Weapons, Magic, and Bosses in my indie game! | Devlog

[@memyselfishness]

For bosses, I think having a slightly different animation (in the end) works better than just turning red. I know that's a lot more work, but I'd rather have a different sprite or a boss bar than a simple coloring effect. Love the idea of weapons for health.

[@littlemrh]

Yeah like add bandages if they are hit enough or something similar

[@bortimer96]

I actually disagree. I think the red here adds tension, looks nice, and is much more readable than animation changes. Plus the added work of having to design new animations and effects.

[@engineergaming3830]

I liked how the bosses scream once they go to low hp in hollow knight it was a unique way of telling them "ur almost done" without distracting you from the boss itself

[@flyntwick]

Personally, I would just scale it down and attach it to a marker above the boss' head. Removing common interface elements can be good when done correctly but can also make systems feel half-baked if poorly executed.

[@Dewdropstudios175]

I agree, I liked the boss bar

[@andrewdrost6786]

I absolutely love your devlogs! You explain your thought process behind each feature so incredibly well and I love how you're willing to experiment with and rework so many different features as you go. I personally have a hard time scraping my ideas when they don't work out, so seeing how many times you've tweaked the weapon durability system and how it keeps improving with each iteration is really inspiring to me. Keep up the incredible work man!

[@Doktario_Mystario]

2:35 you could have side quests where you have to bring a specific weapon to someone. It could be a good challange with weapons like the torch where you have to be careful to not waste fire to bring it to the goal

[@TheCoolestCrocodileEver]

Me: working hard on my project and focusing on it by leaving my phone on my bed Also me after challacade uploads: “Oh Well, guess I’ll do that later”

[@Bowlasti]

great devlog but maybe you can have a setting for the bossbar and it will be automaticly selected to the no bossbar/visual one. so people that like bossbars can choose

[@brenocat3292]

for the boss part, you could make something on the sprites to show that the boss are dying, like a purple eye or the armor breaking, because the turning red is a cool mechanic to tell the life, but could be somewhat cofunsing for new players to understand

[@enderplay24]

2:33 you can make so it opens a portal and you tell the guy what weapond you want and his hand apears in the portal with your weapond

[@canalsemnada976]

I'm so anxious for when this game launches! It simply looks so cool!

For boss damage (or any enemy really), I like how Death's Door does it, where the enemy starts getting visible cracks all over their body when they receive damage, and the more cracks they have, the closer they are to dying. That way you don't know exactly how much damage you dealt but you still have a sense of progress, especially for bosses. I think that approach is nicer than adding a red color effect since you might want to make some bosses that are already mainly red (like the one you added now), so just a color change seems a bit hard to spot as a player. Anyway, great job on the game!

[@Conqueringrule]

One idea you could consider as an alternative to the health bar, having the whole sprite turn red, or going through the effort of creating whole new animations for lower health, is having an overlayed texture on each boss; with the electric girl, for example, you could have an overlay on her skin alone that turns red, or with the cloud guy his skin could start off pink and turn redder as the fight ensues. Basically just a red glowmask that increases in opacity would probably work fine, and be a lot more visually appealing.

[@ApollousasBear]

A cool solution to the health bar could be to have a small bar show for a second or so above the boss after it gets hits and then disappear, as well as how much damage the player's hit did. That way the player can still see their damage progress in detail, they can gauge how fast the boss will be killed and they also do not get distracted by the healthbar during the fight. This method also unlocks a ton of design options without needing to give the player additional information during the fight. What if you want enemies with weaknesses and vulnerabilities? If the player cannot clearly see they are not damaging the boss for a normal amount, they might just get frustrated thinking the boss has a million HP rather than understanding their weapon needs to be changed. If they can see their damage being low, they can easily make the connection that they must change their strategy in some way.

[@madcontrollerx263]

Sweet Update! I will say I prefer the previous lighting system and that requiring weapons from the blacksmith should cost some in game currency, an easily acquired like being dropped from enemies. Having it be free is a bit too much. Perhaps some legendary weapons come in parts which you give to the blacksmith to get the full weapon.

