April 2024 Update

I captured this video and decided to write this update on April 6th, but now it’s nearly a week later. So this update will cover roughly the start or March to roughly the start of April.

This month was all about the game’s first boss! I had previously done some initial setup and got myself excited about the concept. I thought I had basically figured out how the fight should go, but I was a little overconfident about that. This month had some heavy iteration, a lot of self doubt, and ultimately a breakthrough. Figuring out bullet patterns has been a huge learning curve, and having a boss function the way a boss should has been hard too, but mostly it’s just a pretty heavy coding lift (and as much as I try to “do it right”, it feels like a house of cards... but like, a pretty good house of cards).

My initial attempt at an attack from this boss was just to shoot aimed bullets straight at the player, quickly. The issue there is they were quite easy to dodge. Then I tried more slowly, more random, bigger, smaller… and eventually realized the answer to all of these was “yes”, but with heavy tweaking and iteration.

I also did some work to better integrate the electrical hazards into the fight, and had an “ah-ha!” moment when I decided to make them electrify (and enlarge) the boss’s bullets.

I had another pattern in mind for this boss as well and did some initial work to implement it, but for now that particular pattern feels like a “maybe later, if necessary” addition. For now I’m more focused on what the bosses do when their turrets are destroyed, and I have some ideas that I think will be fun to explore.

I’m starting to become aware that working on a boss for 3 months is a lot when the game has lots of other areas that need work, and other new features to add. But I’m finding the process to be quite instructive, teaching me lessons I’m sure I’ll be bringing across to the rest of the game. I also know doing something for the first time is obviously going to take longer, and I’ll be happy to have gained the experience of making a boss fight. Still, I'm hoping to have it in a place where I can say it's good enough within the next month or so.