Play and Learn: Project 2

During this project we researched the fundamentals of boss fight game design. We wanted to know what aspects of a boss fight makes the fight good. A good boss fight often means it is satisfying for the player to fight and defeat. That is because boss fights are often some kind of a climax: they often occur at the end of a level and test the skills you learned in that period of time.

Our goal for this project is to design a product that helps game designers with the process of designing a boss fight, we wanted to look further into the ideation process of designing a boss fight.

In the end we created a framework that consist of 6 main areas that are the foundation o a boss fight. These are Area, Phases, Attack Variety, The Boss, The Player and Tension. Not all areas necessarily have to be represented in a boss fight but our research showed that including all the areas in a boss fight is beneficial to the experience of the player. With these tiles a game designer can build a boss fight he has in mind for his game and then evaluate which areas need some more attention. The tool makes the user think about certain choices, what to include in the boss fight and what will be the consequences. For example, one main area has very little sub areas compared to the other main areas, then the user can question himself why that is the case and does he need to change it. The tool cannot give the correct answer but encourages the user to think about it or discuss it.