[@A-germanguy]

You could add like an endless tower or a dungeon made to complete as fast as possible for people to maybe compete for who reached the farest or who completed the dungeon the fastest

[@Bomber-ry69bs]

Add a cracking effect for boss health along with the colors maybe

[@everythingguy8422]

Love the new changes and stuff!, Here's an idea for the boss health bar issue. You can do it like in Hollow Knight, many bosses like Hornet, stagger when reaching a certain health percentage and this happens many times on different percentages during the fight. It indicates that a boss is slowly dying while also giving players a small thinking window to arrange their thoughts in the 2-3 seconds the boss is staggered. You can just put some hyper armor on the boss when its staggered if you don't want players to do damage during a stagger, or maybe just increase the health of the boss to account for such scenarios. Anyways, Keep up the great work man! Edit: The stagger actually depends on the number of his taken and not the health percentage in Hollow Knight like someone has explained in the replies. Sorry for the confusion! Though I think it will work better with health percentage in for this game

[@NagKai_G]

Just a slight correction in terms of how staggers work in hollow knight: bosses don't stagger at health percentage, but rather at the amount of hits taken. For example, I think hornet had somewhere around 12 hits taken needed to stagger her. The amount of hits needed to stagger a boss changes between the different bosses, and many just can't be staggered. This part you most likely already knew, but it's just to clarify things further in case anyone who doesn't know reads this

[@Beets_Creations]

All these changes seem really good! The black smith seems like a great touch! I feel like it would be cool if there was a boss that throws weapons at you that you can then use to fight them. Just a random thought

[@mariomaster973]

I feel like it would be more beneficial if you made the health bar a setting toggle. So that way people who like it can keep it on.

[@Akona-ys4cx]

This update is so cool! In 2:22 I think the blacksmith's menu does not fit the game pretty much, I feel like if you add pictures of the weapons it would be better than only their names, and the textbox should be more expressive like have the name of the npc and like their face, a good example for this is Undertale's textboxes

[@Challacade]

I agree, that blacksmith stuff is super under baked. I remember rushing to get that feature implemented when I first introduced it

[@WolvesbaneNetwork]

I'm a huge fan of metroid games so I love a game that slowly desaturates the boss sprite or changes it in some way rather than just a health bar. Like when armored bosses lose their armor, or segmented bosses get shorter.

[@lucky-lotusyt3012]

You could make a certain form of magic that lets you use creatures souls as a sort of casting token. This would give players a reason to fight all the small enemies they come across and feel rewarded for doing so.

[@eze3623]

I think that having a black smith to get back old weapons is great but having no cost to it seems a little op, I think if you added resources you can find while adventuring you can use those resources to bring old weapons back. This encourages exploration as well as weapon variety.

[@thatsmaik]

I don’t see the connection between the blacksmith and being op since it basically just lets you choose your additional starting weapon of the adventure, which you will likely trade in for health at some point soonish? I really like the idea of collecting resources for the blacksmith anyway and would probably prefer that too

[@alvin_row]

I think all the updates are nice! I like how you explain your thought process, and to me all the decisions make sense. About boss health bars, I'm a big fan of having them so I can act accordingly as a player, but not having them can make bosses feel like they're always a threat throughout the fight I guess. If you do add a healthbar, maybe make it so the less HP the boss has, the slower it goes down? It's less accurate information but might help players feel like they made big progress, and makes the "last moments" of the fight last longer in the eyes of players. Some games have an upgrade that allows players to see enemy health bars, usually costing an equipment slot. Maybe in this game some weapons might reveal enemy HP? I guess you can toy around with the concept. Sorry for the long rambling. It's looking great! Good luck with whatever you decided to go for :D

[@Nuttist]

I love your openness to challengeing widely used game principles. ive never seen a game that encourages breaking weapons, nor even one where weapons break from some reason other than durability. So many people (me included) would not think to remove a boss health bar because most all games with a boss have one, and thats just how you do it. and even if a decision like that turns out to be the wrong one, its still refreshing to see someone challenging it.

[@SpikeStudio]

I think not having health bars is great, as it helps to keep the tension of "i can kill it at any moment" throughout the fight. Maybe having it stop and rage/roar halfway would help convey you are halfway to killing them, and help to show their attacks are about to become stronger.

