How To Fail At Boss Fights

[@jonathanjohnjohnson]

When doing a doppelganger boss fight, make sure they not only use the weapons and moves the player has, but also the overpowered DLC/Donator weapons too, just to show that your evil self resorts to pay-to-win

[@karlsundkvist6603]

is that a reference to the Simon boss fight in cry of fear?

[@reptiliannoizezz.413]

@@karlsundkvist6603 Wait fr?

[@mr.ddhemmalshehri5611]

@@reptiliannoizezz.413 I doubt it, cry of fear doesn't have paid weapons. Not any more at least.

[@GlenOakley]

Artifact of Vengeance

[@Ribbons0121R121]

hey v2 are you still mad

[@jonathanjohnjohnson]

And obviously, when the boss is defeated, they become a playable character! Except without the cool movesets and the same health

[@Artindi]

yeah, or a summon who dies after like 1 hit.

[@wobbachustash]

@@Artindi This feels eerily similar to the summon cards in color splash... :P

[@jic1]

Or if they don't become a playable character you should gain the awesome weapon they used to kill you with a single shot multiple times, only it's now virtually useless.

[@gl4dius4pple75]

skylanders trap team

[@keaton5101]

YES. Games need AS MANY PLAYABLE CHARACTERS AS POSSIBLE. More playstyles always equals better game! The more different the characters are, the better. "Levels that are perfectly crafted for the player character" are overrated anyway.

[@drzombie9485]

remember folks: a harder difficulty should increase the boss damage by about x2 and the boss health by x10, with no other modifications made to the fight at all

[@Artindi]

An essay and effective way to scale difficulty, just change the values of two variables. :)

[@Nice.Creeper]

also increase the speed to a lunacris amount. so that the player has no ider where the boss is at eny given point. and feels like there on a times 10 mod. and is just attacking at random. hoping to hit the boss

[@andrewgreeb916]

Enhancing the ai costs more

[@LzeniX]

Aren't that just a Endurance Test?

[@theultimatetaco42]

Is this a terraria master mode reference!?!

[@doot4246]

that moment when you beat a boss into the dirt during the fight but then during the cutscene you get absolutely ran over buy the boss

[@Artindi]

lol.

[@SoulHero7]

The Sephiroth superboss in KH2. You finally beat him, and he just dusts himself off and says "get Cloud here scrub"

[@robertlauncher]

Lol nooooo 😂

[@littleturtle3289]

Xenoblade 2 and their bs

[@mrlaz9011]

gameplay to narrative dissonance? my favorite!

[@flashtirade]

The best boss fights are those that are so tilted against you that you don't know whether or not you're scripted to lose it

[@stevecrafter518]

And you could have it so bosses with scripted losses only have the scripted loss after a certain amount of time If you lose when you’re not supposed to, sucks to suck!

[@masonasaro2118]

@@stevecrafter518*siren: blood curse war flashbacks”

[@waffler-yz3gw]

@@stevecrafter518i hate when they do that so much

[@My2CentsOpinion]

Bosses can be some of the most memorable moment in a game, so you should reuse them as much as possible to make sure there is no way your player can forget about your boss.

[@MrTheRandomBucket]

And make sure that if you do try and add some variation to the refights, which you shouldn’t, make sure the variations are the most basic and unremarkable changes, such as dealing more damage or a slightly different arena. It’s not like you could make refighting a boss interesting by subverting player expectations or building on the original fight, that would actually take effort!

[@massgunner4152]

​@@MrTheRandomBucketDont forget shoving two bosses that were never designed to be fought in unison in an inconvenient arena, no need to hear criticism the sunk cost mentality of the guys who beat it first will defend this desicion for you.

[@Kalaphant]

@@MrTheRandomBucket I think the SMB3 devs took that advice with Boom Boom XD (But yeah, amazing advice for ppl who want to fail)

[@maxwell6881]

You forgot the part where you spend all the budget on one singular attack, that both destroys the player, and their computer.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Instakill + fills arena + 100000 particle effects

[@TheMamaluigi300]

No how about one super mega ultra 10-minute long cutscene super move That deals 3 hp

[@nomnom2298]

​@@TheMamaluigi300Final fantasy 7 supernova except it's extremely boring and will drive you to insanity.

[@spindash64]

Sturm Meteor Strikes your Nintendo Switch

[@sassygallop6791]

Also, remember to give your boss a bunch of attacks that all look nearly identical, but have to be avoided or countered in completely different ways. That way, you can simply say "skill issue".

[@givlupi2686]

Or, give them a ton of attacks that look different, but have to be avoided in the same exact way.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

@@givlupi2686 No, the cheaper the better.

