Back on the horse with Game Design! I'll make a post soon about the toy I made and the consequential trailer, but for now it's time to think about Boss Battles! Yes, that grand old lynchpin for any good gameplay, the whole point of your great struggles, that fantastic final battle for which to strive-! Well, ok, the Boss Battle I'm going to analyze is a sub-boss of sorts, but she's still important! For my next trick, I present Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's Mistral!
Mistral's interesting because she's essentially the first human boss of MGR:R, and the first chance you have to fight a cyborg similar to yourself (for context: in MGR, you play as the cybord Raiden, capable of slicing through almost any substance besides cats). It starts off in an arena-style boss fight, but progresses on to various other parts of the map.
Mistral's fight serves as a jumping off point to explore more uses of the games mechanics-- the first boss fight, against a giant robot dog Blade Wolf, is in a more traditional arena-style location, which allows for only a few mechanics to be tested. In Mistral's fight, as earlier stated, it starts in an arena, but goes into close quarters on a thin pipe, and then to a larger environment with more objects to hide behind and slice up. There are also swarms of tiny enemies, known as Gekkos, that serve to help Mistral and hinder your progress. They spawn infinitely, and can help you power up your attacks.
Here's a basic breakdown of the level:
1- The fight's introduction: you run out onto a raised platform, where Mistral greets you with a cutscene explaining her backstory. She reveals herself as a cyborg when she absorbs multiple arms from the small Gekkos around her, and attacks you. In this area it's a lot of run and slash-- both you and Mistral are restricted to that area, and as it's fairly close quarters the action is super fast. You have to try and slice both her arms and the polearm she's constructed out of arms (yes, the pun doesn't escape me. You could say she's pretty well armed). You can build up bonus points by slicing up the Gekkos and attack her head-on. Once you've done this enough, you can do a special attack that kicks her off the platform onto level...
2- which is a far smaller horizontal pipe. Mistral regenerates her arms and begins to attack you with more long-range whip attacks constructed exactly for this environment-- there's no way to jump to the side, so you must jump up, run under, or parry. She can also access the higher ground to throw the Gekkos at you as projectiles. Once you hit her enough, the pipes underneath you are sliced apart and you run down them to level...
3- which is a more open area on the power plant ground, complete with hiding spots behind pillars and more of an up-and-down explorable area. Here Mistral can use both her long and short range attacks, including a new whip attack that brings you closer to her.
Once you've hit her enough times, and you've timed your attack correctly, you can force her to accidentally pierce a tank of liquid nitrogen. You slice the tank open and Mistral is frozen immediately. It's short work to cut her up into tiny pieces.
What I like best about this Boss Battle is how its locations help explain the new attacks as Mistral uses them. Metal Gear Revengeance is a super fast-paced game, and being able to read the environment to adapt your playstyle to its limitations is very important. Having the other character respond to such changes is pivotal.
In DFG, our most recent assignment was to design a Hero Prop that told a tale through its design, intended use, and articulation. I present to you the Nenuphar 105, Space Hookah!
And now we have to model it out in 3D to make an animated and textured prop! So here's my first pass at a high poly model:
True Flight is a whimsical third person flight racer set in the Kingdom of the Dawn, on the edge of the horizon. You
are a paper plane who wishes to join the skies above; she was folded unto the earth with such finely formed wings and so she must use them, but her decidedly gravitized build keeps her mired on the ground. Then the Grace of the Dawn, she who breathed the plane into life, decides to grant Paper's wish: if she can keep airborne for as long as possible, Paper is able to pursue her dreams of true flight. If she touches the ground, her dream will end...
True Flight takes place in the aforementioned Kingdom of the Dawn, where the sun stays the course skimming around the horizon all day and all night, keeping the place suffused in a soft gold light. Islands of solid ground are adrift in a sea of clouds, kept in contact by the brave pilots of the Royal Air Force. People primarily inhabit large cities on the stronger pillars of ground; the rest of the land is heavily forested. You can usually navigate the air using the pillars as landmarks. Paper was created to be a companion of the Grace of the Dawn, one of the many princesses of Aurora City, but grew to be too independent and willful-natured, too in love with the sky. In a final act of petty spite, Grace of the Dawn granted Paper her wish, but on one condition: if she is to stop flying, she will die.
Here are some references to the kind of visual identity I'm trying for with True Flight:
And here's the basic breakdown of True Flight's mechanics:
What I'd like best to be able to do is have the whole map be procedurally and randomly generated, so the layout of the hoops, updrafts, and pods are never quite the same so the player can't memorise them. The idea is to keep yourself airborne for as long as possible, but there's no real end goal to land on. You just have to keep going until you die!
I'm finished with my Modular Kit assignment! I have the images ready, and I'll post a breakdown of the entire thing later on. In the meantime, here are my two submissions! The first one was my first, original concept inspired by Fei Giap's work, and the second was a ~secret DLC~ for me to practice my handpainting with.
