Welcome back to the Boss 101 Weekly update! Here’s to you having an incredible day and let’s get rolling with the news.
Transporter Room
Last week we spoke about making art the smart way (at least as we saw it) this week we are showing you the results of that thinking. We have here the Transporter Room used to beam the guys across the galaxy to adventure. You see, ROB and the Professor have found a way to tap into the Boss network and override their controls. What this means is a way to travel about the universe relatively undetected. I say relatively since you will have to fight what’s on the other end of any gate. Once you have won a battle though the gate is yours and you can use it to your heart’s content.
So we have this little room all setup. Animations running and idles in place. How did we get here? Check it out:
After the art is done we move into Spine for animation and layout. This Spine object is directly imported into GameMaker:
From there we write our script. Something to remember here is every script starts in a spreadsheet program. This is for easy formatting. We can just cut and paste from the spreadsheet into the game scripts. Like so:
Spread sheet writeup
Cut and Paste into game Script
Then we setup the Cinematic to load the correct objects and pick the correct script. Easy PEASY!
From there we have all the ingredients to create a cinematic. It’s a matter of game triggering from that point on. It’s a great system in my opinion in that there is no programming required to do any of the above. Joshua (our programmer) setup a nice way for us to drop in cinematics as painlessly as possible.
You might be asking yourself what does this all have to do with making Boss 101 awesome and I will tell you. The easier it is to setup and debug the better YOUR product. With the system in place we can get to the final gaming experience much quicker and in doing so we can make sure things work correctly. In Boss 101 there are well over 300 various cinematics and mini cinematics. It’s important we can get in and see them working as intended quickly.
Check out a sample of the final product here:
Rob's Room Completed
Now with all ambient animations and misc art. Finished up the latest art pass and everything is in game and working.
Check that place out! TV Screens, monitors and all electronics are GO!
So there you go – just some of the daily love we put into the making of Boss 101. Join us next update for more inside info and remember to always…
LIVE YOUR DREAMS!
-Tim
Sry for being a bit off topic, but regarding your game mechanic on making these bosses. I read on the top of the page that you get to take parts and assemble your own boss to fight the randomly generated boss. Does that imply that it's open world ?
Hey, thanks for checking out Boss 101 and your question!
The game has open world elements for sure. The bosses and way you play out the missions allows for latitude. The goal is to give you the player a cool story and fun game. Additionally we have an Endless Boss mode and a few post story game arcs to follow once you are done with the main story line.
Oh I see, so you're going to make the quest something like a web-structued questline (ironic that it isnt linear xD). And those side-quests are available anytime or after we finished the main plot? Are these arcs like episodes that we do one by one?
and also, how are we going to 'make the player a cool story'? Is the story actions going to be logged in some way?
I'm sry im bombarding you with lots of questions at the same time :u I'm really curious on how the open world mechanic is going to be in a pixel game that seems, not-so-open-world most of the time (not yours, the other games)
No worries. A few of the quests are available at any time for you to do. As for 'making the player a cool story' that mostly boils down to entertaining you when you play. We do log actions and track what the player says and does. Who he interacts with and who he's seen. More than that though we are working hard to make the cast of characters interesting people with their own backstories and lives. We do feel some of the best stories come from the best characters, so we look to add flair to any and all of the main and supporting cast whenever we can.
I see, so you guys would like to strenghen the story by focusing more towards the characters and their stories. They personas and their dialogues
thanks for the info! I will look forward for your game
Yes! Keep on checking back. We do regular updates and are always around to answer questions!
-Tim
tracked :)