we to argue.

Thanks again for stopping by and remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim