After jamming out the first 15 bosses in Fingeance, I feel like I’ve learned a few things, and I thought I’d share. The first topic is anticipation. We’ll see how the first moments of a boss fight can help players understand the battle to come. We’ll also look at how unique and crazy boss attacks can raise the stakes, not just for this fight, but for the rest of the game, also if you’re interested in a good game, you could use also a big screen for this and you can get home theater atlanta, ga trusted installers to create this setup for you. I hope you’ll like it.

Anticipation in Boss Design

Let’s start with a non-sequitur.

Nozdormu. The buggiest card in Hearthstone. The father of numerous glitchy strategies that lock opponents out of the game. The target of 22% of all Hearthstone hotfixes. Blizzard has done so much work — extending players’ turns in certain circumstances and changes to how server vs. client time are calculated — all to support that one weird ability: “Players only have 15 seconds to take their turns.”

Last year, Ben Brode evaluated the card in a video. Given all of the toil in making this one card, it might surprise you that Brode says “Nozdormu is a good card.” Why? “Because it blows your mind. It makes you think… anything can happen in this game.” Taken at face value, this quote implies tremendous value in that sense of possibility. For that feeling that anything can happen, Hearthstone developers allowed Nozdormu to exist, to ruin countless games on the ladder, and to sap time and talent away from developing new cards.

Why? Why was so much effort lavished on this one card, a card that has never even seen tournament play, except by accident? My theory is this: player anticipation is always cheaper, and often better, than actual content.

When we make bosses, we can tap into this power. In these unique enemies, we have a chance to blow minds and break rules. We have a moment where, if we play our cards right, we can make people truly believe in our game and keep playing to see what happens next.

There’s undeniable appeal in tapping into players’ imagination. For one thing, it’s cheap. The bossmaker’s art is a microcosm of game development itself: each boss demands AI, a unique battlefield, daring attacks, and no shortage of art and sound assets. With such costs, it’s unsurprising that designers would leverage enduring emotions like dread or excitement to stretch interest over a longer period.

As an analogy, let’s take this long but exceptional quote by Alfred Hitchcock:

“There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

By now, I hope I’ve sold you on the value of anticipation. No matter what’s going on onscreen, it’s only going halfway unless it’s living a double life inside the player’s mind. In developing the  bosses of Fingeance, we’ve learned that the best bosses make three promises:

• The Hook – This is unique. An escape from the mundane.
• The Ramp – Don’t get comfortable. This fight changes as you go.
• The Turn – This fight does something unforgettable that will change your expectations for future fights.

The Hook

Of the three, the hook is the most obvious, yet I still see it neglected, most laughably so in early Fingeance designs from last year.

That’s right, I’m talking about you, MegaTurret. I don’t care that you were the first boss we made. You still have three boring attacks, zero theme, and you look like a Space Invader wearing a viking helmet.

A great hook convinces players of two things:

• This boss has a strong identity, and I can use that identity to anticipate its behavior.
• This boss will make me play differently than I have before.

For an excellent example, let’s take a look at the Dark Link battle from Ocarina of Time.

First, the environment puts in your mind the idea of a mirror. Next, you see a character — a twin image of yourself — who mimics your positioning and attacks. This hook allows us to anticipate his abilities. We’ll get a little sting of fear as we imagine being skewered by our own sword, perhaps an authentic viking sword, and a little thrill of hope as we imagine inventing a strategy to get around his seemingly perfect defense. Moreover, a good hook makes things seem more fair. On the face of it, Dark Link is a boss with fast movement, killer damage, and a nearly perfect defense. Only when we understand that he mirrors our own power does this feel like a fair challenge.

Another fine example comes from Undertale. This example is a dirty, dirty spoiler, so I’ll just give you this video link and let you highlight the text in this quote box if you want to read about it:

Alright, so, Sans’ first attack is the subject here. It’s on a completely new plane of existence compared to anything you’ve seen in the game up to this point. From the instant you see it, you think “[Designer] Toby Fox isn’t playing around any more.” It offers a bold, almost insane promise about what Sans — and Toby’s bosses in general — can do, and boy does Sans ever deliver.

And done with spoilers!

Hook-Master’s Hint: Use the Environment!

As you might imagine, hooks are hard. Every junior varsity novelist knows you should begin with a hook, but how many of them become J.K. Rowling? I don’t have a magic bullet for hook-making, but I have discovered something that makes life a lot easier. When you’re designing a boss, don’t neglect its lair! Building a unique battlefield can be a powerful (and fast!) way to add a hook to an otherwise ordinary villain.

Take Super Mario 64 for example. They stretched Bowser into not one but three boss fights by merely altering the arena in which you fight. They all but copy-pasted their arch-villain, yet every fight asks you to anticipate and overcome new threats, all because of the stage.

Another example comes from our new boss, the Giant Death Ray:

This Zippy McSpeedster puts out only modest firepower, but he makes up for it in speed. As a swift-moving animal with rocket packs, you expect from the first moment that this guy will move like nothing before. And move he does: partway through the fight, you’ll find yourself racing after him as he rockets through the ocean. He’ll dash into a nearby minefield, and suddenly things get tense. His light firepower becomes a devastating threat as you strain to duck through laser shots while navigating around giant naval mines.

The Ramp

The human mind is an astonishing thing. We go quickly from being excited by a novel experience, to expecting it, to growing tired of it. Even if your hook is astounding, players will quickly adapt to the boss’s repetitive attack patterns. For this reason, bosses — particularly long ones — often benefit by changing things up as the fight wears on.

Half the ground on fire? Must be halfway through a Blizzard Boss.

Now, I could go on and list all the Final Fantasy bosses with form changes or go on about Blizzard’s love of bosses who transform the battlefield, but I think you get the point. When bosses change, we get two major benefits:

• Players stay off-balance, and have to think longer to fully understand the boss.
• The first part of the fight can be easier. We can ease people in while offering challenge down the road.

Ramp-Builder’s Recommendation: Test Boss Evolution with Simple Buff Ramps

In Fingeance, all of our bosses evolve during fights. Usually, we give them new and more flashy attacks as they reach low health. However, we nearly always test bosses using a suite of simple attacks, plus the following ramp:

As the fight progresses (along the X axis, from 0% dead to 100% dead), the boss ramps up its attack speed (along the Y axis, from 50% to 100% of maximum speed). As simple as it is, this small tweak gives fights the feel of a boss growing increasingly desperate to kill the players. If you’re making bosses and you haven’t tried something like this, I strongly encourage you to try it out. It’s as easy to implement as rumble or screen shake, and provides just as much visceral response.

The Turn

This is it. The moment that will linger in your players’ minds forever. We’re entering spoiler territory, so here are some more quote boxes:

Final Fantasy 7 [LINK]. Sephiroth’s Super Nova. This two-minute-long attack shatters game-making conventions, but the raw anticipation of waiting to see what it did made it so worth it.