[@hotworlds]

Love all these changes! Using weapons to heal or for different powerful attacks sounds great and the animation looks very satisfying. Love the change to lighting. I like when bosses don't have healthbars but I know a lot of people take issue with that in some games.

[@Thedoggeboy]

I cant wait for the game to Release! I'm so Hyped!

[@poisonousbag6474]

I always find myself binging these devlogs

[@kissgergo5202]

0:21 I personally like the one before

[@eboatwright_]

I love how polished it is! The boss defeat animation, and destroying weapons looks awesome

[@ThePouetman]

I really like the idea of the weapons giving armor, it seems like a non punishable way to incentive the disposing and switching of weapons.

[@panampace]

The healing is such a brilliant mechanic. I think different weapons should have different magic effects upon destruction. Eg torches give you boosted damage, lightning rods perform the lightning attack, etc. More powerful weapons can be worth more healing. The star of this game is juggling weapons so I think the more variety the better.

[@Andi1067]

I played the demo and still trying to get all the dyes. I would recommend making the enemies have an indication when they are about to attack because when they attack..you just have to guess. If you want or can.. make a multiplayer mode to play with friends. And thank you for making this game. it's a wonderful experience :>

[@remka2000]

One cool thing with the visible boss health bar is that you can visibly refill it for a second or third phase if you want, which can be both inviting and unnerving for a player, especially if the previous phase was tough. 😊

[@madebyaaron]

The death animation is so sweet!

[@LazyMuffin4]

Idk if you’re gonna see this and I don’t know how hard it is to do this, but I think putting this game on the Nintendo Switch would be a great idea. I can just see myself chillin on my couch playing this game. It feels like a perfect combination.

[@andremonteiro5413]

Oh wow man! That's brilliant, keep it up 💪

[@gluraque]

I've watched an earlier video of yours and frankly I didn't really see any mechanic that popped out to make this game unique or worth for more. But the mechanic of disposable weapons is great and i think you should really hone in on that idea and build more ideas on that concept. Anyways good luck on your project and looking forward to further devlogs and the game itself.

[@freddyspageticode]

I like the approach to weapons in this game, seems like a fun and fresh idea!

[@WaffleWall]

The game has been getting to have a much more darker and mysterious theme than before

[@VinciWare]

I think having some type of cost to remake weapons at the blacksmith could be cool! that way they are accessible, but it cant be abused. Awesome video! 😊

[@ficolas2]

I think the health bar is handy. Imagine you are fighting a boss, you have one weapon left, and if you break it, the boss dies from the lightning effect. If you have the health bar, you know that, but if you dont, you cant really tell, so you would likely never break the weapon to harm the boss in a danger free way

[@Ada7e]

Damn I love to see how this game and your channel has grown over the past year! Keep it up king

[@brandonjacksoon]

I really like your devlog! Very interesting to follow your ideas. Thanks)

[@YoungSweezy]

That weapon system is very clever and simple. The perfect combination in my opinion. Just make sure, that the pickup weapons are stronger than the base sword (atleast in terms of moveset - range, aoe, attack speed, dps), so player should always think twice about destroying the weapon, because if the base sword is really good, player will treat the weapons just as health pots. Added your game into wishlist for support.

[@Unyx22]

so it turns out that sometimes during killscreens you can still move around, and if you walk off the edge of a platform it softlocks you.

[@avacado4706]

im loving how the game is looking!! :)

[@Plide]

The bosses changing color as they take damage reminds me a lot of Ristar! Would be cool to see more hue-shift sort of color changes rather than simply turning red imo.

[@binguette]

Just wanted to say, I love the demo! It's super fun and interesting. Idea: I think someone else said this, but what about a spell or type of magic that traps enemies and releases them under your command? Basically, you use the magic and depending on how strong the enemy is or how low hp they are or something, you can trap them inside an orb or something. Then when you release them, they fight for you for a few seconds before disappearing. Could be tweaked/improved, just thought it was a fun idea.

[@Eric-hi6pt]

Regarding boss health bars, I think it depends greatly on the type of game. For example, I can't imagine playing cuphead with a boss health bar during fights. It would be too distracting. In my opinion though, if boss fights don't require constant attention at all times (which is the complete opposite in cuphead), health bars are nice to have. Like other have suggested, maybe make it a user configurable option. I like the idea of indicating a boss's health through other means too, like changing color or attack patterns.

