Hello and Welcome back to the weekly Boss 101 update! Hope all is going well with you and we are doing AWESOME thank you very much!

Rogues Gallery

In Boss 101 you receive visitors during the game. They stop by the Command Center for a short bit and MAYBE they’ll drop some knowledge on you. One thing about the world of Boss 101, it is big and you will be an important part of it. One of the ways we are helping realize that idea is showing you some of the people in the galaxy. These are other races and cultures affected by the robos. As they say – “an enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

Check out these cats below. They’re called ‘bounty hunters’ at the moment but you might end up knowing them on a first name basis. 

The Rogues themselves



Command Center Area (for reference)



Dialog Machinery

So now that we are here in the Command Center let’s talk a little about that dialog panel at the top of the screen. You see the guys chattering away? Looks FUN right? Well we think so but we also know you might need a little break from the constant fun and a way to know when news is really important versus just regular normal important! HAAAAAAAAAAAA!

As part of the polish phase we’re adding in a nice little set of flaps that open and close when a new speaker comes on or you the player activate some important info switch. Check it out! 

The animation layout and work



Sample of the panel in operation



Endless Boss Instructions

As part of the polish pass we’re adding in tutorials and instructions where they make sense. In doing that we are looking to keep the spirit of Boss 101. For the most part this means we have the gophers and their buddies helping you out with instructions. Let’s check out the Endless Boss area for an example shall we?

Here’s the Endless Boss area work in progress screen. It has all the things you can expect to see and do including equipping your guns. We used this a reference page when we were designing the gopher instruction panel. 



Check out this animation pass setup for the panels working. This is in Spine and has a rough set of instructions for reference.



The same setup in the game



Check out that sweet panel action. A couple of tweaks to the panels and the actual instruction sheet and we should be in business

YES!

There you are folks – another look at the behind the scenes magic we’re working on every single day. It’s all about making Boss 101 something special and we hope you enjoy the process as much as we do.

Thanks and remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

First off - screenshot Wednesday!

We put some developer balloons in Boss 101 - these are really only for the Credits Movie but we are testing them out in the main game just for fun.



Second - Boss 101 has a Humble Store Front. More news to come but you can put Boss 101 on your Humble wish list!

Boss 101 Store on Humble Bundle



Talk with you soon!

-Tim

Welcome back and hope you are doing well! We’re here to talk about the ongoing touchups and polish going into Boss 101.

Show don't tell

A lot of what we are doing is making sure there is something interesting happening for you on EVERY screen in the game. We look at Boss 101 as a world and you are living in that world with S.T.E.V.E. and Max while you are playing the game. For that to feel as awesome as possible we want to put in the details that bring the game screens to life. We want to show the world as we see it, in cool details and interesting action. 

Most of the time we are taking the ‘show don’t tell’ approach and putting the action up on the screen for you to see and make your own conclusions from. We often talk about creating enough detail on the game screen for you to get a sense of the world’s story without us having to outright spell everything out. There are a LOT of great movies and games out there which do this so well. I think one easy example is an old movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the first 13 minutes we learn just about everything we need to know about Indiana Jones. That sequence involves him stealing the idol by sneaking around all the traps, then escaping in spectacular fashion. He then LOSES the idol and escapes another near crazy situation by leaping into a river and climbing into a plane as it is taking off. Of course, in the plane’s seat is a snake and he hates snakes. Ok, seriously, by the end of that sequence we know exactly how cool this guy is, we’ve seen him do his thing and he’s been through a variety of situations. It’s a brilliant intro to a character. I would also argue that Pirates of the Caribbean intro of Captain Jack Sparrow is pretty compelling in terms of ‘show don’t tell’.

The point of mentioning all this is to talk about the kinds of things we are looking to do with Boss 101. We want you to come back to each screen and maybe see something new or some detail you might have missed the first time. We have lots of animations and details we are putting in to help round out the story of the world and the people in it. 

Endless Boss Launch Center

Of course, if you are reading this devlog you have a huge heads up over people playing the game since you are seeing the work first. Here we have the Endless Boss launch room. It was coming along really well but we still had a pass to do with your friends and mine – the gopher crew. This is the instruction panel were you will see how the various modes for Endless Boss actually work. It wasn’t enough to just have some words written on the panel. We wanted to actually have some cool gopher tech happening. You know those guys are ESSENTIAL to the success of your mission. They run a lot of the main base along with R.O.B.

Here we have the panel in progress with a call out to the art we want for the gopher tech.


Base art in before animation and a sample of the text layout


Base animations ready


Making programming notes


First pass in game


YES!! That is how the magic is brought to you. We’re doing this all over the game. Check out this one on the options screen…



What are those guys doing? What do you think they are up to? That is part of the Boss 101 magic. You get to join in the story too!

