Bosses That Roam The Level

This is a good idea. The podcast mentions this great hate for the classic boss level wherein the boss is waiting at the end of the level within a closed-space arena. While I really have no intense hate for it, I also like his suggestion: bosses that roam the level.

A lot of games already do this:

• God of War: where sometimes the boss is the level
• Enslaved: where this mechanical gigantic dog chases you, though the events are largely scripted: defeating the boss is done in multiple parts, normal gameplay is interspersed with encounters of the boss, where it finishes with either you or the boss retreating, until you encounter it again, and in the final part the boss is meant to die
• Dead Space and Resident Evil: where an invincible boss chases you around the level and the only way to kill it is to lure and trap it in a special way
• Clock Tower: where a serial killer hides in various places in the mansion. unfortunately, the game has you needing to investigating those various places as part of the game

Its true that sometimes the arena-type boss level gets shoehorned forcefully into the narrative (why is the boss patiently waiting for you at the end of the level?). And sometimes when you see those health stations just before a big door, its a relief for the player, but it doesn't make sense in the narrative.

Do you guys know of any other games that do this?

Do We Need Annoying Small Enemies?

Continuing on that podcast, they mention this:

"Games should never include small scuttling enemies that walk across the floor or hover above your head and are really hard to hit and are annoying."

First, I have no problem with small enemies. Enemy variation is good, but I believe there is a wrong way to design small enemies. The podcast notes an enemy in Singularity with an enemy that can kill you with one hit. I"m afraid I haven't played that game.

But I do believe enemy attacks should always have a tell-tale sign. The more grievous the attack, the more evident the hint should be. This is regardless with the size issue, because enemy size is not the issue here.

About attacks that kill you in one hit, as long as the player can anticipate it and have a chance to prevent it, then I think its fine. Dark Souls have some characters that can kill you in one hit, but such attacks are slow in charging up.

In contrast, one mission in Valkyria Chronicles end up with a regular enemy anti-tank unit killing my full-health tank hero unit in one hit. No matter how I looked at it, I think that was really pointless.

So I believe there is a right way, and there is a wrong way of doing one-hit kills.

Each enemy has its own "gimmick", a behavior that circumvents the player's usual method of attack, forcing him to rethink his strategies. They really would have an easy but unusual way to kill them, and the failure is the game not hinting or encouraging the player how to find that out.

So I do hope Singularity's small enemy was designed that it has a weakness.

Hints should be implicit and part of the story. For example, the minotaur boss in God of War starts with a short cutscene of soldiers trying to fight the minotaur and failing horribly. That is enough hint for the player to get that this guy is not to be messed around with.

The podcast mentions the small parasitic enemies in Dead Space. I really had no problem with those enemies because I discovered early on that the assault rifle is an effective weapon to dispatch them. The assault rifle shoots low damaging bullets, but the magazine size is high. One shot is enough to kill one parasite (or more if they are clumped together).

So the game becomes a matter of having "the right tool for the right job". It was odd though, that his experience with this enemy was vastly different from mine. Perhaps he never bothered using the assault rifle.

The podcast then mentions about the big fat necromorph that spawns the little enemies, in that it was unfair, doesn't add any value to the game, and that there was no tactic to fighting them.

I would say instead the surprise there is it punishes greedy players who keep on getting loot. And really, once you've found out about the nasty trick, you would obviously make it a point to avoid falling for it again. You need to make sure to shoot its stocky limbs and not its belly. And do not stomp on its corpse.

Again, this is the idea of each enemy having its own variation.

Did they perhaps feel cheated that they found a type of enemy that they couldn't get loot from?

RPG Elements On Non-RPG Games

I recently got a smartphone so I can listen to podcasts on the go. One of the podcasts I listened to mentioned this:

"Developers shouldn't shoehorn RPG elements into games that don't need them."

I think this is terribly narrow-minded. But let's hear more of his argument:

"Enslaved has a level-up system to allow your character to improve, but I believe the player has the risk to forget this as he has to remember to go to a level-up menu that's not focused on during a normal play session." 

"All of Monkey's upgrades complement each other. There's very little reason not to want them all, so why should the player have to choose those upgrades themselves? Why not have them given automatically at a set point, or have his skills improve the more they are used?" 

"In contrast, Zelda, has you exploring and one of the items you will eventually find is parts for a big heart upgrade. Once you collect enough, your max health improves. In this way, 'leveling up' is more convenient as you will inevitably find big heart containers in the course of the game."

(To be fair, Enslaved actually gives a message notification when the player has enough red orbs to be able to purchase an upgrade.)

Ok, saying "RPG elements" is pretty broad, but now we're getting somewhere. I think his main gripe is games that added leveling-up as a cheap way to add depth.

Leveling-up is having your character improve over time. Having him start out weak and through the course of the game, give him gradual improvements to allow him to face the proportionately increasing difficulty and complexity of the game.

Now, at its basic description that I've mentioned, that makes sense. You wouldn't want the player character to start out with high-level abilities, or rather, too many abilities, from the get-go, that would have overwhelmed the player with too many things he need to get hang of immediately (i.e. Bayonetta).

In traditional RPG games, those level-up improvements are largely formulaic. Allocating more points in strength simply adjusts the result of the formula for damage.

Now this becomes a question of "Why should developers be adding formulaic RPG elements to twitch games?".

More after the jump.