[@givlupi2686]

@@TheMamaluigi300 You could always add multiple attacks that behave differently but still have to be dodged in the same way. Add a projectile that flies straight at you, then a shotgun burst without enough space to dodge between, then a circle of projectiles so wide that 90% of them won't go anywhere near you.

[@thatonegaminglatias4345]

I had something like this with the first Hornet fight in Hollow Knight: her attacks are all telegraphed and distinct, but she is so small and fast that her telegraph almost looks the same for every attack. I had severe issues dodging her grounded lunge attack, as its telegraph looks near-identical to that of her slow returning projectile. The amount of times I tried to dodge one and got smacked by the other is embarrassing. I beat her on, like, my 5th or 6th try after going down to 1 mask twice. I want to get the true ending, so I'm going to dread the Hornet rematch :/

[@Drdrakeincorperated]

"Well ya see, you zigged when you should have zagged. BIG DIFFERENCE"

[@gttswiafr7728]

don't forget about the 5 minute walk from the bonfire to the actual fight

[@foxxdgd443]

the reason i didnt finish hollow knight

[@bearturtle6058]

​@@foxxdgd443 The runbacks in hollow knight are nothing compared to souls games

[@valonyaver600]

​@foxxdgd443 you get a placeable portal later in the game so you can place a portal before a boss room to immediately teleport to it. It's not that far into the game to get.

[@Kowery105]

​@@foxxdgd443You disliked Mantis Lord , Soul Master or Mantis Traitor that much? They are the only bosses who are keen NDA far from any benches

[@Dreinack]

dark souls 2

[@Matt77889]

It’s a bad boss fight when your fighting the urge to stop playing the game more than your fighting the boss

[@Artindi]

Well said.

[@THExRISER]

Genuine tip: Consider adding a boss rush mode, if you think it can work in your game. That will allow you to re-use existing content in an interesting way.

[@Artindi]

Could also let the player feel how much progress they've made if they face an enemy from the past.

[@THExRISER]

@@Artindi True!

[@doob.]

Don’t cut out the cutscenes tho!

[@THExRISER]

@@doob. It can get repetitive after a couple playthroughs though. So if you're gonna keep them at least make it optional to disable them? And probably have it off by default.

[@ballom29]

oh and make it so for each boss you hadn't defeated you had to fight them in the final boss rush, even if you didn't unlocked the ability that let you damage them and had to ressort to using limited consummable. While having breakable weapons too :)

[@DarkinBladeGaming]

I love how the first piece of advice is immediately contradicted by the instructions to keep adding more phases and mechanics, instead of just being a stronger version of a normal enemy

[@PacoReer]

To be fair, the first phase is a stronger version of a normal enemy, the second phase is a stronger version of the first phase, and the third phase is a stronger version of the second phase, but copying the player's sprites

[@FoxNamedLuke]

A few additional points: - Don't telegraph attacks, have them come out of nowhere. Those are especially popular among no-hitters - Don't have the boss shoot projectiles, have him spawn them at random places on the arena. Don't worry about stupid stuff like the player's position though. Everyone loves telefrags - For flying bosses let them just fly off screen where you can not see or attack him, but HE sure can - Have a phase where the boss just spawns minions while he becomes invincible. That won't feel like filler - Give the boss a move that messes with your controls. The most classic one is completely inverting them. Have him be able to do this without warning from any place on screen so you can just run into whatever who cares bullshit - Have insta kill traps peppered throughout the arena. It's the best test of your skills if you're not even dying to the boss. Works best with the last point and KNOCKBACK MY BELOVED - Ah, yes, knockback. Have the boss just knock you around. Give him combos that can just ragdoll you across the arena, so long they just feel like an insta-kill

[@WomanSlayer69420]

Alternatively have telegraphs all over the screen only for the actual way to dodge the attack be obscured due to the telegraphs being a bunch of lines with the same saturation and random shapes that don’t tell you anything about what the attack is like and only serve to clutter you before you get randomly hit by a pattern that would unironically be easier to dodge without the shitloads of clutter on your screen seconds before the attack.

[@quiverdancervolca]

Wait, this is just Undertale Yellow's Zenith Martlet (no telegraph, bullet hell spam, attack where she flies off screen, that attack also makes her invincible, attack that changes your shooting direction, random undodgeable damage, and wind attack knockback) what a fair and fun boss that didn't feel like utter bs

[@FoxNamedLuke]

@@quiverdancervolca OH BOY! That reminds me! With long, drawn out, two-phased boss fights remember to NOT replenish the player's resources at the beginning of the second one. Have the first phase be an endurance test that drains your items and then throw the player a curveball in the form of a second, way harder phase. Don't forget to put a checkpoint before the second one as sort of a middle finger. And if you want to be an even bigger asshole, save the player's health too, so that if they finished the first phase with 1 HP remaining, they will always start the second one with that much. That one's not an ass-pull either - looking at you Ori and the Will of the Wisps!

[@Chaki21]

@@FoxNamedLuke God this sounds like Ace Attorney 💀

[@thepotatoportal69]

And before the fight, make sure to add incredibly precise obstacles that don't kill the player, but weaken them a bit before the fight. If/when the player becomes impatient from dying several times, they will get more hurt on these obstacles and probably die again in the fight, to teach your player that patience is a virtue or something.

[@Artindi]

you're giving me PTSD

[@doob.]

Make the boss summons waves of minions to attack players so they won’t do any damage to the actual boss!

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Or better yet, have a gauntlet of minions *be* the boss, while the boss-looking dude just flunks out once the minions are defeated

[@shooey-mcmoss]

@@TheMamaluigi300 I can finally use anti-crowd weapon against the boss....

[@TheUnseen511trees-pz2qn]

Eye of Cthulhu slander

[@Lynel5240]

Allmind (Armored Core 6) has this in spades. The first phase is just 5 ACs, and they have no coordination whatsoever and make you constantly lose track of which one is the boss. The second phase is the actual boss fight except with 2 Sea Spiders for no reason, which the boss likes to cower behind in the air while its stagger bar goes down. Then the third phase is Ayre but on crack. I love the game, but it really ends on the worst possible note

[@massgunner4152]

​@@TheMamaluigi300great gideon is that you?

[@fearlesswee5036]

Before I even watch the video: 1 - Make them just a common soldier (maybe retextured at most) who can inexplicably take x100 times more damage. Bullet sponges are fun! 2 - Make sure the place you fight them in isn't designed around their moveset whatsoever. Or if you do point 1, make it a really big interesting arena you don't use because it's just a common mook with a health bar! 3 - Have your NPCs throughout the game hype the boss up as some legendary, powerful killer who's very name carries an air of danger and destruction, but they get absolutely bodied by the high-level player with their end-game gear and abundance of consumables! Level-scaling is for chumps! 4 - Have absolutely no buildup to the boss fight, just let the player sorta stumble into their arena and get a healthbar and wonder what's going on! 5 - Or, buildup the boss fight WAY too much with a super-long cutscene and dramatic music, maybe even a dialogue tree before the battle; this is especially good for failure if you follow point 3! 6 - Have either way too few bosses to the point where they feel out of place in your game's design and tacked-on last minute, or way too many to the point where they lose any impact as a special, dangerous encounter! 7 - Completely forget your game has a mechanic that can instakill enemies when meleeing them from behind, and forget to provide the boss with any special immunity to this attack, allowing them to be unceremoniously dropped in an instant! Again, especially great for failure when combined with point 3!

[@Artindi]

Time for part 2?

[@SMT-ks8yp]

The last makes it all feel like a Warframe reference.

[@matheuscordeiroKH]

​@@Artindiyou showed us to succeed at failure by time wasting and hard difficult... We can succeed at failure going for reverse way and just winning the boss easily

[@vesperian_]

​@@matheuscordeiroKHdo you want children?

[@testedmrcool]

@@vesperian_what did you mean by this

[@darkowl9]

My favourite boss fight mechanic is when you defeat the boss, but then they're okay in the immediate following cutscene and they either knock you out or run away, undefeated. Making your fight with them utterly a waste of time.

[@CheshireCad]

Also remember that the amount of time that the player is fighting the boss is a very important divergence from regular gameplay. Whereas almost every other enemy in your game will die within several seconds of the player attacking them, the boss fight will last several minutes at minimum. Therefore, you need to deliberately ensure that every boss is completely immune to all status effects, especially any that deal a moderate amount of damage over a long period of time. Otherwise, you run the risk of giving your player meaningful build choices and strategic tradeoffs, and therefore feel smugly superior for "outsmarting" you. Instead, the player is only allowed to use those skills on enemies that die in two hits anyway, as well as a handful of minibosses(because you forgot to change the status-immunity parameters when you copy-pasted a lategame enemy).

[@benjaminhome6272]

This seems like a personal attack on Dark Souls

[@Artindi]

Or it's a love letter to dark souls... Because often they don't do any of this stuff. (not always, but sometimes.)

[@thegreatandmightyseff7214]

@@Artindisometimes… sure…

[@blackhammer5035]

No mention of bosses defying physics by stalling attacks or ice-skate around mid-swing to bait out dodges. All attacks should have massive reach and tracking. So not mocking Souls.