Hearthstone, Naxxramas Adventure [LINK]. Kel’Thuzad saying “No! Your turn is over! *MY* turn now.” Up until this point, nothing in the game had interfered with turn structure. All of a sudden, Kel’Thuzad showed us that he’s far above obeying the rules.

Chrono Trigger [LINK]. Lavos’ apparent sidekick turning out to be the real Lavos, capable of resurrecting Lavos’ other aspects. Lavos didn’t get a lot of personality in Chrono Trigger, and some was lost in the Japanese-to-English translation. This fight, then, and this move in particular, stood as the only way to determine who Lavos really was. Throughout the game, Lavos appeared to be a big dumb animal, but this attack implies a darker, more malevolent and deceitful persona.

Those are a few from my childhood, and I bet you can think of another half dozen from yours. Here’s the catch though: I don’t think these are perfect. Not by any stretch. My beef? These are all final bosses. Yes, final bosses should be epic, but consider this: by seeding a few high-caliber and ridiculous boss attacks into the early chapters, you can tension and build anticipation for the rest of the game. We’re venturing into very minor spoilers for Darkest Dungeon, but bear with me. The Hag provides a stellar example of an early-game turn.

One of her moves, “Into the Pot!” is the first of its kind in Darkest Dungeon. Here’s it’s description from her wiki page:

During the first turn of the battle, she will use Into the Pot! on one of your heroes. This places them in the Cauldron, where they cannot do anything and take constant HP damage every time you or the Hag makes a move. The Hag has multiple moves per turn.

Simple, but devastating. By this point, you’ve dealt with combat. You’ve dealt with terror and madness. Throughout it all, though, you’ve had control of your characters. Now, you see that a sufficiently juiced-up boss can take even that from you. For me, this boss made a big impact. The fight itself was tough (and thematically clever), but the real stinger came later. After this fight, I was truly excited to see what else Red Hook’s bosses had in store.

In case you don’t know, their final boss might have one of the best turns of all time.

Turn-maker’s Tidbit: Use All the Juice

There are times to hold back on things like screenshake, rumble, screen-darkening, and chromatic aberration. This is not one of them.

Here’s one of the bigger Fingeance attacks right now. Our goal is for this to seem cute by the time we’re done:

You don’t want to be in front of this.

Turn-maker’s Tidbit 2: Unfair is your Friend

If you’re a designer, you know that it’s easier to make a bad game than a good one. It’s simply far easier to provoke negative emotions than positive ones. This is where you get to turn that to your advantage. Remember: bosses are bad people. If you give them instant death, mind control, time manipulation, or undodgeable doom rays, it’s all in the game! That open-jawed “what the #%$& just happened” look that you normally try to avoid is now exactly what you want. Provoke a reaction, and go big.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed today’s look at anticipation in boss design! Beginning designers take note: before any of the above can work, bosses must have ways for players to see their action coming, particularly in action games. This is one of many ways that boss design overlaps with animation, and this video explains the concept perfectly. Once that basic element is in place, you’re free to do anything. Bosses should be your playground to dazzle, to impress, to leave players gasping and wondering where you’ll send them next.

Mad? Sad? Glad as a shad? Tell us all about it on Twitter, Facebook, or IndieDB page.

Leveling up. For some, it’s the best feeling in gaming. In a flash, you’re bigger, stronger, better at everything. If you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter to ding in EverQuest or logged into WoW just to burn rest experience, you’ll agree when I say that leveling is a pleasure, and addiction, and a way of life.

And at Escape Industries, we feel that we’ve been handling leveling up totally wrong.

Stephen is busy hammering away at the Fingeance Demo due out next week, so I’m seizing the authorial reins to deliver a rant on progression systems and how we can handle them better. This covers a large and ongoing battle within our team, so I feel obliged to throw out a TL;DR for anyone skimming:

1. Characters start too complex. We cram too many uses and special control schemes into the starting gadgets.
2. Characters end too simple. At end-game, characters feel just like statted-up versions of their earlier selves. We want options that meaningfully change or deepen each character’s role.
3. Death to difficult controls. We’ve dabbled in numerous gadget control schemes that confuse newcomers and wrong-foot veterans. We’re going all in on simple one-touch, instant-action gadgets.
4. All hail add-on gadgets. We’re considering adding augments that attach new longer-cooldown gadgets to your ship. Each player is capped at two add-on gadgets, in addition to the regular two gadgets.

The War of the Wolves

Fingeance, alongside every other game on earth, has two vicious wolves tugging it in opposite directions. The first wolf, Canis Noobus, has no idea what he’s doing. He is fresh to the game and overwhelmed by everything that’s going on. He wants simple controls, clear tasks, and narrow, obvious options. The second wolf, Canis Veteranus, is crusty-eyed and beset by ennui. He has seen it all and done it all. He craves freshness, complexity, challenge — something to surprise him and relieve him of the familiar.

LEFT: Awoooo!! Howling is fun! RIGHT: Look at that freaking casual.

A successful game caters to both Noobus and Veteranus. Games fail without Noobus, and communities fail without Veteranus.

But the wolves hate each other. Deny it all you want. Talk about how your favorite community loves new players because they’re the “lifeblood of the game.” You know it’s a lie. If it weren’t for newbies, bad Magic cards wouldn’t be ubiquitous (see point #3), Smash Bros. Brawl would have kept wavedashing, and Hearthstone wouldn’t have taken two years to add new deck slots.

But the point of this article isn’t to bash newbies. Instead, we’ll look at how we can tweak Fingeance’s level up system — the shop — and make it better for newbies and vets alike.

“A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.”

                                                                                   —Shigeru Miyamoto

What Newbies Want

At venues like 2D Con, we’ve gotten to watch a bevy of beginners pick up the game. Across the board, the point-of-failure has been gadgets. People get dodging, shooting, dying, and scrap. They don’t get gadgets. For us, this is a catastrophe, since gadgets carry almost everything that makes Fingeance special. Without them, we lose all the teamwork and RPG-inspired roles that make Fingeance fun. In the eyes of these new players, we were just another shoot-em-up.

But let’s dig deeper. Here’s an artist’s representation of four people playing Gil, Sparky, Bubbles, and Spike:

Man, look at the fun they’re having. Okay, now let’s get a close-up on people playing Dorsa, Finn, and Flipper:

Yikes. Now, behind the silly stock images, there’s a serious message: certain characters were very unpopular over that weekend. Here’s a rough tier list, ranked by enjoyment:

People had a ball with Bubbles and Spike, and Gil proved to be an absolute joy. On the other hand, Dorsa and Flipper drew confused looks, and Finn caused more than one player to set the controller down and walk away. With Finn being our main character (our Mario!), this was a serious issue.

Here’s the common thread: the simpler the character’s gadgets, the more fun people had. What’s more, this doesn’t just hold true for new players. An informal poll of frequent players and Fingeance designers found almost identical results (Flipper and Sparky climb a spot, while Spike falls).

What Pros Want

This is a harder question. Outside of our office, there are no Fingeance pros. Not yet.

Let’s extrapolate from some of our favorite games.

