Boss Rush by Nick Weihs

[raw]
made by Nick Weihs for LD31 (COMPO)
Fight some bosses! Why? Who knows!

I wanted to do some experiments with action platformer combat heavily based on counterattacks. Unfortunately I ran out of time since I'm very slow at art and a lot of the ideas I had were forced to wait for another day.

Hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

Controls
Movement: A+D or Left/Right Arrows
Attack: J or Z
Jump: K or X (or W or Up Arrow)
Crouch: S or Down

Ratings

Coolness 57% 3
Overall 3.55 227
Audio 3.22 249
Fun 3.68 113
Graphics 3.39 363
Humor 3.11 217
Innovation 3.03 637
Mood 3.28 266
Theme 3.53 655

Feedback

KedumeBits
08. Dec 2014 · 17:12 UTC
Nice game. I like a lot the sounds.
Greg
09. Dec 2014 · 04:02 UTC
Really fun game, good job!
PIXEL^3
09. Dec 2014 · 08:09 UTC
As a boss showcase this works quit well. I like that the voices called out moves beforehand.

-AlucardX60
DefectiveMelon
10. Dec 2014 · 04:15 UTC
Fun and a little tough, but once you get used to the bosses' attacks it's fair I think.
mrexcessive
10. Dec 2014 · 13:48 UTC
Hi there. Nice intro, take sword, powerup noise. Killed first boss, got owned by second. Great animations, nice fighting mechanics, controls pretty good. Loved the sounds. Good job!
Taunia Sabanski
15. Dec 2014 · 08:23 UTC
I really liked this as a compo entry. It's a solid little game, with a really good tutorial to get the player oriented with your controls. Really great job with that, by the way! Most LD game entries don't get a tutorial section -- and the way you integrated it with your gameplay was stellar!

My only large issue with the game was with the movement controls. It's not unusual at all for a LD game (especially a compo game) to have really sticky controls, so you're definitely not the only one. The main problems I had was with the movement left/right after swinging the weapon, and with jump. With moving left/right, after I swung the weapon, if I had been holding down the L/R button while swinging the weapon, I would not move anymore. I would freeze after swinging the sword, and would have to lift my finger from the button, and press it again if I wanted to move. This is the thing that probably caused most of my deaths in the game. In most (all?) games, if you press the L/R directional button while firing a weapon, you will use the weapon either while moving, or will pause to use the weapon, and then continue moving when the weapon button is released. This did not happen, and it put a lot of space between me and the boss when the boss was experiencing fallback. In order for me to effectively kill the boss, I had to corner them and spam the attack key.

Jump didn't seem as responsive as I wished it to be. I went to jump a few times, and it didn't seem to register well.

All in all, it was a good compo entry. Not bad at all! :)
Tifu
15. Dec 2014 · 22:47 UTC
Yay, another boss rush :D
This is really good, nice difficulty curve, the axe guy in particular was a real challenge (glad you included checkpoints... unlike mine :P), though eventually he succumbed to the same weakness as the others - back them into a corner and spamhit them so they can't launch any attack of their own :P
Gread72
16. Dec 2014 · 05:08 UTC
Very nice ... design and game play are great...
Warboys
16. Dec 2014 · 05:21 UTC
I couldn't figure out how to kill the axe guy but I managed it eventually by just jumping into him and spamming, he was tough!