[@Delmworks]

Yeah, the thing with Soul-likes is for all they have the peak boss design…they also have a lot of the troughs

[@hereniho]

@@Delmworks I sure loved going into a cave before Fire Giant, which had the boss be Godskin Apostle and Godskin Noble, and then I go to Farum Azula and the first boss is Godskin Apostle and Godskin Noble... twice each. Then finding out the hard way that Maliketh just gets an 80% Holy resistance when that was my main damage type, and then hearing basically the rest of the game's bosses were just short of immune to Holy Damage. Yeah, no other endgame in any Fromsoft game felt so badly balanced.

[@TheGachaDilby]

Make sure to include the part where the boss inexplicably regenerates its health and thereby removes all the work done by the player in the first place!

[@helix4267]

I will put a boss in a Tic Tac Toe game. It will be legendary

[@Artindi]

That actually sounds pretty cool if you can pull it off. :)

[@helix4267]

@@Artindi my genius idea is to make the boss go 3 times each turn. What could go wrong

[@utubeiskaren7796]

I feel like this could work in Chess or even Connect 4 but Tic Tac Toe is so badly designed that it's really hard to do much with it unless you make a creative variation of it

[@mishagaming1075]

@@utubeiskaren7796shotgun king:

[@italofake2576]

You would like Alva Majo, then

[@NotFunctional-ever]

Dont forget to give the player a reward when they defeat the boss, but not to much, they dont want to feel like it was worth it. Give them about less than one percent of the gold they spent for all the items they used, about 25% of a level up for a mid game player, and some items you got about 50 hours ago!

[@stevecrafter518]

Oh you beat this boss by leveling up your gear to the level cap? Here some stuff that’s absolute dogsh#t but the level cap is bigger and they deal like 1 more damage when fully leveled!

[@kuznechiks]

"hey tetris, where's the boss?" The gliched colors, the 810 line level and the crash triggers:

[@Kalaphant]

YES

[@NoomStuff]

I feel like these are getting more unhinged every video

[@Artindi]

Nuh uh.

[@RG-zt4cn]

Which is good, as my enjoyment hinges upon the un

[@TheGallantDrake]

Did you know that the thumb is the most unhinged finger?

[@jic1]

@@TheGallantDrake Yeah, but it's got that cool joint at the bottom with extra freedom of movement to make up for it.

[@thepotatoportal69]

@@TheGallantDrake Not for much longer

[@TheGallantDrake]

The boss should always be a surprise that comes out of nowhere but is also your rival in disguise. This way, every boss will be amply foreshadowed but also a surprising twist!

[@EdKolis]

Super Mario Bros did the opposite though. Bowser was always a minion in disguise, until he wasn't.

[@TheGallantDrake]

@@EdKolis is that the opposite?

[@EdKolis]

@@TheGallantDrake yeah, instead of your rival being disguised as a a boss, the boss was disguised as your rival

[@lukazfox_lol]

destroyer, prime, and twins really took that personally

[@thebigtomato0597]

at least prime has actually new attacks

[@victorvirgili4447]

@@thebigtomato0597and destroyer. and twins. yeah terraria did this well

[@Egitheegg]

Remember you have to prioritize a wide variety in the boss moveset to make it unique. I mean it doesn't really matter if it is fun to fight the boss because learning a boss's moveset is what becomes fun for the player!

[@Artindi]

The more complex and unpredictable the better! :D

[@mimicmey]

Or you can make the boss have the same 3 attacks for 90% of the fight, but then it pulls some high damage move that is nearly impossible to dodge out of its ass, and make sure that none of those attacks are telegraphed in unique ways, or at all.

[@halfsine]

and don't forget the part about the music looping over and over and over and over and over and over until the player gets sick of it!

[@ozzie_goat]

Even better if you add a timed underwater escort mission that you have to do before you even get another chance at the boss...

[@Artindi]

ew

[@ozzie_goat]

@@Artindi You're welcome

[@CassiusZedaker-pr7kc]

I like the way you think.

[@NoahArrondelle]

Is this an actual thing in a game or did you just combine hated parts of games

[@topcatfan]

In a dark ice maze

[@TheMamaluigi300]

3 phases are absolutely lame. Have a boss with 100 phases! And (shoutout to Sonic Chaos for this one…) right once his health is depleted, his final desperation attack is an instakill with an extremely small, specific window to dodge/counter, wasting away numerous attempts in the blink of an eye as the player desperately tries to figure out how the hell you’re supposed to avoid this single attack Actually, random cheap instakill attacks that come out of nowhere is just plain great in general. Also great is a boss that will literally will not let you hurt him unless you spam a specific cheap attack of your own that, out of all the moves, he *doesn’t* ignore with some vague blocking animation

[@ballom29]

Supreme calamitas in Calamity had .... 10 phases

[@givlupi2686]

@@ballom29 For a mod that obsessed over bosses, they really sucked

[@givlupi2686]

Make sure to keep the player guessing which attack they're vulnerable to. To fail optimally, you should make them try new attacks for minutes, until they either get lucky or assume it's invincible. You can also extend it by making it possible for the player to enter the fight without having the attack they need to hit the boss.