1. Pros want balance. A “flatter” power level means more options are viable, leading to more skill in decision-making.
2. Pros want variety. As the people with the most experience, pros both crave and benefit from new and different things.
3. Pros want counters. Armed with full knowledge of game systems, pros the power to select “tech” or “counter-picks” to best attack challenges.
4. Pros want difficulty. What is a pro without challenges to overcome?

Now, let’s see what we can do to meet those needs while helping newcomers at the same time. Hint: this is where we get to leveling up.

Tilting the Learning Curve

Fingeance, as of 2D Con, had a learning curve that was horribly flat. Characters started at a moderate level of complexity, and remained nearly unchanged until the end of the game. We believe we can better serve every player by tilting the learning curve: making everything simpler at level 1, but offering far more interesting complexity by level 7.

Early Game Changes: Starting Gadget Simplicity

In the early game, we want everything to be dead simple. Players, new and old alike, will be settling into the rhythm of dodging and shooting, so we want to cut down on extraneous controls. Here’s our plan:

1. Gadgets are instant-action. Nothing fancy. All gadgets are now push-to-use. No push-to-toggle (Like Finn’s Rocket Barrage), no hold-to-use (Like Dorsa’s Pickrocket), and no radial menus (Like Finn’s Rally Cry).
2. Gadgets have clear results. Gadgets need a clear bottom line. “That deals damage.” “This freezes things.”
3. Gadgets have big tells. Every gadget has to have a unique sound and launch/impact graphics to communicate exactly what happened and where.
4. Gadgets are low-cooldown. If you missed what the gadget did the first time, you can use it again a few seconds later.

Unlockable characters may, on rare occasion, break rules 1 and 4.

Shop Changes: Add-On Gadgets

As the game progresses, we want characters to learn some new tricks. Starting at level 2, every shop scene has the chance of offering one or more add-on gadgets. These are new special abilities that can be used independent of the character’s built-in gadgets. Here are some specifics:

1. Add-on Gadgets are mapped to new buttons. On an XBox controller, they’ll be (X) and (Y).
2. Players are limited to 2 add-ons. Once you’ve selected two, further add-on gadgets will not appear in the shop.
3. Add-on Gadgets have longer cooldowns. For the most part, these are treated as superpowers and panic buttons. Expect to use them strategically.
4. Add-on Gadgets expand character roles. We’ll use add-on gadgets to let characters explore new roles or empower existing ones.

Changes in Action: Fixing Finn

So, let’s see how these apply to our favorite mis-managed Mario: Finn.

First things first: we’re dumpstering Finn’s old gadgets. They’ve been replaced with the Rampage (peep this hot tweet) and the Last Stand (which shields allies). Both these gadgets fulfill our four-point criterion: they have one-push controls, clear effects, brand-new sounds and animations, and can be used about once every 6 seconds. Good stuff.

Now onto leveling up. As we make augments for Finn, we’re building around a handful of themes. Here are a few that may make it into the final game:

• The Hero
  • Role: Backline DPS.
  • Add-On Gadgets: Long-range instant damage.
  • Augments: Self-buffs for dealing gadget damage; Gadget damage bonuses.
• The Avenger
  • Role: DPS and Secondary Tank.
  • Add-On Gadgets: Toughness boosts and health recovery.
  • Augments: Rewards for shielding damage; Rewards for surviving at low health.
• The General
  • Role: Support.
  • Add-On Gadgets: Team-wide buffs and heals.
  • Augments: Cooldown reduction; Gadget shielding bonuses.

Leveling Up Wrap Up

I hope you enjoyed this brief look into leveling up in Fingeance! Comments? Let us have it on Twitter.

Hey lads and ladies! As of this posting, we are thirty hours away from setting up our station at 2D Con in scenic Bloomington, MN. After that, we’ll spend June 3rd-5th exploring the fun 2D Con has to offer and displaying all that’s new in Fingeance. Here are a few of our proudest offerings:

Character Dialogue

For the first time, we’ll take our bold new dialogue system for a spin. For months, we’ve been talking up the silly, sulky, or sassy personalities of our main characters. Now, watch them in action. Characters will react to events both splendid and catastrophic, and will pipe up with pithy quips between battles.

All-new Shop Scene

That’s right folks, the Fingeance progression that you know and tolerate has been massively upgraded. Feast your eyes on these changes:

Old Shop: Tons of information delivered all at once, very little room for descriptions.

New Shop Part 1: Pick one of three upgrades. No scrap required. These add unique powers and personality to your ship.

New Shop Part 2: Buy Statistical Upgrades. These add straightforward numerical bonuses to things like health, movespeed, and damage.

Yeah, yeah, it looks beautiful, but don’t be over-awed by Charles’ jaw-dropping stand-in art. Focus instead on the pleasure of a system that works on so many levels:

First, the new shop slashes analysis paralysis. The old shop presented a huge amount of information on one screen. In the new shop, we break that complexity into two simple choices (pick one special augment, then buy upgrades), one of which is always the same. This results in the same amount of meaningful decision-making, since previously about 50% of all buyable parts were just straight stat increases.

Second, the new shop allows team communication. Let’s say you’re in a four-player game, and you’ve just entered the shop scene. Let’s imagine you’re playing on Hard mode, and you’d like to spend a moment strategizing with your team to plan out the best set of upgrades you can take. In the old shop, this would mean reading all 24 available parts. The new shop cuts this decision space down to 12, and also removes costs, greatly reducing the analysis burden. In the old shop, most players exhibited one of two behaviors: either they spent minutes carefully tuning their own build (something the old shop was pretty good at) or they decided it was all too overwhelming, chose random gear, and bolted out of the shop at top speed. We believe the new shop will be more broadly user friendly and will promote a lot more cross-talk and interaction between players.

Third, the new shop improves readability. This is comparatively minor, but it’s nice for observers to be able to tell — with one glance at a player’s upgrade path — what kind of build they’re going for.

Fourth, the new shop controls weirdness. In the past, we’ve had some buyable upgrades that grant stat upgrades (more health, more damage, etc.) and others that add new abilities (extra explosions when you do this, freezing powers when you do that, etc.). We quickly saw that players who bought all stat upgrades were powerful but very boring, while those who bought extra abilities were wild and unpredictable, with madly fluctuating power. In some ways, this system had its charm, but the best games always happened when players were somewhere in the middle — getting better stats and also picking up a few new powers. The new ship is a strong push toward the middle, and produces more enjoyable results on average.

Fully Rebalanced Characters

Since GlitchCon, we discovered a few math bugs undercutting our game balance and making characters behave in unexpected ways. This doesn’t deserve a big spiel, but expect to see a bigger variety of characters being played (bye bye Sparky/Spike/Dorsa holy trinity). You can also expect less out-of-nowhere deaths from some enemy bullets dealing far more damage than intended.

Of course, not all is roses for the players: we’ll be offering a by-request-only peek at our newly-refurbished Extreme difficulty, soon to rock the socks off of players near you!