Talk with you soon and remember to always – LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Boss 101 working on warp effects for those all important planet hops!

The User Interface and You

With Boss 101 being developed on a PC and shipping on PC (first) and consoles (after) we knew we had to address something all PC game developers address in every game. That is, how to best use the keyboard and mouse as well as the gamepad. 

For the most part I (Tim) play Boss 101 with the gamepad. I use an XBox type controller and have been doing so since we started developing. It’s great and I love it. Joshua (our lead programmer) uses the keyboard and mouse for everything. It’s his preference and it works for him. Well, one thing that came up recently was the mapping of the controller functions to the keyboard. From there we thought about how we could allow the player to use the mouse and keyboard inside the game as well as re-map the various keyboard controls. 

Mouse Over

OK, this may seem like a pretty trivial thing and in a lot of ways it is. What I am referring to is the ability to get focus from whatever you hover you mouse on. When we started in Boss 101 the mouse was pretty limited in terms of pushing buttons and gaining focus. Mostly what you did was move the arrow (or movement) keys around and THAT was how you highlighted things to activate with your action key. This was pretty cumbersome since most people don’t use a PC like that.

Joshua put in a pass of allowing the mouse to be used in a much more natural way. It seems so BLAZINGLY obvious and so well done that it might seem like a ‘no duh’ moment. We agree but we wanted to share with you some of the things we are doing to make sure you get as many niceties as possible when you play. Check out the screens below for some samples of the focus following the mouse.

Start Screen – notice the buttons highlight as the mouse moves over them.


Command Center – notice the various parts highlight as the mouse moves around.


It’s all about making your user experience awesome. We’re down in the core folks, making magic for you!

Keyboard Controls

Below are the initial planning pages for the Keyboard remap controls. This page is temp art and layout with all the initial planning for the controls. Of course this will be art’d up and clean for final.



In game temp art


Kitty Skies

Added in some variations to the Start Screen art. When you start up the game you get a rotation of environments. Some show up for special reasons, some show up just because.



Also – a new friend showed up in the command center and promptly took a nap in the window.



That’s all for this week but return soon for more updates and news as we get ever closer to the release!

Remember to live your dreams!

-Tim

Working on Kite Hill among other things. Yep, you can fly a kite to relax and yes - there are rainbows!

Remember to live your dreams! STEVE and Max certainly are!

Boss 101 March Development Update and Early Access questions answered

Hello and welcome back to the latest Boss 101 update. We appreciate your time and support. Let’s get right into things shall we? We are here today to give you an update about the game’s progress and talk a little about the schedule we see going forward. Also, we are answering questions about Early Access.

For some of you this might be an AWESOME read filled with behind the scenes information and for a few it might be a lot of writing to cover a simple subject. Let’s start with the simple answer first and then elaborate. 

The current expectation among the team is we are shipping Boss 101 in 2016 and ideally mid/late summer. We can’t put that in stone and if you will ALLOW US A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME we can explain what’s been happening and how soon you might get a copy in your hands. 

Light at the end of the tunnel

Yes, WE DO SEE THE GAME HEADING INTO A FINISH! While we don’t have an exact date the main components of the game are in place. The game loop has been tested and is in order. Most, all the main gameplay elements have their foundations and several passes on them. All good and well.

The light!


Polish and Tuning

I know it might be hard to read and understand how something can have all the main components in place and not be ready for something like Early Access but I will attempt to give you our perspective on things. I know it might not satisfy those who are really anxious for Boss 101. I also know we have some extremely caring and patient people who would probably be OK with a rough pass on Boss 101 in Early Access since after all it’s called EARLY ACCESS! HA!

From where we stand Boss 101 is moving along smoothly and all of us are working our hardest to make sure the game has as much quality and polish as we can put in it. When it comes to something like Early Access we have seen a few roaring successes and a LOT of really bad releases. One thing the successes seem to share is a development team dedicated to constant feedback and frequent updates to the builds. One thing the failures seem to share is low feature count, bugs and devs who become somewhat absent parents in terms of feedback and engagement.

The slings and arrows of outrageous boss fights!


For Early Access to work we would want it to be a stellar experience for you. We would want to be right there for comments, feedback, fixes and updates. We would expect you want no less. Of course, we would also want it to make sense from a developmental point of view (i.e. more sales and/or a much better game). At the moment, it doesn’t make the most sense to put our time into an Early Access with chief reason being we just don’t have the bandwidth to do it the way we want to. 

Endless Launch Room getting prepped


Your personal opinion might differ and we thank you for believing in us that much. The simple truth is the team has less people than fingers on one of your hands. We are daily stacked with the task of taking what is in the game and making sure it plays nice and well with all the other parts. This includes basic gameplay balance as well as core level functionality tweaks and adjustments. 