[@TheMamaluigi300]

@@givlupi2686 Oh my god… imagine if every time you finally guess the right move to use, the boss’s one weakness switches up randomly, and now you have to go through the entire guessing process all over again, and then this repeats for every hit the boss takes 💀 And imagine if non-damaging moves are also in that weakness pool, so the boss can end up changing his one weakness to a non-damaging move, softlocking the entire boss 😨

[@lynxsie4285]

@@ballom29 it's only like a 5 minute fight though

[@photophone5574]

A common mistake is that when a boss fight is too easy, the developers will just make the boss have extra health. I wouldn't recommend turning the boss into a damage sponge unless you do one thing: Give the boss fight some more damaging but either more complicated or more risky strategies. Speedrunners and advanced players will love to show off how they used a difficult technique to speed through a boss fight. Having a high skill ceiling also makes it more acceptable to reuse the fight. Each time they replay the fight, the better they will get and feel. I'd recommend considering adding a reward for players who beat a boss fight with risky but quick strategies aswell.

[@Esiv0_]

screenshotting this comment later

[@Nokolo72]

No no no, you need to LEAD the boss over to the rock they have to trip over which will be completely randomly generated! Nothing is more fun than slowly leading a boss over to a tiny hitbox!

[@nikt-wazny]

I once made a flappy bird clone but with multiplayer in scratch just because y know, and imagine the confusion my friends faced when trying to beat their record and they saw a big orange bird shooting fireballs, missiles and lasers at them, invonurable for like 8 minutes until there was just an X that killed the bird in one shot just for it to not give any points, just an obstacle. Gotta love my past self, i really thought it was a fine obstacle

[@doob.]

Make the boss do a long attack combo and when it’s done let’s the players attack bac- but wait! the combo hasn’t finished, that long pause was just the boss charging up for the final heavy ground smash to end the combo! (it is one hit)

[@DraymaDev]

After being like 12 bosses deep into my game, this video finally made me realize what I was doing wrong. Thank you, now I will just reuse the first one and delete the other 11!

[@Artindi]

excellent.

[@turbo8628]

As long as yoi change tbe colour of the boss you can call it variety 👍

[@BLET_55artem55]

Add a surprise instakill on the second one to scare the players into thinking the other 10 left will also have instakills

[@Mag_ladroth]

I loved the final boss in "Wizard of Legend" since the boss actually felt like they fought with the same rules as the player

[@thehydrationman5500]

You know its good when you beat the boss character fairly easily, and it then shifts to a cutscene where the main protagonist is then somehow defeated anyways because the enemy is "too strong!!!"

[@ElJefeRules]

Win fight “It seems we are evenly matched!”

[@desls1657]

I think this is why I enjoy Fromsoft bossfights. The boss' moves are so intricate and varied that it feels like you're dueling for hours on end, when in actuality the longest ones are about 5 minutes.

[@name-h7x]

this took really long for such a common feature in games

[@Artindi]

yeah, I guess people wanted to hear about other stuff first.... ma bad.

[@mrpekoni]

Damn, im here early. Arrived before the boss even spawned

[@Artindi]

If you move fast enough you can glitch the win without even fighting at all! Quick! :)

[@Pseudoaquanaut]

This video is about Destiny 2 and it’s exiting design that boils down to “It’s the normal enemy but with a nonsense name and it’s bigger and has an invincible shield and you might forget that you were fighting a boss because the music is the same”

[@ballom29]

Rain world : game clearly focused on survival and exploration rather than gaining any progression from killing ennemies, yet had 1 sudo bossfight and a secret bossfight

[@Artindi]

man I really need to play that game.

[@pickyphysicsstudent201]

TBF, the boss becoming a regular enemy, later on, can serve a purpose. It now means the player has become so powerful that these guy are now on par of regular enemies, which is empowering. Remember when you struggled against LV 1 Slimes? Now you're able to take out mini-bosses with ease. Also it can be used as esculating tension for a final dungeon or something. Remember that one boss Dungeon 3? Now they are standard enemies - good luck... You'll need it.

[@Artindi]

Good point, as long as the boss in question doesn't have any unique story aspects to them it could work fine. :)

[@Kenionatus]

When you reuse the boss later as a normal enemy, make sure it's clearly communicated that it's been heavily dumbed down, otherwise the player could feel some sort of progression.