Reloaded Gil, Dorsa, and Others

Stephen has written at length about the new workings of Gil and Dorsa, but not about two other characters who’ve seen big shifts over the last month. I’m not at liberty to discuss who, but you’ll see if you pay us a visit at 2D Con.

But Wait! There’s More!

May has been the hottest month for Fingeance on record, and we’re just warming up. Visit us and see all-new augments, experimental enemies, new level chunks, rebalanced bosses, level and campaign results screens, and a bounty of user experience fixes. Shoutout to Hannah Murphy (who seriously needs to call her UX company Modest Murphy Consulting, it’s just too fun to say) for all her UX help.

Hope to see you all at 2D Con!

In April, as we geared up for GlitchCon, we took time to engage in one of the great pleasures of game-making, User Experience design. Today, I present four stories of making player gadgets (special attacks) as intuitive and pleasurable as possible.

Spike’s Shell Block: A Defensive Demonstration

We’re starting big. This is one of the most hard-wrought parts in the game for us, and has undergone at least a dozen revisions during Fingeance history. We think we’ve finally nailed it.

Shell Block enables Spike to use his body to shield the team from attack. To be specific, it enlarges Spike’s body and gives him a substantial shield that prevents him from taking damage. Turn it on, and you go from regular character to indomitable protector. Right now, this might be the marquee gadget in our game, since it so clearly enables a non-aggressive role. You see this thing in action, and instantly know you’re not playing a garden-variety shoot-em-up; you’re playing a team game, and everyone has a part to play.

Problem 1: “What is this gadget for?”

That brings us to the flagship problem. People don’t expect a defensive special ability in a shoot-em-up, especially one that expects you to absorb bullets with your body. That would be anathema in something like Touhou, Ikaruga, or Jamestown.

For months, we saw people activate this ability, then huddle in the back, behind their teammates. Alternatively, they’d confusedly run into enemies, expecting to deal damage. The idea of a part that functions helps you take rather than deal damage was lost.

The Solution: Piggyback on expectations from other genres.

To solve this question, we tweaked the player’s health bar to match what you’d expect in a MOBA or fighting game. As you can see below, we added a flashing shield bar to players’ health bar.

Additionally, we added two graphical features that adjust as the player takes damage, as explained in the next problem/solution.

Problem 2: “When does Shell Block end?”

Shell Block makes you a badass, but only for so long. While the shield is up, you take zero damage, but as soon as it runs out, you’re back to normal. Picture it: the shield is full, so you charge into a cloud of whizzing projectiles. You take the first ten like a champ, but then the shield is down, and suddenly you’re being shredded just like (gasp!) a normal character.

Health is precious and healing is rare. Mistakes – like running out of shield when you’re not expecting to – can be devastating. We saw player after player get gutted at the terminus of Spike’s shield, so we knew something needed to change.

The Solution: Give shielding clear and non-binary graphical effects.

Our fundamental error was representing shielding in a binary way: showing you that it was on or off. We weren’t doing enough to represent the close-to-wearing-off state. To make it clear when the shield is moments away from expiring, we took three steps:

1. We added a shielding bar to the players’ health bar, as seen above.
2. We made a shielding particle effect (those swirly blue and green crescents) that gets thinner as the shield fades.
3. For Shell Block, we tied Spike’s current size to the amount of shield remaining.

Finally, we made a mechanical change: shields no longer time out. In the past, Shell Block lasted two seconds, so at the end of two seconds, the shield vanished all at once. Now, the shield gradually loses health, expiring only when the health reaches zero.

Sparky’s Teleporter: A Transit Triumph

From big to small: the Teleporter is a tiny player in the scheme of Fingeance. It helps Sparky, one of our high-damage characters, fulfill her special role as a high-speed assassin.

The thrust of the Teleporter is simple enough: teleport from place to place, hopping safely over enemy bodies and bullets. Inside Escape Industries, Sparky is among our favorites, and the Teleporter is a big reason why.

Problem 3: “Where will I end up?”

The teleporter uses a simple cursor – a dot – to indicate where the player will teleport. The trouble? There are LOTS of dots in this game. When you use the teleporter, the cursor can get visually lost among dozens or hundreds of enemy bullets.

The Solution: Add visual elements wholly unlike bullets.

To set the cursor apart, we added two traits:

1. The cursor now pulses.
2. A thin line now appears between the cursor and the player’s hull.

Small. Simple. Revolutionary. Stephen threw on the line in minutes, and made Sparky feel all-new. With the “where will I end up” question so clearly answered, Sparky players will be able to weave between enemy bullets with ease. Vulnerable back-line enemies beware!

Sparky’s Light Strike Array: Charge-up Challenge

Let’s hop back to a big issue: charge-up parts.

The Light Strike Array is one example of a gadget that builds up charge. It can be released instantly for moderate damage, or charged up fully to deliver massive punishment.

Problem 4: “Why isn’t this doing anything?”

Anyone who’s made an action game will relate to how bewilderingly difficult charge-up parts can be to make. Everything else in the game feels so responsive: hit a button, see the effect. Here, you’re making an ability with intentional lag-time between input and effect. Do it wrong, and one of two things can happen:

1. The player will hit the button, see no effect, and conclude nothing is happening.
2. The player will hit the button, see a charge-up indicator, and conclude that the indicator is the effect, and become baffled by the apparently effect-less ability.

Charge-up abilities, as a class, have eaten more of my time than any other feature. I’ve seen players struggle, question, and throw up their hands. I’ve seen players play an entire campaign without figuring them out. I’ve seen players give up on gadgets entirely. Perhaps moreso than any other problem, this needed to be fixed.

The Solution: Add a visual with a clear end point AND add a riser sound effect.

Sparky’s Light Strike Array (LSA) was where we cracked charge-up abilities. It’s no coincidence: the LSA has two features that helped us discover the right way to execute these powers in Fingeance.

First, the LSA’s firing spread changes as you charges. If you fire it off instantly, it produces a wide cone of diffuse bullets. As it charges, the arc of fire narrows down slowly, becoming a straight line at maximum charge. This led us to our first discovery: when we added arrow indicators to show the area of fire, people started charging the LSA. Suddenly, it had become obvious that something was happening when you held down that button. Better yet, there was a definite end point: when those arrow indicators touch, you know it’s fully charged. To us, it seemed as though players’ curiosity was piqued. They experimented with both uncharged and fully-charged shots until their understanding was complete.

Second, the LSA has a theme. Like Sparky, it’s all about electricity. That meant finding sound effects was easy: we just went to our bank of electrical SFX (thank you 99sounds.org!). Our breakthrough, obvious in retrospect, was that adding a rising sound during charge-up strongly reinforces that both “something is happening,” and “something is getting bigger,” encouraging you to keep going and see what happens next.

Resolution: Better User Experience, Easier Design

I hope you enjoyed a small look into Fingeance user experience design. At this point, you might be left with the question, “you aren’t done making content yet. Why are you polishing?” The answer is that we’ve slowly learned the importance of intuitive player tools for testing. Too often, we’ve tested for hours only to walk away with data muddied by players who simply didn’t know what they were doing. We look at User Experience work as a tool to improve testing and balancing down the road.

