Boy,this is a challenging design issue.

Don't have small areas become dangerous (by shooting bullets, or whatever.) Make entire platforms dangerous. Have a boss who superheats the metal platforms, requiring you to jump around a lot. Have a boss who can make a poison gas that floats to the top of the area from the bottom, requiring you to find holes to hide in. Have bosses that shoot you if you stay still for too long. Have bosses who just try to run at you, requiring agility to evade.

There are a lot more options. You just have to think of cool ways to use your game mechanics in special ways. Most boss fights have slightly different mechanics than the normal game (bosses have HP, special vulnerable spots, etc.) Try to see what you can do.

Well these are cool ideas,and i've actually thought about some of them. i would definitely be happy to make some bosses use those things,but i don't think these ideas alone can make boss fights,or at least challenging boss fights.
i still need to think of a core idea that will be shared by all bosses,like the idea of bosses shooting a lot of stuff at you(which as mentioned is an idea that i love but is problematic since you might end up being hit by projectiles you had no chance to see).

Is being able to see all the projectiles really a problem? More than likely you're going to be strafing the boss while jumping around so you're always going to be looking at him and the projectiles he's shooting at you.

I like the idea of super heated floors, so you're forced to constantly move, why not have a boss that cause status effects like slowing you down if you're hit or causes a poison type effect that slowly drains your life.

Also you can switch things up, with the idea of you slowly losing life the boss might just be trying to run from you, and you got to chase and kill him before you die?

You could have the boss battle being "centered". rather than having a more free roaming approach your camera always points at the boss. meaning that your character seems to go in a circle around the boss, also meaning the game comes closer to a 2D platformer with a lot of depth.

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Original post by lithos You could have the boss battle being "centered". rather than having a more free roaming approach your camera always points at the boss. meaning that your character seems to go in a circle around the boss, also meaning the game comes closer to a 2D platformer with a lot of depth.

This is actually a nice idea. i should think about it.
but i do have a few problems that come into my mind when thinking about this :
-if you are forced to look at the boss,you're going to have hard time jumping around platforms since where you look is the direction you'll jump over to.
-if we're going with the idea of dodging a lot of bullets while being forced to look at the boss,we'll end up with something like this :
the first few seconds may look nice,but then a bit later you realize how bad it is since it's hard seeing any bullets at all,and knowing their depth too.

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Original post by Doctor Shinobi Quote: Original post by lithos You could have the boss battle being "centered". rather than having a more free roaming approach your camera always points at the boss. meaning that your character seems to go in a circle around the boss, also meaning the game comes closer to a 2D platformer with a lot of depth. This is actually a nice idea. i should think about it. but i do have a few problems that come into my mind when thinking about this : -if you are forced to look at the boss,you're going to have hard time jumping around platforms since where you look is the direction you'll jump over to. -if we're going with the idea of dodging a lot of bullets while being forced to look at the boss,we'll end up with something like this : the first few seconds may look nice,but then a bit later you realize how bad it is since it's hard seeing any bullets at all,and knowing their depth too.

Most games that I've played like this, if I'm understanding your idea, will target lock onto the boss when you choose to "engage" or promote some sort of "action" on that boss. When you start moving to jump/dodge/strafe/whatever the camera automatically rotates to your frontal view. This was implemented really well in the Assassin's Creed games.

As far as seeing the actual projectiles, just make whatever the boss is throwing at you really flashy and visible. Explosives/bio-chemical/etc.

I personally love these type of games, where you can use the environments around you to solve ways to kill the boss, or just regular enemies. Most games stick to being eye-level games, we have 3D capabilities now, we should use them :)

If you are dead set on using lots of ballistic attacks you need to do things that specifically solve the problems.

First, for movement, you need to be able to set a target for actions. Movement itself is self targeting but attacks and strafing target the boss. This means that you will always shoot at the target if he is close to your view, and it means your strafe will work as expected. You should also have a function that centers your view on the target. All of this basically allows you to look around and freely roam, but quickly return to looking at the target and acting on the target.

Second, the ballistic shots. Doing all the above will help you properly face the target, but unlike 2d games, you can't see what is behind the front most objects in your field of view. You seem to be worried about the player getting shot by things he did not see. Consider though that if you dodged a shot and another is behind it, you are already out of the way and your new line of sight allows you to see behind the object at least a little. This is enough really, considering that FPS games generally don't worry about small enemies jumping out from behind large ones and may even intentionally employ that tactic. If though during play testing it becomes a problem then you change the firing pattern your target uses until the "cheap shots" go away.