[@NOTaNaBC]

Another tip: don't add health bars to bosses. This is necessary for two reasons: 1) You can continue to be lazy 2) The health bar makes the boss fight easier because players will be able to understand how many hits to hit the boss. Instead, you need to find out it by spending hours and asking yourself if the boss can even die

[@foureyesisafish7968]

I mean, do bosses need health bars? I’m asking completely seriously. There’s a lot of ways to represent how damaged a boss is. A health bar is just one.

[@invasor-x]

​​@@foureyesisafish7968not having health bars is fine as long as you use other ways to represent that the fight is progressing

[@foureyesisafish7968]

@@invasor-x yeah, exactly! As a monster hunter fan, i know bosses don't need health bars to show progress

[@Latias38]

@@invasor-x So what if we just... dont have that. Cant have the player know that any progress is being made at all. Oh and dont forget to make everything invincible except for like 1 single point under its stomach or something.

[@givlupi2686]

Bosses only need three attacks: Shooting a projectile directly at you, dashing at you, and shooting a circle of projectiles in every direction, most of which will go nowhere near the player. Anything else is boring. Alternatively, have the boss fire as many projectiles in as many directions as you can. This will make the boss really fun, because there's so many bullets to have fun with. And you should add knockback to those bullets too, to keep the fun going until the player dies every time they get hit by one.

[@blockeontheleafeon]

This video is just plot twist after plot twist that I didn't see coming. I love it.

[@robotzr.8348]

Most importantly, remember, you're the biggest boss here

[@Artindi]

be your own boss!

[@crudmachine]

Kojima and Miyazaki use this video as a tutorial on a daily basis

[@TheMamaluigi300]

2:22 In his defense, he used the Fizzle-out-your-brain-for-day-2-of-the-gamejam-beam attack

[@lordmegatron7263]

big empty room actually a good advice...

[@keaton5101]

darn, you're right. he should've said small empty room

[@keaton5101]

Make sure that none of the boss's attacks are telegraphed. Players should be able to figure out when the boss will attack based on vibes alone.

[@BLET_55artem55]

That's actually a good tip tho. Make the sound and colour scheme be the telegraph

[@keaton5101]

@@BLET_55artem55 What part of "no telegraph" don't you understand

[@BLET_55artem55]

@@keaton5101 oh, I thought "telegraphing" meant only the boss'es movement indicating an incoming attack 😐 But if we remove the sarcasm, I think I haven't seen a game that actually uses ONLY sound and colour scheme of the environment as telegraphing

[@Tom502-]

Don't forget to make it so that when you finally beat the boss, he gives you a curse that removes your ability to jump for the REST OF THE GAME! Then right afterward he regains full health and now you gotta beat him AGAIN but this time you can't jump.

[@robertlauncher]

Also if you do the bigger enemy approach, never take a cue from the absolute king Yoshi’s Island and give the enemy a creative twist on how you defeat them. Make them the same exact fight with more hits.

[@karlsundkvist6603]

Also remember to have bosses that you cant beat, and do it as many times as possible. A forced loss may signify to the player that there are stronger enemies than you, and that you have a long way to go. This can motivate players to stick around to finally get their revenge. So doing it with every other boss fight will make it like, double encouraging right? Totally doesn't desensitize the player to boss fight since there are so few you can actually defeat. (YIIK)

[@BraycoeYT]

Me when I have to press two switches to kill the final boss instead of an actual winnable battle 😔

[@robertlauncher]

Make sure to put a damage sponge at the end of an already bloated and tedious section.

[@bruoche]

As someone who recently added a boss fight to my text-based game, I 100% support this message

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Bad joke. You can totally put a boss into a text game if it’s a text-based RPG.

[@bruoche]

@@TheMamaluigi300 Yes! That's why I'm only half-joking because that is exactly what I did

[@foureyesisafish7968]

Ok so I know this video is satire, but reusing a boss (or a miniboss) as a normal enemy later in the game not only is a great way to save on development time but also helps show players how much stronger/more skilled they are. A game that does that excellently is Ultrakill, which introduces a lot of its heavier hitting enemies as minibosses complete with health bars. Even the prologue bosses, the Cerberi, become a reoccurring enemy type

[@Artindi]

Yeah, it can be done well, maybe I should have stipulated that it should be donenif the boss is unique to the story somehow. :)

[@foureyesisafish7968]

@@Artindi ok that would have been a very funny bit

[@felipeguedescampos851]

I'm grateful that the "invencible until it does a stupid thing that makes it completely vulnerable" type of boss have kinda of died in the ps3 era. There are still some of those today but they are rare

[@husklyman]

Also: you have to make sure the enviroment matches the boss fight, so make sure it has lots of traps so the player won't even be able to look at the boss' attacks

[@FizzleFX]

4:04 PUZZLE QUEST... EXISTS!! ... And that Yoshi puzzle one...