In the last two weeks, Fingeance has undergone a sweeping set of changes designed to promote teamwork and communication. This rebalance touches everything, but focuses on the pace of combat. From the beginning, we’ve wanted to make our game a Side-Scrolling Shoot-Em-Up with Roles, and a huge part of having “roles” is having them work together in fun and synergistic ways:

• Tank characters should be able to dive in front of allies, saving their lives.
• Leader characters should buff allies or weaken enemies, directing the flow of combat.
• Healer characters should add sustainability or relief to a team, and synergize really really well with tanks.

I feel that, until very recently, we’ve been failing. One batch of playtesters after the next showed us that, with the way our game was, players more or less do their own thing.

Together, but Alone

Here, check out our promo video:

Ask yourself a two questions:

1. How often do you see one player save another one?
2. How often does one player heal or empower another?

My answers are zero and one time, respectively. 42 seconds in, Dorsa lays down a healing drone, causing Finn to regain a few hit points. There are two problems here:

1. Characters don’t interact enough.
2. Combat goes so fast that you can’t even tell when they do interact.

Throughout most of the video — supposed to be a showcase of the best moments in our game — players keep mostly to themselves, and almost never get a tangible benefit from working with an ally. This had to change. In 18 months of playtesting, the best moments always came when people had reason to work together. We set out to produce more of those moments.

As it turned out, we produced a lot more.

The Rebalance Changelog

To get an idea of the scope of the changes, take a look at part of the changelog:

• Players no longer heal when picking up scrap.
• Enemy damage reduced by 67%.

A big one. Players take damage much more slowly, but can no longer recover easily. This has three big benefits. First, a tank has much more time to rush to the aid of a dying teammate. Second, healers are far more valuable, since they offer something a team could not get without them. Third, we lose one of the worst moments in the game, which was getting hit by multiple high-damage bullets at once and dying instantly.

• Enemies now reduce the scroll rate while onscreen.
  • Larger enemies reduce the scroll rate more.
  • On average, medium-sized enemies cut the scroll rate in half.
  • This results in fights lasting about 16 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

Huge. Now, players have far more time to understand how enemies work and engage them strategically. Longer combat gives tanks and healers more room to execute their roles, which often require timing and finesse. Not mentioned here is that multiple enemies are gaining “sometimes visible” weak spots, which empowers tanks that can stun enemies and lock them in a vulnerable position.

Crab Battle: The crab is nearly invulnerable while in a defensive position. When it swings its arms open to attack, Spike can stun it, letting the team rack up massive damage.

• Charge-up animation added to all enemy attacks.

Another bonus for characters who can stun or slow enemies, and also for tanks. To state the obvious, seeing when a threat is coming makes it a lot easier to react.

• New Character, [NAME REDACTED], added.
  • Left Gadget – Gigarepair – Single target heal.
  • Right Gadget – [NAME REDACTED] – [FUNCTION REDACTED].

With the loss of healing, we added an unlockable character with a very simple, direct heal.

• New Gadget for Dorsa.
  • Left Gadget – Pickrocket – Piercing projectile. Aim in any direction. Heal self and teammates for each enemy damaged.

We also added a powerful healing toy for Dorsa.

• Health Bars added to players and enemies.

With the addition of stronger healing parts, we thought it was important to make it exceptionally clear which allies are near death.

• Taking damage and healing HP both produce a much stronger visual effect.

Unlike the other changes, this one is purely cosmetic. However, I rate it as one of my favorites, if not my favorite overall. Half the battle, as addressed in the other changes, is giving players the ability to work together. The other half, addressed here, is showing them proof that they are working together, and that it’s awesome. Here we multiplied some visual effects by about 15 (seriously, they were way too faint before) to make it very clear who’s heroically tanking the damage, who’s dishing it out, and who’s healing up.

Hurt and Heal: We’ve increased the visibility of effects that tell you you just got damaged or healed. The same yellow submarine is pictured in both shots.

Slowing Down, Hyping Up

So, if everything is getting slower, does that mean things are less exciting? Not at all. Think of watching an action movie at double speed. Is it more exciting? No way. Gone is the anticipation. Gone is the suspense. The fight scenes are too short, the characters are undeveloped, and everything whizzes by too fast to be understood. In my view, that was Fingeance.

Now that we’re at a slower pace, everyone has time to comprehend the action, invent a strategy, and communicate with teammates. From what we’ve seen so far, this change allows players to work together like never before.

This change also creates memorable moments. Before, the story of a death might have gone like this:

“Things were going okay, but then I lost concentration for a moment and three bullets hit me. I died.”

Now, it’s different. Charles and I had one of our best-ever teamwork moments. We died, but it was still a blast. Here’s the story:

“We were worn down to the bone. We’d just finished a tough level, and were about to fight the boss, One Tough Puffer, with only about 15% of our life remaining. Charles was the new healer, and was trying to slowly patch us up. I, as Spike, was using Shell Block (temporary invulnerability) to shield us from the boss, but it was a nightmare. Every time I stuck my neck out too long and accidentally took a hit, we were one inch closer to death. As soon as I was gone, I knew Charles’ more fragile character would be dead soon too.

“Charles was playing smart. He was using most of his energy to heal me, but was keeping an eye on the boss. Whenever it charged up a big attack (hint! It sucks in air and gets bigger), he lobbed an Ice Grenade (creates a zone of cold, slowing movement and shooting of enemies within. Note: This part now belongs to Dorsa) to slow the boss down, making it wayyyy easier to avoid its attacks.

“It was the turrets that got us. Midway through the fight, red lights and klaxxons flared, signalling one of the boss’s gimmicks: six turrets sprouted from the top and bottom of the screen. We raced to destroy them before they started firing, but we were too slow. Seconds after they began shooting, Charles was torn to shreds (yes, I failed to block a few shots from reaching him). Without a healer, I followed shortly.

“Next time, we should bring an Assault character to help us out.”

Stories like this are exactly what I was hoping for when we first set out to make a “Shoot-Em-Up with Roles.” Longer, tenser fights make the stories — and the teamwork — so much better.

Stephen, lovable scamp that he is, left me something before he and Charles left to frolic on the floors of GDC.

I’m getting a little giddy just looking at it. He has great taste, and knows just what I like. Should we open it up?

I was thinking the same thing.

Oh wait! There’s a note.

Big words! Still, I must know more. What did Stephen do?

Oh. Huh. There’s something attached to the note.

…what?

Wait, there’s more on the back of the note…

Heh.

Alright buddy, you have a lot to live up to. Let’s see what’s inside.

…Man, great wrapping job, this is taking forever.

…Lid’s off, but still nothing. Where is it?

…Jeez, I wish Stephen was allergic to packing peanuts.

…Found it. Little weirdly shaped. Let’s pull this up.

Wait… don’t I already have one of these?

Well, probably better to give Stephen the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he made some cool changes. Let’s try her out.

