Arena Trailer

And here it is! A lot of the scenes are similar to what I made for the storyboard, but the order is a bit jumbled up. 15 seconds is a hard time limit to work in!

Arena Trailer Storyboard

Some storyboards for my Dance of Destruction arena level, showcasing the health pickup mechanic and the soundwaves, as well as some action shots.

A Very Interesting Video (Thoughts on Pokémon Snap)

Pokémon Snap is probably still one of my favorite N64 games to this day if I had to pick. It was, and this is a bit embarrassing, but my first Pokémon game that I've ever played. I watched the anime, read the comics, I had Pokémon storybooks, plastic figures, VHS tapes, and bedsheets. But unlike many people who started with Red, Blue, Yellow or even Silver, Gold or Crystal... My first game was Pokémon Snap and I was just absorbed into this world. I even had a small book that I taped pictures I took of my Pokémon toys into, mimicking the gameplay. I'm one of the loud but few Pokémon fans clamoring for a sequel. So far the closest we've gotten was that one 3DS dream world game where you used the 3DS's AR cameras to find Pokémon in the "real world" to capture them, and the AR photo feature in Pokémon Go, if you are being generous. So naturally, when I saw youtube's algorithms recommending me a video analysis on Pokémon Snap I click it. And I'm glad I did! It does get the fact wrong that Snap was the first game to have 3d Pokémon (Pokémon Stadium beats it by half a year but Snap got a worldwide release first). But that aside it is a very interesting look at how Snap toys with and combines both puzzle and on-rails shooter mechanics. With how the video puts it, I'm almost a bit surprised that the game wasn't more influential than it was. But I guess that just how it goes sometimes with "kiddie" stuff. Anyway here is the vid:

Battle Arena Final

Gameplay footage taken from the level, the destructible cover didn't work out so I replaced them with indestructible glowsticks. I also added giant soundwave producing speakers. Here are some screenshots:

Of Jabberwockies and Giant Worms

"Roaar!" - Jabberwocky, probably.

Secret of Mana was originally released for the SNES in 1993, and has been ported and remade to many different systems since then. It was published by Square, now Square Enix, and is the second game in the Mana series. In these games you fight your way through tons of colorful baddies using sword and sorcery, and the Jabberwocky is just one of these many foes. You fight him fairly early on in the game (and later fight up a powered up version of the same boss, now called Hydra) so he isn't too difficult. He does give some people a fairly hard time, but isn't quite so notorious as the Spiky Tiger. You can use magic to attack from a distance, but melee works just as well since you haven't yet unlocked his weakness. He has two spells/AoE attacks: Acid Storm, which reduces your defense, and Poison Gas which has the chance to poison your whole party. His melee attack is snapping at you with his heads, and this can stun one of your party members. He is slow and mostly stays to the central part of the room in the early parts of the fight, but after he loses a head starts to speed up and become more aggressive. You may think that the best way to fighting this boss is to play it safe but, well, he can regrow his heads back if you take too long. Keeping an eye on your health while inflicting steady damage is the way to go. Here is a video of someone who makes it look way too easy.

The Jabberwocky is a fairly straightforward fellow. If I were to re-create him in blueprints I would probably make his melee attack proximity based, maybe on a timer at first and then after a certain level of health has been reduced he will attack instantly. A collision capsule around his head could detect if a player is hit, so then its a matter of animating the head to where the target is. The spells can be made leveraging the techniques learned during the previous project for the arena unique selling point. Large timing-based attacks that can affect the whole area. The movement and changing of movement can be used by an array system similar to what was learned in the adventure game. The regrowing head could be a timer that starts after health goes past a certain point, and will then revert the boss to a previous state if not dealt with quickly enough. Now, as for why I chose this boss over some of the more iconic ones...

 

The boss I have planned is a big, slimy, gross, multi-headed worm. The corrupted ruler of the Fallen Log Kingdom, our brave Beetlebug must vanquish this foe to free his homeland from evil!  Here are the planned phases:

1.  3 heads, only rotates in one spot, fires projectiles at player
• Uses player location to determine rotation constantly checked on an event tick. Current rotation determines direction of projectile
• Can be damaged simply with basic melee attack by going in close and smacking it with your weapon, just be watchful to avoid the attacks
• using a random integer to determine what head will fire the chosen head will timeline backwards and change color to "charge up" before lunging forward again (using timeline) and spawning a projectile
2. 2 heads, starts to move around slowly
• Phases change by a branch node that checks for health value. Once health depletes enough one of the heads becomes hidden and removed from the possible options
• But this causes it to be able to move, and a vector array set up is added to the mix
• Heads rotate to face player for projectile attack, body rotates to show direction of movement.
3. 1 head, faster attacks, lunging attack
•  Another check based on health value. Only one head is left, but it will fire faster
• Instead of just slowly moving around with the vector arrays, it will now wiggle to "charge up" before moving quickly in a desperate ramming attack