Whenever I hear the term 'ballistic', I always assume there are physics involved. 'Projectile' seems more accurate here, as opposed to 'hitscan' where bullets are infinitely fast. Just to clear up my terminology.

So anyways, if you want an example of a high-mobility 3D game based around dodging, look into the Armored Core series, specifically the latest game, AC For Answer. They even have massive bosses with tons of projectiles. It's not 'bullet hell' kind of crazy, but it doesn't have to be, and it still gets really hard later on.

The simplest solution I can think of, if you intend to stick with 'bullet hell', is to provide an overhead radar that shows the bullets. Not very elegant, it splits the user's attention, but at the very least it would work.

Second simplest, provide an overlay cursor for each projectile. What I mean is, they're a part of the player's hud and cannot be overlapped -- you may not be able to see the projectile, but you can still see the cursor and get an idea of where it is.

I would recommend against 'bullet hell' projectile spam, though, it doesn't really suit the perspective.

Your description makes me think a bit of Bayonetta, which was a fairly acrobatic protagonist dealing with large set-piece boss fights on a fairly regular basis. If you haven't already, check it out. Some of their ideas work wonderfully, others fall flat, and you're sure to see a couple things you like and/or can learn from.

If you have your heart set of projectiles and high volume of fire in the "bullet hell" tradition, how about slow-moving projectiles that fire directly at your player's location? That way, the player has to move constantly, and must be careful not to backtrack into the path of an old projectile. It combines the "scorched earth" principle of the heated platforms idea with a timing game and can allow for a withering hail of enemy fire pretty much all the time. Plus, since the player can quickly understand what's going on, they'll be able to focus on their platforming and dodging without necessarily looking at the incoming fire, so controls won't be muddled by awkward camera work. Since you know that there are bullets being fired all the time and they'll impact at your current location in a couple seconds, you know enough to keep moving and avoiding it without watching it come at you. Intelligible patterns can neutralize problems with presentation.

The problem you'd run into, of course, would be players finding a path to run on that always keep them ahead of the shots without risky backtracking, but you can just mix up the patterns, or include several different moves. Maybe the slow missiles can go for a while, then that'll stop and the boss will charge up a cutting laser beam that requires the player to stop, look at the boss, and dodge in an appropriate direction when the laser starts to sweep across the field. Then the platforms reconfigure and you get more missile-dodging action in a different arena.

Well thanks for the ideas everyone. i've taken note and will proceed thinking about more ideas myself. so thank you. i especially liked the idea of cursors on the edge of the screen for bullets that you cant see.

Is the game played from a first-person or a third-person viewpoint? Because if you're playing from a third-person view, it might be easier for the player to see something coming up behind them, or for the game to display an alert that there's a projectile approaching.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

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Original post by ProgrammerZ Is the game played from a first-person or a third-person viewpoint? Because if you're playing from a third-person view, it might be easier for the player to see something coming up behind them, or for the game to display an alert that there's a projectile approaching. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

didn't i mention it's first person? that's also what makes jump strafing hard(you don't really see where you're going to land).

Bullet Hell games are more about memory than reaction. The player needs to memorise the firing patterns of the enemies and to know where the safe hole is (where the bullets won't go). So, being able to see the bullets or not is only a minor problem, but is an important thing to considder.

In fps games, players don't always have to look where they are jumping. Often I will know the terain I am on when playing and will "blind jump" to the place I need while still firing at the enemy.

A way to make a character seem more mobile and acrobatic is to allow them to swing on objects (flagpoles, ropes, etc), leap off walls, grab onto ledges, jump off walls, etc. A good game to look at for athletics is Mirrors Edge.

Also forcing the player to move through boss firing patterns (the simplest is the one described by Iron Chef Carnage - considdered a first degree pattern). Others could be ones that try to predict where you will be , forcing the player to constantly modify how they are moving (these are second degree paterns as the players have to not just think about changing their position, but changing how they change their position).

These second degree paterns also force the player to be more athletic because they have to constantly use different movement skills (jumping, running, climbing, etc).

Another way to force the player to keep moving is to have a vulnerable spot on the enemy, but the eney constantly moves it away form the fireing line of the player. These also come in varing degrees (first or second degrees, etc).