[@redwings13400]

At the end of the boss fight, make sure you play a cutscene where the boss wins the fight anyway and lets you go. This makes it so you can reuse the boss in a later level, and makes the player really appreciate how powerful this boss is narratively. Players really appreciate knowing that nothing they do in the game actually changes the story.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

1:41 1:57 We can’t have the boss add in new attacks, or ramp up in difficulty naturally as the fight goes on. Just make the additional projectiles faster versions of the already existing ones with even more unfair hitboxes

[@Kalaphant]

0:30 Red Ball 4:

[@casterivo]

Yes

[@endthelag4490]

Also make sure to make the boss have 2 separate attacks that have the same wind up animation. except if you predict the wrong attack you get hit for a billion damage

[@lostmarble540]

your arena should probably have some cover in it so players can hide while they're waiting for the boss's invulnerability to wear off, this will make players feel clever for using the terrain to their advantage and it won't get boring the hundredth time they have to do it

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Pinstripe from Crash 1?

[@TheForbiddenLOL]

Make sure that the last hit you get on the boss doesn't kill it, but starts a cutscene where you get to watch the player character kill the boss with absolutely no input from you. Remember: moments are always more impactful if the player is forced to just passively watch them play out!

[@Hysudyi]

How to fail at polishing a game: you either spend more time polishing the game when all you have is the character movement, or you dont polish the game even after 300 people begging you to do it

[@Phoeboi]

If you want some good examples of bosses that take a long time to beat and have tons of phases, Furi is my recommendation. The bosses do take awhile and have lots of phases, but it’s done well. Every phase builds upon the last in a challenging and interesting way, making it an elegant escalating dance of blows.

[@artman40]

Touhou bosses fall into same category, especially extra stage bosses. They're long but engaging throughout the fight.

[@dewroot5176]

One of the samey big turrets that need a bash to kill is the final boss of SANABI. Game still pulled my heartstrings, I recommend ya check it out.

[@johannes4123]

I love it when a bossfight has a pattern that once figured out you have to execute perfectly over and over again for 20 minutes Patience is the most valueble skill a player can have

[@griff2162]

1:01 surprisingly ended up in Doom (2016). I can't believe they made all but one bossfight kick ass

[@griff2162]

@@vulduv yes, absolutely frustrating

[@forbiddenbox]

that intro is perfect, if you dont try you'll never fail so you try to be able to fail which leads in to the rest of the video

[@NadieNobody]

Gotta love bosses! Especially in puzzle games that have had no enemies at all so far, but still decide to add a stupid boss fight with a billion phases that kicks you out of the level if you get hit just once!

[@jakedoesyoutube]

I was unlucky enough to play Minecraft dungeons with a sibling and the final boss went from doing like barely any damage to one hit killing in the matter of one cutscene.

[@ArloKlenczon]

Heart of Ender was a ridiculous difficulty spike.

[@killer_moon67]

the final form of the spider boss in deadapace 3....

[@DogeBoy-qe3tx]

2:02 this is literally what Sans says in his genocide route fight

[@the.duck.is.ronin.]

I always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first.

[@spud7234]

In ds3, there's an optional boss that redoes the first boss who gets completely changed halfway through the fight, but in this version, the first phase is given a cocktail of adrenaline and crack that lasts the whole fight It's such a simple concept and is basically the "fight a harder version of the same enemy" concept but something about it just makes my designer brain go brrrrr

[@artman40]

More tips: Always have the attack variety of a boss to be the opposite of of their health pool. Only one attack when it takes 10+ minutes to defeat, tons of different attacks when it can be defeated way before it has a chance to show them all. Make all the bosses bosses cheesable and make the cheese strategy as boring as possible. Bonus points of cheese is the only viable way to defeat the boss. If making an RPG boss, always make them immune to status effects instead of having to use them strategically. If all else fails, you can just make a boss that only consisting of quicktime events. Or the boss getting defeated entirely within a cutscene.

[@johnycoolhd]

Bro describes a Dark Souls Boss💀

[@gotgunpowder]

I actually do like the "reusing a boss as a normal enemy" thing sometimes. It can be done well to reflect how much more powerful you've gotten through the game.