Huh, first thing I notice here is that Bubbles’ bullets are big. Yes, sure, this solves a couple problems for us, but it’s not exactly MENSA material, is it? Yeah yeah, Bubbles is now able to hit nearby targets far more reliably and yes, new players will catch on to Bubbles’ short range requirements much faster, but is this all you’ve got, Steve?

…Shoot. So busy keyboard-warrioring I forgot to kill those guppies. In a bit of a spot here. Better try out my gadgets.

Let’s see if THIS does anything!

That’s… actually kind of cool. Sure, Stephen’s graphics are a little basic, but this is a sweet function, destroying enemy bullets in a small area. In this situation, it’s a nice little panic button, but I can totally see how this would help me maneuver into position to blast a boss’s weak point.

After some more experimentation, it looks like the gadget, the Shockwave, produces a field that lasts half a second, and also knocks back nearby enemies. Grudgingly, I concede that Stephen did fine work here. It’s a fun device to toy around with. It’s like the shooting-game equivalent of an action game’s defensive roll.

It’s a small thing, but I also like how Stephen is handling the controls: putting defensive gadgets on the left and aggressive gadgets on the right. It’s a tiny tweak, but it makes new characters so much easier to pick up.

Now, let’s see how the other gadget stacks up.

…Holy mackerel.

Is Stephen a genius?   Wait. Don’t answer that.

Bubbles’ second gadget, Battle Fury, makes her shoot 250% faster for 1 second. To explain why this is so devastatingly brilliant, I’m going to need a quick visit to the Overthinking Corner.

Lane’s Overthinking Corner 01 – Short Range

Thanks for joining me.

Here at Escape Industries, our goal is to bring traditional RPG and MOBA roles to the shoot-em-up genre. Among these roles is the supremely durable Tank. This character is responsible for protecting her more fragile teammates by, among other things, putting herself between her allies and danger. To make this role, we need ways to encourage players to get close to enemies.

This brings us to short-ranged weapons. Certain characters, like Bubbles and Spike, wield short-ranged cannons that either incentivize or require them to close in on enemies before dealing damage. A lot of the time, this works great. The tank player is in prime position to defend allies who need it most.

However, in this genre, tanks must face a terrible truth. Enemies produce bullets. Bullets radiate outward from enemies. Bullets are closest together when they are closest to enemies. Sometimes, bullets are so close together that there is simply no safe place to stay within half a screen of an enemy. Feast your eyes on this, then tell me how you’d safely stay close to this guy:

Crazy, right? What’s a tank to do? Fortunately, another truth of the genre is that enemies have multiple attack patterns; otherwise, things get boring. There will be big, scary attacks, but there will also be smaller, weaker attacks in between. Tanks can sneak in during these moments and deal some damage.

But how much damage? Here’s the tough part: when we make bosses shoot less in order to allow a safe moment for tanks, it doesn’t just affect tanks. A small reduction in boss firepower might allow Bubbles to attack for an extra second, but it may also make the fight much easier for a Finn or Gil, who no longer needs to work as hard to dodge attacks for that period. So far, when we’ve tuned bosses to put up a good fight against long-range players, they end up scaring tanks away about 80% of the time. That’s 80% of the boss fight where the tank is not dealing damage to the boss.

So how do we make up for this? One solution might be to make tanks just deal five times as much damage. They’d come out even against bosses, sure, but they’d be wildly, ridiculously successful at beating other enemy encounters, where enemies allow up-close attacks far more often.

This is where Stephen’s Battle Fury gadget shows its worth. Moreso than any gadget we’ve ever made, Battle Fury allows tanks to capitalize on the rare moments they get to shoot at bosses. By multiplying the tank’s damage by 3.5, Stephen lets a tank deal almost as much damage as a fragile DPS character, but only with excellent timing. Moreover, because it’s only active for one second during each use, Battle Fury gives Bubbles strength against bosses without letting her simply waltz through the rest of the game’s content.

So, what did Stephen do here?

He created a beat-em-up character, and stuffed her in the shoot-em-up genre. In a genre that encourages passive, defensive play, he managed to reward aggression, timing, and strategic thinking. He created a submarine loadout true to its character’s personality, as impulsive and ferocious as Bubbles herself.

Oh, and he let me brag about something awesome in Fingeance without disturbing my Minnesotan sensibilities (I can’t talk about anything good that I’ve done, you see).

Thanks man. Hope you’re having a blast at GDC.

PS — Some dialog from Stephen has been changed. He may not actually be a scumbag in real life.

Since we finished our massive push, Fingeance is starting to look an awful lot like a completed game. In fact, we’ve had several playtesters ask us “Why aren’t you publishing? What features do you still need to add?” We take this as a sizable compliment, and every time we hear it, we get a little more excited for the big day. Today, though, I want to try to answer the question. We at Escape Industries like to dream big, and here are seven of the biggest features we want to add.

Note: Nothing here is final. This is a glimpse inside our heads, not a look into a crystal ball.

Feature 7: Better Difficulty Settings

Problem

Stephen and I do a lot of fighting over game difficulty. Here are our philosophies (quotes not exact):

Stephen: “If we lay down a Dance Dance Revolution mat in a Toddler’s crib, they should be able to beat at least Hard difficulty.”

Lane: “You know @GoldenSRL, the Minneapolis Speedrunner? If he sweats at it for a month, he might be able to earn level 2.”

It’s a classic battle. I want to cater to top-level veterans, and he wants to cater to (condescending snort) rank amateurs, arguing that they make up the “bulk of the playerbase” or something. Sounds like loser talk to me.

Solution

If we really want to make players happy, we’ll need to make a handful of really good difficulty settings. The challenge, for us, is making sure each difficulty plays well across eight levels of gameplay. Like many games with RPG progression, Fingeance players and enemies become exponentially more powerful toward the end of the game. Small differences in power multiply, and it’s surprisingly hard to give players a fighting chance early-game without letting them steamroll enemies late-game. Still, this is on our list of essential features.

Feature 6: Comedy

Problem

What should Fingeance feel like? Here are some thoughts (quotes not exact):

Stephen (countless times): This game should feel like a Saturday morning cartoon!

Charles (ad nauseam): What this game is missing is that comic book feel!

How close are we to these goals?

Story? Goofy tale of fish who can’t breathe underwater. Check.

Visuals? Cartoon visuals with a lot of silly shake and squash-n-stretch. Check.

Fun Extras? …Nada.

For a game that promises wacky underwater hi-jinks, Fingeance is pretty much belly-up in the chuckles department. All our work has been on the other side of the emotional spectrum. Scary bosses make hearts race with threatening attacks. But where there’s stress, there should be stress-relief. Even the most barnacle-encrusted veterans need a break sometimes.

Solution

A Fingeance campaign lasts about thirty minutes. That’s thirty minutes to fill the screen with gags and personality. Later, I’ll mention two ways we’ll be showcasing characters and story. For now, I’ll just say that we’re very excited to make enemies a little bit sillier.