An example among many examples would be the option screen. We are adjusting it to have all the functionality one might expect for a game. We have the broad features but are now drilling down to specifics such as adjustable screen sizes, configuration of controls, sound panel controls, etc. This is just a small example of an area where the basic code and art structure is in and the shine is being added. Take this example across a multitude of systems and you start to see the picture. 

Some might debate that it’s probably better to go Early Access and let the community in on the dev cycle. It does allow a lot of nice things. We still have to circle back to the position we would want to do it right and at the moment it just doesn’t make the most sense given our internal schedules and manpower. 

Hats, some new versions in
 

What about a Beta?

We might have mentioned this before but we are planning a BETA. For that we are planning to give a limited amount of people access to the game to review and help us shake down some of the early issues. If you are interested in that you can always mail us at hello @ donleytimefoundation.com (remove the spaces). Just mention you are interested in helping out with any early BETA’s and we will put you on the list to be contact if and when the time arrives.

So to sum it up

As we have said before in prior posts and replies - giving you our best effort hopefully isn’t making people impatient. We are not looking to disappoint anyone or make you personally upset. If the end result is a better game with a much higher value there really is little loss for the user. We’ve only promised the best game we can do. We’ve had delays but they were communicated here and in all our blogs. We've welcomed feedback and answered every comment directly. Also, we aren't doing a Kickstarter and we haven't taken anyone's money. The only thing happening is we are making a game, on our own dime, in the hopes of bringing you our best. We just can't rush it, it doesn't get us anything and won’t make your experience any better. We have only a few people so out time is really at a premium.

I may have mentioned this earlier but I have been making games for a while and the thing which sets the gems I have played apart from the ones I have long forgotten is the care and love the devs put into their effort. Nearly every single game I can name that I love also seems to have been equally loved by its creators. Now it’s our turn. We aim to have Boss 101 entertain and delight you.

Thank you again for all the support, e-mails and contact via our various blog posts. We do read and listen to all of you and it MAKES OUR DAY to hear from you. 

Crushing the bosses!


We are going to keep you posted as we have been with weekly screenshot posts and weekly blog updates. We appreciate you and your time.

Remember always to live your dreams! 

-Tim

Well, not so much a screenshot as design work for the amazing Gopher Wikipedia you get in Boss 101. What you are seeing are the first pass designs for various page templates. In the game you can look up facts about the people and places you visit in the Gopher database. These icons are the ones they use to help sort and identify the types of pages you will find.

Enjoy and talk with you soon!

-Tim

Super Boss Battle Tuning 

So we have our train boss with his various abilities. He is a conglomeration of a lot of prior boss abilities and a test of all you have learned about Boss fights up to that point. Boy, I bet you have NEVER HEARD ABOUT THAT HAPPENING IN ANY GAME EVER! HAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

The Boss himself


At any rate, one of his abilities is the “earthquake car” or more appropriately the ground-pounder car. What this does is cause a pillar of rock and sand to come out of the ground to block your path. The idea here is you can shoot and destroy it or fly over it if you have the room and time. 

For a lot of the boss fighting we are looking at giving the player choices in any situation since that seems to be the way people enjoy and remember their most awesome battles. If the player has a bunch of options then a successful decision can seem even more amazing since they feel they made the ‘correct’ choice. If there is only one solution in a situation then the game turns into a war of attrition where the player simply cycles through failure until they arrive at what the game designers wanted them to do. I should stress that BOTH situations can be used and be successful for a designer. For us in Boss 101 we are looking to give you choices though. We want you to make the moves and decisions your way as much as possible.

So the deal was – the boss weapon for the train is a copy of the boss weapon found in the regular rounds. The thing is while you are battling the train you follow it on its path across the land. The tracks it’s on go up and down and can lead you to never see the pillars coming out of the ground since you are too high to see them. Well, we needed to fix that and so we did. 

Here is a sample of the old style pillars and the kind of height discrepancy you can get between the pillar and train.



Things work OK if you are near the ground...



Check out how much space you have flying around down there! CRAZY. The train battle is above this area!



Made some notes about a new pillar set



Get the new size pillar back



Example of the new pillar in scale in the game. The way the pillars work is they rise a random amount from the ground. That way we only have to create one pillar instead of a bunch of sizes.



There it is, a behind the scenes look at the way we work to create little tunes and tweaks to improve the gameplay. It’s all about giving you the choices and ultimately making the game FUN.

Thank you again for your letters and contact! We appreciate and reply as quickly as we can.

Talk with you soon and remember to live your dreams!

-Tim

Tuning the bosses in Robo - Egypt!