[@bananasauz4337]

This would go along with some of the visual changes others have recommended, but I think if you had the sound effects upon hitting the bosses change slightly the further you get into the fight, it could serve to provide an additional way of telling how far you are. Maybe even the last five or ten hits, regardless of what percentage of a bosses health that may be, have a specific sound effect so players get the sense of coming up onto the finish line and recieve a lit bit of extra adrenaline that makes winning even more rewarding.

[@modernrecipes]

every little update super cool, boss music was great, i liked the red damage indications i picked up on it right away although as others suggest doing more with that could add more flavour

[@jonasgh545]

It's awesome we can play the demo now! I tried it on my steam deck, technically it worked flawlessly! A few points that I think could be improved (at least I would prefer them as described below, I don't want to imply them being objectively better): - When menuing, it would be nice to cancel by simply pressing the B button (or Esc on keyboard), instead of having to navigate to the Cancel Option and pressing A - When NPCs ask you a question, the default action is "No" - I would prefer "Yes" as default with a shortcut to "No" by pressing B - Going into or and out of water looks quite nice (except for a visual glitch/missing animation when leaving the water to the top) but it feels kind of sluggish as it is easy to fall into the water and getting out is slow (especially on bridges) - maybe it is enough to allow the player to get a little bit closer to the edge of bridges (specifically at the bottom edge of horizontal bridges, I often though "I have 3 or 4 extra (texture-)pixels below, I can walk further" - and *splat*) - To me, the invincibility while rolling did not feel so good (in comparison mostly to Bastion) - I often got hit when trying to dodge. Maybe I just have to get used to it, but maybe the invincibility could be communicated more clearly (e.g. by flashing the player character at the start and end of the roll or emitting particles or similar). Maybe extending the invincibility a little after the roll would help as well. All in all the gameplay was a lot of fun! Keep up the good work, I am looking forward to the next update!

[@Challacade]

Great feedback, thank you!!

[@atlaszart3856]

I just finished the demo, and let me tell ya. You got something special here! I really liked it. One thing i might ad as an idea, and i know that does not occur so much in this demo, but it would be nice, when the character is obscured or behind something we can still see a silhouette/imprint of the character.

[@Challacade]

Thank you for playing, and for the feedback!

[@whyismy214]

dudeeee this game just filled a hole in me that i was trying to fill for so long

[@bijnahonderdeuro]

I played the demo a few days ago. It has some cool ideas in there, I especially like the forward momentum on the attacks and the toss/heal mechanics. As for removing health bars, I get the idea, but I don't think this is the way to go. The red messes with the colour choices on your art, making a boss seem less visually interesting as the fight goes on. Reducing the contrast also makes telegraphs/tells just a tad harder to see, which feelsbad. Try something like a rage FX like steam coming from an enemy's head. You could also have something like a say, 25% health screen freeze + roar at which point the music speeds up, or has more prominent drum, rises an octave, etc. Any combination, really. What's important is not the exact progress, if a boss changes phase at 25% intervals (and isn't a damage sponge or has an MMO style enrage timer), it isn't that relevant to the player if the boss is at 45% or 30% health while they remain in the flow. What's important is that the player knows what phase they're in and how much stress you're trying to attach to that phase.

[@davidrudpedersen5622]

Great game design and decision making processes as always.

[@frosbite84]

That boss music goes so hard.

[@RubenCorrigan]

It looks so good and the courage that those vids give me is inimaginable because I am also a wannabe game dev

[@fixiple2722]

amazing to see you progress on the game. I wanna make my own game now.... Also at 03:35 when the player dies, his health returns to the default value (here it's 3) instead of going to 0. 🤔(maybe it goes to 0 but then it resets to the default value??? HMM...) ANYWAY love seeing your progress. TIPS: - Take breaks, - Do MARKETING, it's important to let people know about your awesome game (Twitter, Reddit, [Presskit?] )!!!

[@RavenBrood]

I think that the boss bar should stay. Also you should name each boss

[@YokoSpaghetti]

Would recommend just having an option to turn health bars on and off.