Feature 5: Dialog

Problem

A tale as old as time: four tiny fish with a big problem. From the start, Charles has wanted to make you love these little guys, for all their quirks and charm.

I’d say we’re about 5% of the way there. Consider this benchmark: right now, Soul Calibur characters have more discernible personality than ours, and that stings more than a full-body hug from a Jellyfish Queen.

Solution

We’d like to crib a feature from Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead (huh, funny that they’re all Valve games): reactive dialog. Our characters should have quips that react to big moments like friends dying, treasure looting, and victory. This would give us limitless opportunity to show off each character’s point of view through their reactions. Since the game is in comic-book style, these quips would be placed in speech balloons next to each character.

We’re told this is difficult — first in making reactions appear at the right time, then making them not obscure the battlefield — but right now, it seems so worth it. The game feels empty with mute characters. Through dialog,  Bubbles could unleash her bloodthirst. Dorsa could revel in her greed. Finn could, at last, do something more leader-like than point into the distance.

Feature 4: Achievements

Problem

This is hand-in-hand with Dialog. Right now the game has no way of recognizing the awesome things you do when you play.

Solution

Adding achievements to Fingeance is a no-brainer. Achievements are always a nice way to give players a pat on the back for good play, but in our game, they can do so much more. Consider a few things we wrestle with in our progression system:

1. We want to allow rare/wild character builds like Pacifist Finn and Drone-Master Gil.
2. We want to get the message across that such builds are occasionally possible, and very powerful if done right.
3. We want the shop to be as clean and simple as possible.

It doesn’t take a game Ph.D. to see that points 2 and 3 will sometimes clash. Our shop should be spare, and approachable for newcomers, yet we still want to hint at a world of possibilities. Achievements are one way we can get around this. Through achievements, we can make suggestions that will pique the curiosity of established players while being fully invisible to newcomers.

Feature 3: Better Level Generation

Problem

We’ll be doing a full article on this at some point. For now, know that we’re a bit unsatisfied with the way Fingeance levels are generated. Here’s what we do now:

1. By hand, we grade the intensity and loot-value of each chunk (10-20 second slice of level content).
2. Automatically grab the theme content in each chunk (things like minefields, freezing enemies, weak points).
3. Build a level with intensity following a standard Engagement Curve.
4. Favor including chunks with themes similar to the upcoming boss.

This produces levels of appropriate difficulty, but currently feels too random.

Solution

WARNING: Pie-in-the-sky Thinking Ahead! — Yes, Fingeance will always have randomly-generated levels, but we want them to feel cohesive. We want each stage to feel like uncovering some new scheme from the Dolphin Empire. The start of a level should hint at what’s to come. The middle should slowly unveil the diabolical plot while allowing players to test their mettle against the new menace. The end should be the apex of that theme — the boss itself an expression and apotheosis of everything in the level thus far. The players should be able to put their newly-built skills up against the highest challenge and, Neptune-willing, succeed.

Realistically, thematic levels take a lot of work, due to the sheer volume of chunks needed to build levels this way. While we’ll be building toward this in coming months, don’t expect to see it in the game any time soon.

Feature 2: Cutscenes

Problem

Here. Take this. Just hold it for a second. You’ll need it later. Trust me.

Okay. Ready? I’m about to make an announcement.

Ahem.

Fingeance has a storyline.

Alright, sorry about that. Once you’ve picked your jaw up off the floor (glad you have that scooper now, eh?), we can chat.

Fingeance, as of March 2nd, 2016, does almost nothing to tell the audience what the heck is going on. You know you’re fighting mechanized sea creatures, but to what end? We’re positively aching for a way to tell the tale.

Solution

Achievements hint at the future.

Dialog reacts to the present.

But what of the past? Right now, we do nothing to show the plight of our main characters, and why they’re so set on revenge. We do nothing to highlight the villainy of the dolphins, and why they must be stopped. We do nothing to give more context and motivation than “dodge that bullet,” or “buy that powerup.”

We all know what cutscenes are. We need them. We have a story to tell.

Feature 1: Unlockables

Problem

I remember reading a while back that Pepsi beats Coke in what they call the “sip test.” It’s more sugary and citrus-y, which delights first-time drinkers. Why, then, is Coke the better seller of the two brands? Perhaps marketing alone is enough to explain the difference, but perhaps there’s a different story. Maybe that same sugar overload that makes Pepsi so sippable becomes tiresome as the can — or pack — goes on.

We run into the same issue with Fingeance, believe it or not. In games, simplicity is like sugar. A small, simple game is very attractive to first-timers. A simple game promises a short learning curve and easy mastery. Everyone is willing to give it a shot. However, that winning simplicity will soon leave a bad taste in players’ mouths: if the game really is as simple as it looks, people will soon leave it behind in search of the next flavor.

But imagine… what if you could make a drink that was sippable at first, but then, after your first gulp, slowly transformed into a mellower, more complex blend? Unlike soft drinks, games really do have this power, through the magic of Unlockables.

Solution

Fingeance, down deep, strives to be one thing above all: a big game in a little package.

For the last year, we’ve been striving toward the hallowed ground of Faster than Light, Risk of Rain, and The Binding of Isaac: a brief, fun-sized experience you can finish over a lunch break…

…and then obsess over for the next year.

See, each of the above games is a little bit deceitful. Under the hood, they’re massively complex, with hundreds of collectibles and customization options. On the surface, though, when you first pick the game up, they appear so simple. So approachable. How do they do that? A uniting strength of these games is that they evolve to match your abilities as a player. At first, only about 20% of the content of each game is available, and it’s all the simplest stuff. You’re able to dig in and rapidly understand all of your options. You can settle in and master what seems to be a simple game.

But then it starts expanding. Across multiple short playthroughs, new enemies begin to appear, and new bosses stand in your way. Similarly, your own options begin to get more complex. The game stays just one step ahead of you, never overwhelming, but never letting you be complacent.

If Fingeance wants to reach its potential, it needs to change across playthroughs. It needs to evolve. It needs unlockables.

First things first: we did it! As of 11:59pm on January 19th, we have a full-length game on our hands.

Our plan was as ludicrous as it was ambitious. It took us just under 18 months to make the previous two levels, and we challenged ourselves to make the next six in just three weeks. We ended up cutting a few corners (you won’t see new bosses previewed here for a while, for example, because we don’t have finished art), but we now have a fun, full-length Fingeance adventure to explore. If you’re in the Twin Cities area, we’ll be demoing it for the first time ever at Glitch Headquarters this Friday at 5pm. Join us!

In weeks to come, we’ll be talking about the new content, and discuss some upcoming changes to player progression. Today, we’ll be showcasing another new backdrop for your adventuring pleasure. We present…

Dolphin City

At last.

From the moment four friends were dumped, quite literally breathless, out into the far reaches of the coral reef, they’ve been waiting for this moment. Now, they watch nervously as enormous dark structures loom larger and larger in the distance.

The dolphins know why you’ve come, and they’re armed to the teeth to stop you. As you seek vengeance, you’ll find out what the empire is truly capable of.

