Heavy Tuba Gunner Boss Fight
Game Development
Overview
"Heavy Tuba Gunner Boss Fight" is an action combat demo inspired by Dark Souls and a certain meme involving tubas. This was a solo project and development time spanned around a period of 5 weeks.
Tech Stack
Features
Melee Combo Chains
A melee combo chain has been implemented. Combos can be executed by attacking at the right time in the attack animation. Missing this window would reset the combo chain.
Stamina
Stamina is a valuable resource that can be used to execute attacks and dodge-rolls. This is represented as a yellow bar beneath the HP bar. In this demo project, attacks have been calibrated to consume 0 stamina, however this can be tweaked in the Inspector.
Blocking
If the incoming attack is blockable, blocking will negate damage and drain a resource known as “block resource”. This is represented as a blue bar near the player character. If the player does not have enough “block resource” to fully block an attack, attempting to do so will cause the player to enter a “block broken” state and take damage.
Dodge-rolling
Dodge-rolling drains stamina and grants invincibility frames for the player, negating any damage that would have otherwise been taken.
Crowd Control States
Receiving attacks will cause the player to flinch or get knocked back. In this state, players are vulnerable to attacks by enemies, so it would be in the player's best interest to avoid getting hit as it could prove to be a fatal mistake.
Audio
FMOD was used as a replacement for Unity's built-in audio sources.
This was primarily done to satisfy my curiosity of how working with a 3rd party
audio solution would be like. Plus, it would serve as useful experience
if I ever were to work with an Audio Engineer that uses FMOD.
On top of regular sound effects like footsteps and sword swings,
I managed to create a looping BGM and have it transition to its ending sequence
upon defeating the boss. I must say that I am quite happy with how it turned out,
though I'm sure an Audio Engineer would be able to do much better!
Boss AI
The boss's moveset features a variety of attacks to maintain pressure on the player
at all distances, each with a unique counter. For instance, the Heavy Tuba Gunner (HTG)
will shoot the player if he/she maintains their distance.
To avoid taking damage, players would then have to block or dodge the attack,
which forces careful management of stamina and block resources.
To reduce repetition, a second long range attack was added to HTG's repertoire of attacks.
This one involves a charge up time to summon a cluster of 3 projectiles
before burst firing them at the player. What sets this attack apart from the previous
single shot attack is the fact that the player simply could NOT block all 3 projectiles
even if they had capped out block resource.
Thus, in order to counter this attack effectively,
one would have to block the first two shots and dodge the third.
Occasionally, HTG may also charge towards the player to bash them with their Tuba.
I would imagine the sight of a towering knight charging towards the player at top speed
to be quite frightening, so I added this in to mess with the player! 🤪
Last but not least, when the player is within melee range,
HTG will retaliate with a simple swinging attack.
This attack can either be blocked or dodged,
so the player would once again have to manage his resources accordingly.