[@sliderplays1615]

Add names to the bosses. It helps define who the boss is and it gives them personality! Love the game so far!! ❤

[@imjustroids3807]

I thinking having HP bars as an option the user can enable/disable based on their preference could be a good compromise. Perhaps default to in-game tells and spruce up the tells however you would like, but provide the option to show/hide the HP bar. Like you said, if some people find it distracting they can keep it off. If some like the constant progress update on HP, they can enable it. Nice update vid!

[@LayronPK]

I believe that for boss health you should use both options (turning red + health bar), but make bar lesser. This won't distract you as much, but will still provide the needed info.

[@raydin9485]

I think a great way to elevate the weapons system would be to be able to carry more than one at a time. Maybe additional weapon slots can be obtained as you progress through the game.

[@eunit08]

U can incorporate weapons that are made specifically to be destroyed by the player. Giving them a small buff depending on the type. Give them the option for different playstyles.

[@ablackphoenix844]

Yeah i really like hidden health bar, i think what cup head did is the best, no health bar, but when you die, you see your progress

[@Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet]

Not gonna lie the boss song slaps HARD good job😊

[@knight_lautrec_of_carim]

looks good but personally want the health bar back. Or turn it into an option

[@zugiii1086]

Wow this game looks really promising!

[@natanmaia3575]

Taking a beat from Touhou games, knowing you'll most likely be looking at either your character or the boss, they started making boss health bars as circular bars around the boss. They could be faintly transparent or really thin as to not get in the way, but I'm not sure how they would work in pixel form.

[@itschmidty]

This guy is living my dream life 🙂

[@criss1386]

One thing i'd suggest for the blacksmith and the creation of weapons in general is for it to need some kind of currency to be crafted.

[@Michael-The-Composer]

The music is awesome!

[@LethalChicken77]

I think the smooth lighting looks better for pixel art games. I like to treat the actual pixel art as a base layer and then do lighting and post processing on top of that, giving a much more modern look.

[@RadPotato2]

Blacksmith - “that’s some of my finest work! Player takes weapon and shatters it in front of them Blacksmith - holding back tears… “hey need me to make you any weapons?”

[@morriscurtis]

You could also tryhaving the health bar on the boss instead of a fixed position on the screen. It might make it look less bossy and more like a regular enemy though. I like the red effect, just was wondering if you already tried putting the bar over the bosses head

[@Legendary_Honey]

I don't love the lighting change. I actually think the blend of 2D with more realistic lighting is really cool. Aside from that, lots of great ideas here. Can't wait to see where things end up once everything has been finalized.

[@Challacade]

I appreciate the feedback! I agree it still doesn't look quite right

[@amandaslough125]

​@@Challacade (I haven't finished binging all your videos yet, but) I think a mixture might be better. Make it pixelated like the new one to better match the art style, but have the radius for the light dimming change so it's a bit closer to the natural light spread. Make it a slower gradient essentially.

[@pavelthomas1956]

The new darkness look is amazing because it can really help for gameplay! I really like the new healthbar and music of the bosses. It just makes it better! I think the design of the blacksmith should be a litlle more worked on ngl, like maybe make him more medieval, just not make him a normal guy.

[@Challacade]

he's one of my earliest NPC designs for this game, he definitely needs some updates

[@anuio7]

One to best inde game that I am following truly inspiring

[@GlutenPlayz]

the healthbar thing reminds me of HK and honestly sometimes it can be kinda frustrating not even knowing how far you’ve gotten but i dont reslly like the disctracting health bar mods and such. Cuphead is a game i think has a clever way pf showing you how well you did after the fight so you can see your progress and also gets rid of the health bar also you can make the healthbar toggleable in the settings cuz it seems to be a feature liked by many and a complaint many ppl sometimes have with HK while keeping it dissbled by default as the intended experience

[@HappySeedling_]

You can make the weapon creation thing so you can’t heal or cast when you make it out of thin air but still use it maybe make them a transparent blue to show its like magic or you could have a special slot for holding extra items

[@Challacade]

That's a cool idea!

[@stateflower3213]

I like this idea of weapons as health. Maybe the worse the weapon the less health you gain? Just an idea. The game is looking good!

