Boss battle arena - the crystallization of difficult combat experience

Abstract

The term ”Boss” in AAA games usually refers to an enemy with whom the encounter is designed to be a challenging fight - the ultimate test of player’s skill, often a culmination or at least a major step pushing the game’s narrative forward. However, many players (including people who simply lack the time to play for extended periods of time), consider these encounters to be the main feature they are interested in when playing. This mindset was the origin of the ”Boss Battle Arena” concept. A new genre of action games with gameplay divided into almost independent trials that can be completed in long, extensive sessions or in short bursts if needed, as the progress in the game is not limited by any of its mechanics in any way, but instead only tied to the player’s skill. Unfortunately this genre does not get the recognition it deserves, despite offering a great potential experience for AAA games fans and allowing indie game developers to focus more on the design rather than on challenging implementation of multiple mutually-dependent systems. That is why our aim is to highlight and propagate all the positive aspects of such games by recording and sharing the development process of our own project based on this idea.