Design of War Ender - Boss 3: Cyborg Soldier
Originally published April 1st, 2021
Exterminate.
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I always worry that when I put out my dev blogs on April 1st that they’ll be taken as an April Fool’s joke. Fortunately, there shouldn’t be much confusion with this entry. We’re just doing another War Ender level dissection, this time on the game’s third boss. To recap, War Ender’s third chapter has been focused almost entirely on escaping the Detractors of War headquarters. Right before the boss fight, players are tasked with quickly going through a gauntlet of obstacles and enemies as they keep up with the pace of the scrolling level. All that remains is dealing with one more enemy, which sounds easy until you remember it’s a robotically enhanced human with lasers and rockets.
Being the only humanoid boss in the entire game, I wanted to make the Cyborg Soldier stand out in every way, right down to the level layout. Players are placed in identical rooms that are split down the middle thanks to a vaporizing laser. Platforming and reaction are more important here than in any other boss battle before, as the Cyborg Soldier can teleport around his three platforms as a means to change position, and therefore the location of his various projectiles. As for the reason for mirroring the rooms? One might say it’s to show that Cyborg Soldier could, potentially, be as powerful as Red thanks to his modifications and equipment. Players see themselves if they bowed to the more ill intentions of their hearts and worked for a force that wishes to end all conflict by any means necessary, even if that means leveling a city. That or it just made more sense from a gameplay perspective to mirror them. Your choice.
As mentioned before, Cyborg Soldier comes with several projectiles to use against you, as well as the ability to teleport around the stage. Sometimes, developing video games is about finding shortcuts to achieve something. In this case, instead of animating him fully to jump and move around, I just created what I thought was a cool teleport effect and had him change position via teleportation. It helps that he’s ninety percent machine and fancy technology, so it’s not impossible for him to have this ability. Beyond that he has a “gun arm” where the bulk of his projectiles come from, as well as a rocket launcher on his back. Basically, the dude’s a walking tank. Finally, that laser shooting down the middle of the arena isn’t just for show. It intentionally limits the player to a designated space, meaning dodging bullets and other projectiles will require more than just making a mad dash to the other side of the arena. Each of the floating platforms must be used to your advantage here.
For his attacks, I wanted the idea to be that the player should find clearly defined openings for shooting at the Cyborg Soldier. While those openings are closed, they should be adjusting their elevation using any of the platforms. The first attack to come from Cyborg Soldier emphasizes this very well, as he fires a quick stream of bullets. I intentionally designed this move so that if you stand in the way long enough, your health will be dropped to zero. It's meant to be easy to dodge, but severely damaging if you let yourself get hit by it. Fortunately, players should have plenty of time to dodge the bullets thanks to the time between he fires it and when it actually reaches the player's part of the arena. His next attack is the fast homing rockets, where he shoots four of these at you in quick succession. These are, admittedly, tough to avoid, but if you place yourself right, have quick reflexes, and notice which platform he's on, then the rockets can be avoided without taking a hit. But I will be the first to admit that even this is a struggle for me.
His next attack has him hurling electric grenades at you. Now, whenever I write these level dissections I make it a point to play through the level to refresh my memory on it. Somehow, I completely forgot that these were in the game, so they were quite the “shock” (please laugh) when I saw them tossed my way the first time. I ended up kicking myself for not making a regular enemy use these grenades, because they're really cool. They come in an arc, like regular grenades, and they leave an area of effect that, when stepped in, cause damage to the player. It's a great way for the Cyborg Soldier to control the player's space and, combined with other attacks, can be quite deadly. I'm just glad I thought of these in the moment when I did, because it might just be one of my favorite projectiles in the game now. Maybe I'll find a place for them in a future game...
Once you get further into the fight, moving turrets appear at the top portion of the screen, and eventually another one at the bottom. Because you can never have enough chaos in a boss battle. Some additional attacks are also introduced, such as firing a few homing bullets and firing fast paced fire walls. At this point, I'm starting to combine elements seen in various other enemies and bosses. The moving turrets come from Wall of Lasers, and the Pyro enemy's flame walls are reused. It's generally a good idea to reuse what you can in game development to ease the workload. That's just good economics, not to mention it makes the developer think hard about how their different game elements can be used. Even one of RAWM's signature moves, his laser, is reused by the Cyborg Soldier. But, admittedly, the execution of it leaves a bit to be desired in my eyes. It looks cool, but it's very hard to react to with the Cyborg Soldier's limited animations, low wind-up, and fast movement. Were I to redo it, I'd create an animation for Cyborg Soldier showing him prepping the laser, and then firing it.
Additionally, at the last phase of the fight, the Cyborg Soldier starts teleporting more frequently and with less time between teleports. An easy trick for gradually making bosses harder is to just decrease timers and counters in their code. In this case, the Cyborg Soldier will spend less time allowing you to shoot him between teleports, and in the last phase he teleports after every single move. Beforehand, he was teleporting once every two moves. You'd be surprised at how making one simple change can completely change the balance of a mechanic or character. I believe the Cyborg Soldier's final phase is clear proof of this.
Some other fun touches to the fight is the banter from the Detractors of War leader between phases, as he watches Red dismantle their perfect soldier in disbelief. He goes through something of a mini-arc in this single level, as he begins to realize his overconfidence does him in. I also enjoy the way the doors close as you enter arenas. Just one of those small details that instantly helps the feeling of the fight. I believe this is the only boss to have such obvious doors locking you into the arena, instead of just placing invisible walls. Finally, in classic War Ender fashion, the place starts to blow up after you defeat the boss, and presumably crumbles to the ground as Red finishes his escape.
“Momentum” is the word I would use to describe not just the fight against the Cyborg Soldier, but the entirety of chapter three. There's a swift pace to it all, especially in the last couple of levels. Some of the credit for this can go to the writing, implying a need to escape someone's evil clutches. The level design has also encouraged this, as there are a couple of segments that involve running in a straight line, dodging bullets and other obstacles as something pursues from behind (usually a disappearing floor). And of course, the Cyborg Soldier encourages the player to move around all over the place, with very little time to stop. As the player heads into chapter 4, that pace is not slowed down. It is, after all, about to be the end of a war.
Until next time!
-Lance T.
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