[@DragoPl0183]

I love these tutorials , i finally know how to make boss fight

[@JojoJere]

1:05 Sonic Superstars, is that you?👀

[@khaas9]

Personally I'm really excited for the episode about Stealth Mechanics or Sneaking games. It's such an incredibly easy mechanic to make brokenly optimal, or a blatant afterthought. It's also really 'fun' to put a bad stealth section in a game that has nothing to do with sneaking.

[@mrfrog0913]

"How to fail at boss fights" basically just copy any 2D mario boss.

[@DataPotato]

All this succeeding at failure is making me feel successful, we need a sequel where we learn how to fail at succeeding at failing at succeeding at boss fights

[@mistery8363]

I think that the vulnerability period can be done well, and the example bad boss (without the excessive health and 20k phases) could be a good mid-level enemy or 1st world boss hypothetically.

[@isaacmatheomm]

sounds like a guide made by someone who has never fought a boss, I love it

[@Artindi]

What's a boss?

[@ArloKlenczon]

@@Artindi Me. Get back to work.

[@Shwingoman]

Just wanted to say I love this series! It's always a favorite of mine to watch while eating.

[@Artindi]

Thanks! That means a lot to me because I always save the best videos for meals myself. :D

[@Kalofbros]

Don't forget about giant boss that makes you fight him on the small platform while standing over you. Or the boss that runs away and throws stuff at you from a far. Or a boss you are not supposed to defeat first time playing.

[@Kalofbros]

Also make bosses spurt out witty one-liners everytime they kill you

[@Skeffles]

Finally, a way to win making bosses!

[@Artindi]

This is the way.

[@humman007]

It's all a matter of details because boss fights in Dark Souls or Elden Ring don't differ much from this description

[@Artindi]

True, but they have indeed perfected the "dodge until you get an opening" game play. So maybe I'm not sure all of this applies to them. *Shrug*

[@TheGallantDrake]

​@@Artindi I think it's because the entire game is built around positioning, managing stamina, and dodging, so the bosses are in line with that. It becomes an issue if the game as a whole hasn't been training the player to do this, and I think it's why bosses like Bed of Chaos are so hated

[@philstankus]

"Lady Friede...my flail...bring me my flail..." Actually, I'd say the Friede fight from DS3 is one of the few instances where a triple-phase boss was truly effective. There's a lot of character and storytelling in it, with the sparse dialogue and contrast between the two enemies- the fact that one is covering his eyes in the first fight and only joins the fray when he sees the bloodstain and gets enraged. The invisibility power is also an interesting challenge (and ties back to another "frosty" boss in DS1). Then you get two very different kinds of enemies to fight at the same time, a nice contrast between big and small, slow and fast, fire and ice which is visually interesting (and also calls back to the pilgrim's prayer when you entered the level- "Fire for Ariandel...") Then the game pulls the rug out from under you by giving you a few seconds where you think you've won, and then hitting you with a much faster and more powerful version of the very first enemy, which is important because it's already taught you the basics of her attack pattern so you have a chance against her- plus an expanded battlefield from the much more destructive enemy last phase so you have more room to deal with her (again, tying the physical space of the boss room with a bit of storytelling). There's been no other boss in the game (before or after) that has three forms, so it's such an incredible moment of victory to sudden panic that despite the amount of rage and frustration that it took to to finally defeat her, I can't help but value that battle for the memory of that experience and the tying together of so many plot threads within the battle itself.

[@kouchka09]

Remember, the boss should heal every time it can, so that the boss fight is longer and we can test the player's skill for longer.

[@Tyranitar.]

“Just add the boss as a normal enemy!” sounded like a direct attack on Miitopia and Psychonauts (the second one)

[@givlupi2686]

1:46 Alternatively, show the boss easily defeating the player in the cutscene. But don't do it if they die, because they should have to beat the boss to get to the cutscene where they lose to it.

[@beepymemes]

A big empty room is cool and all, but a random empty circle with rocks and other stuff around it is much better.

[@AlexGonzalez-mr8mr]

To make the boss take even longer (and therefore be more exciting), let it heal periodically throughout the fight. Players love it when it feels like their hard work gets instantly undone.

[@SoulHero7]

On top of that, don't have it be tied to a mechanic that the player has complete control over, like the boss only healing when the player heals, or being able to interrupt the healing spell or item.

[@spindash64]

Could you cover how to fail at Strategy Games at some point? Scope creep seems especially effective for it: not only does it make it harder to finish the game, but even if you do release it, the micromanaging it brings will let even the players feel the burnout. Talk about a win-win

[@_nutcracker]

I think it's better to have boss parts as not just a simple fight in a sqaure Think of it as a climatic part of the story rather than a fight which is to ram down an obstacle and just move foward, its for more interesting fights, chases and even Better scenarios

[@Artindi]

Exactly