Really nice idea for a game though, would be sweet to see a full version with like 20 bosses and all kinds of unlocks and different weapons. Animations on the main character were great and it was pretty challenging (the archer was easy but the 1st and 3rd dudes kicked my ass).
benmcnelly
16. Dec 2014 · 05:23 UTC
OK, arrow guy kicked my butt I wish ducking worked on arrow :P -- Overall I loved how much awesome you evoked with the sword discovery and the death. Oh and the little things like the change direction animation and easing. Nice work!
hundredhundred
16. Dec 2014 · 06:14 UTC
nice gameplay, i love the different variations you've added, the movement was a bit clunky though. overall nice game!
Sublustris
16. Dec 2014 · 06:48 UTC
Nice game.
yosh
16. Dec 2014 · 06:51 UTC
Excellent game! Really loved the sound effects and the controls. The boss weren't easy to take down, but it was more or less fair when I lost. I kept playing until I beat them all (thank god we restart at the latest boss :)).
Good job!!
karlipoppins
16. Dec 2014 · 07:08 UTC
Solid combat game! Controls sometimes get in your way but I loved the AI for each boss and discovering new ways to beat them. Loved the player animation. Great game!
MrBadIvan
16. Dec 2014 · 10:29 UTC
Very interesting game, intuitive enemies, good feedback (or, better - prefeedback) on their attacks. May be a little high difficulty, but this is a boss fight concept!=) Also I like the background graphics - colors combination are beautiful.
Zi
16. Dec 2014 · 22:30 UTC
That was crazy hard, but really fun! Really loved the sound. I think the boss attacks were a bit unfair sometimes since once you get close to attack, their attacks are sometimes way too quick for you to react. But I did manage to beat everyone after dying, lol. Great job!
Halleflux
17. Dec 2014 · 03:29 UTC
The controls are horribly clunky, and really hard to do much with. Nice idea and graphics, though.
TeamQuadratic
17. Dec 2014 · 04:19 UTC
Very fun game! :D
cxsquared
17. Dec 2014 · 05:54 UTC
Nice game. I liked the combat but i wish the controls were a bit tighter. Good work.
Downtown
17. Dec 2014 · 07:11 UTC
Really good, loved it. challenging and the bosses attack patterns were really satisfying to beat after learning how to deal with them. Good animations as well, this is pretty impressive for a compo entry.
AlSweigart
17. Dec 2014 · 07:36 UTC
Nice game. Immediately fun and uncomplicated.
wavertron
17. Dec 2014 · 09:35 UTC
Pretty good, although the audio was a little odd. Did you record your own voice? Great job overall, the animations in particular were really good.
BlackBird
20. Dec 2014 · 05:00 UTC
Was a pretty interesting game. I found the controls to be less responsive than desired. It would seem at some points I'd be pressing left to run toward the boss and get stopped until I release and repress the button. Jump on a few occasions failed, maybe I was in the midst of being hit or some other state without realizing it. I definitely enjoyed the limited movement to get the sword, and was really only able to kill the bosses by continuing to spam hit them before they could get their own attack - although I never made it beyond the axe throwing guy. Really enjoyed the bow boss, given my game, but the arrows moved a little fast for me to react to and you got a bit of a wow effect when multiple arrows got shot into the air at once. Liked it a lot.
Roan Contreras
20. Dec 2014 · 14:08 UTC
Good fighting game, though it was easier to attack (and juggle) then kill the enemy when it flew towards the edge of the screen. Nice sounds by the way :D
JavadocMD
20. Dec 2014 · 22:27 UTC
Pretty fun! The concept of fighting "all bosses" is solid and the bosses you designed were all unique enough to keep me interested. I'm super glad death didn't reset you to the beginning, but let you just face that boss again.

On the critical side: I was a bit frustrated with the sticky movement controls. If you run(hold)-jump-attack, you keep running when you hit the ground. If you just run(hold)-attack, your movement stops.

You can't duck without letting go of the run key first. Also I think being able to "knee slide" even just a little would have helped me feel more in control. Otherwise you start to feel like you can't make any progress if you have to keep ducking arrows and axes.

I'm also not convinced that the "jump back" move was better than just being able to turn around and run in that direction. Perhaps letting me double-tap-away to perform the jump would have made me happier.

Still fun and challenging given the time limit! I can certainly sympathize with art being a giant time-suck. Nicely done!
Lynx
23. Dec 2014 · 04:42 UTC
Interesting game, great animations. Way to difficult for me (I always failed at boss battles haha)

Do love the the graphics work, keep up the good work
NuSan
29. Dec 2014 · 17:48 UTC
Realy cool game, I like the idea of a boss rush. I realy like there is a progression, with moving then gaining a sword and learning to crouch. The archer is a bit unpredictable, with no easy "tell" before attack. I didnt realy grasp the "reflect" mechanic either. I did the game a second time much more easily. Sometimes I felt like controls where stuck, and I needed to release arrows to fix. Keep up the good work !