[@matute08]

I understand what you tried to do with the new lighting and not putting a health bar mechanics but although i think they r good ideas i dont think they are well implemented, maybe try chang8ng things like putting new animations or sprites, add speed and even more difficult atacks when the boss is with low health and also i think the change in the ilumination is to drastic maybe try something combining both ideas of the light system

[@RafaFiedo]

crossing fingers! added to wishlist

[@fonzy675]

I think since you're already planning on making weapons plentiful maybe instead of a full heal breaking a weapon returns a single heart and also does the current magical effect. This will force players to break their weapon far more often and possibly help with balancing the difficulty of your game.

[@rafaelcarmona4647]

For bosses you can also add a change in the pace of the music, or make an arrangement, sort of like when in most games U are low on health and the music changes acordingly but for the boss, also I'm not sure but I think that the change to red can be hard to notice for some players with an specific monitor or to those with collor blindness

[@michaelmcalpine543]

I think you can (in the fin al build) just make it so that the players can choose how boss health is communicated, options such as "Health-Bar" or "Hue Change". (Just an idea.) You can probably put a tool-tip next to the selected option.

[@danielgysi5729]

I always prefer no boss bar in games personally. It means I'm never sure when I'm close to beating a boss so I never feel like I wasted all my healing and should just give up (looking at you From Soft) and I also never feel like I can just go balls to the wall and tank face because the boss is about to die anyway. It forces me into a a balanced, consistent playstyle that I think is more fun

[@Ilushi-q3w]

Hey man. I really like indie games like yours and i am really looking forward to the official launch of Moonshire and I can't wait to play it. But there is a problem. When I went on steam to put Moonshire in my wishlist and download the demo I saw that the game was only available on windows. I personally as a mac user really struggle with the fact that so many games are not available on a mac. So this got me wondering. Will you ever consider in the future coding Moonshire so it is compatible with apple products. I really enjoy the concept, the looks and the mechanics of your game and i am looking forward to future updates and changes.

[@Challacade]

Mac support on Steam is coming very soon, within the next couple weeks. Had to hold it off for bugfixes.

[@jaminweil8645]

I do think that the new shading could be improved.

[@blackdoc6320]

I guess after playing it the only weird thing to me is the attack button being the same as the talk to npc button. Just feels like I'm gonna smack em if I try it. The weapon healing idea is also really good... until you get to the boss fight in the clouds without any extra weapons to heal with.

[@bcbble]

Honestly for most of these visual one or the other choices (Like whether to have a bossbar or them turning red) I think in the end it should just be a setting so its up to the player.

[@Cosmaac]

Maybe this is already something you’re thinking about but one thing that took me out of the game a little is the “Boss” over the bar. Removing that so that it’s just a bar or even adding names for each one would make it feel a lot more integrated to me personally

[@thecryptacoder1126]

The new boss on the cloud feels very easy at the moment, seeing that in the beginning it just shot blasts and moved, that should probably be worked on.

[@stray1239]

ok I thought the weapon healing thing was genius but weapon armor is even better

[@wardd5265]

The idea of having lots of disposable weapons sounds surprisingly fun! It's definitely unique! Does this also mean having special, more rare weapons won't be a thing? Looking forward to seeing more of what's to come!

[@Challacade]

In general I'm trying to make most of the weapons balanced in some way (armor, ammo, damage), but I'd love to add some late-game rare weapons!

[@orbbb24]

While I don't mind if there is a health bar or not, I have friends that won't touch the game if there isn't one. Perhaps toggleable? It could even have it be a decision at game start that can't be changed if you don't want a full toggle. It could kind of be the games "hard" mode if you will (if you don't already have one). Everything else seems great and it's looking like a game I'll be picking up on lauch. Good luck!

[@ToffeeMaster]

This is an awesome game so far, Here are some of my thoughts... 1 :You should be able to delete save files... 2:The fan is great, but it kind of kills the lightning rod as a weapon... 3: You need to introduce breaking rocks better. maybe as a sage teaching? 4: The game needs to... explain some of the bosses. i was wondering why i was beating up some random girl for the electro boss. 5; Great job. those are my only major criticisms. Great game!

[@ellie.irineu]

Everything looks great! I do think I prefer the health bar, but that's just me.