Anatomy of a Game Design

Who's The Boss?

In the case of Boss Rush, Cornell didn't have to worry about creating giant spaceships that felt overpowered. Instead, he had to design an enemy that behaved a lot like a real person. This meant making enemies that actually played somewhat poorly, so as to better resemble a human opponent.

"Think about something like Street Fighter: It's not too hard to make a CPU opponent that always blocks or parries perfectly, and always interrupts your attacks with a slightly faster one," he explains. "Timing challenges, like hitting the correct timeframe in which to parry are trivial for the computer. This enemy would be quite difficult to beat. Would it be fun though? Not so much, because it would be good in a way that is completely different from the way a human player is good. A good human player will come up with clever traps and mix ups and be thinking at least a couple of moves ahead, but still has limits to their reaction speed. To make a fun CPU player, you basically have to mimic that. Which makes them less likely to win, but more fun to play."

Finding the right balancing point isn't easy and can mean the difference between creating a moment that will stick with the player for some time and one that will cause them to shut the game off out of sheer frustration. A boss battle can make or break a game. But when used properly, it can be one of the most powerful moments that the medium has to offer.

"Boss battles have a place in games designed for them, retro or otherwise," says McMillen. "If you force something into a game that doesn't fit, its not going to be fun. I agree that the final boss seems to be a retro cliché, but final battles or mid-bosses are a staple in all action/adventure movies and stories. It's hard not to want a cool way to end that chapter in your project."

"Bosses have always been a marvelous way of increasing the tension, both dramatically and gameplay-wise," agrees Cornell. "I feel fairly confident that, as long as we as game designers care about making experiences that are memorable, we will care about the tools that are used to shape the level of difficulty and drama. And bosses really are an amazing tool to have in that toolbox.

"I think we'll see them around for quite some time."

Andrew Webster is a freelance videogame journalist and critic based just outside of Toronto. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/a_webster.