Finding your Way in the Darkness

We won’t say much about the fish’s intentions here, beyond saying that the dolphins do not like them. In Dolphin City levels, you’ll encounter increasingly desperate waves of an army bent on stopping you at any cost. Destruction will be ubiquitous. Danger, profound.

Let’s be clear about something: dolphins in this universe are malevolent, yes, but their intelligence hasn’t changed. They’re still the smartest things in the ocean. When you fight against dolphins, expect canny creatures with a broad suite of tactics and devastating firepower. They’re highly social, and have a penchant for forcing lackeys to do their bidding. Against a dolphin formation, your greatest ally is maneuverability: often all it takes to crack an invincible army is being at the right place at the right time.

As a case in point, consider the Controller. This is a new type of enemy that hangs back and sends forth drones to terrorize your party. Against Controllers, raw aggression accomplishes little: drones are excellent at protecting their masters. Instead, you’ll need to position strategically. Abandon pummeling the front lines just long enough to sneak a shot at the eggheads giving orders. Word to the wise: the Teleporter is magic here.

Making the Dolphin City

So much of the Dolphin City just clicked. By the time we worked on this biome, we’d discovered a handful of tricks to making enemies fun without being overwhelming:

• Novel enemies reward adaptive thinking. They produce extra challenge without us needing to put more bullets on the screen.
• Aggressive enemies — ones that hunt players down — stress players, but in a good way. They might only fire three bullets, but they’re all headed right for you and you need to move!
• Interacting enemies — those that cover each-others weaknesses — change the battlefield, even in small numbers.

So, we found that smart, ferocious, and social enemies are the most fun to play against. This made us incredibly happy, since that’s Dolphin-kind in a nutshell. Making the levels in this biome went faster than any other, mainly because everything we tried here just worked. We couldn’t be more excited to playtest it this Friday.

Before I sign off, I’ve got to give a tip of the hat to Stephen. He made one of the major bosses here in a day. That’s insane. Compare to the “One Tough Puffer” boss, which I’ve sunk almost forty hours into. I can’t go into what the boss is or does, but I can begrudgingly salute Stephen for making something so fun in such a short amount of time. Bravo, sir!

Can’t wait to see what waits in the Dolphin City? Join us this Friday at 5pm, right here! Can’t make it? Feel free to comment here on our blog, or on our Facebook and Twitter.

Salutations!

As many of you know, Escape Industries set out on a mad quest recently. We were tired of endless hypotheticals about how the game might look someday. So we set out to build the dang thing. As soon as possible. In mid December, we ourselves upon a crazy challenge: make six levels in just over three weeks. From December 27th to January 19th, we’ve been (and will be) making a full-length Fingeance campaign.

To put this in perspective, our previous two levels took almost 18 months.

In the near future, you’ll see a post-mortem on this process, why we did it, and what we learned. For now though, we proudly present a brief tease of a small piece of our efforts. Presenting…

The Deep Sea Cave

The Deep Sea Cave is beautiful, forgotten, and tranquil —  or indeed it once was. Today, the cave serves as a sort of tomb, housing the discarded remnants of the Dolphin empire, as well as other, older civilizations. Within its depths, you’ll find traps and treasures deemed so dangerous they must be shut away.

In the first level of the Deep Sea Cave, you’ll battle wardens placed by the Dolphins themselves, as well as mechanical guardians and ghastly new animal recruits. Pass into the second level, and prepare to discover why they’re fighting. Why they’re keeping you out. What they’re keeping in. What they don’t want you to see.

Finding your Way in the Darkness

The Deep Sea Cave represents the height of the empire’s strength and the depth of the its morality. Expect a raft of new enemy attack styles, and prepare to think your way through intriguing new challenges. More than any we’ve made so far, the Deep Sea Cave rewards exploration and replay. With enemies that respond to your actions and traps that can damage friend or foe, the best course of action may not be immediately apparent.

Notably, the Deep Sea Cave introduces a few attacks that are particularly difficult to dodge. While a skilled player can still sneak through in single-player without taking a hit, it will be a great challenge. We recommend that beginner and intermediate teams stock up on extra health and healing before braving the deepest depths.

Making the Deep Sea Cave

The images in this article don’t quite reveal the extent of what we’ll be doing in the Deep Sea Cave. They do, however, give a hint at its mood. First, the cave is dark. Light produced by players and bio-luminescent enemies will pull a lot of weight here. Bullets still glow, so don’t worry about being blindsided by invisible firepower. However, as you venture deeper into the cave, be prepared for surprises around every corner.

As with last week, we’ve added a new song to fit our new biome. I personally really love this one, and can’t wait for you all to hear it in the final biome. Charles did spectacular work here.

When asked about the track he said “I was trying to make it feel a lot more open, so I added a lot of reverb to the instruments. This is definitely the most melodic song in the game so far. It has a much stronger emphasis on the chiptune portion of the song rather than the bells or pad because I wanted to include longer notes with a lead sound rather than a full and lush one.” Whatever that means.

So, how do you feel about the Deep Sea Cave? You can comment here on our blog, or on our Facebook and Twitter.

Dorsa: Still?

It’s been minutes, and still the ink keeps coming. It slithers out in towering jet-black plumes. The light around them had dwindled, then faded entirely, reducing the forms of our heroes have to four tiny pinpricks of light in the fog. They squint out from their submarines, struggling to see anything but blackness.

Well, anything but blackness and the burning red eye.

*  *  *

Before the ink began to flow, Finn had noticed something. He’d seen that his sonar was picking up a landmass where none should exist. Peering ahead, he saw the shadow of a colossal form, and watched, awestruck, as it began to move. This shouldn’t be happening. When they’d left the surface, Finn, Dorsa, and Spike had left whales behind. There shouldn’t be anything down here this big.

Finn watches as the titan slumbers, dreaming whatever it is that gods dream.

Finn: Hey guys, I think there’s-

Dorsa: Angler, incoming!

Spike: Watch out, soft boy!

Spike, piloting his banged-up freighter, careens into view. An instant later, the tell-tale flash of an angler’s laser pierces the fog. The sizzling bolt of annihilation — that would have wiped Finn away — slams into Spike instead.

Spike: Hah! I’ve seen tadpoles that hit harder than you!

Spike has a tough ship. When the adventure began, he’d had the biggest ship in the fleet. Now? The thing is unrecognizable. Every piece of scrap he’s salvaged has gone toward reinforced plating and repair drones. Spike may seem cocky on the front lines, but that confidence is well-earned.

So, Spike does what he’s done every time so far. He takes the hit. He returns fire. When an Angler attacks, you do what it takes to survive.

The only trouble is, all those other times, there hasn’t been a sleeping god stirring just over the horizon.

Spike: Goooooooooooootcha!!

Dorsa: Stay still so I can heal you!

Finn: Uhhh, are you seeing-

Dorsa: Hey! Don’t miss the scrap!

Finn: Uh… is it getting dark out here?

Spike: Yo Dorsa, got any more Energy? Still pretty banged up here.

Dorsa: One second, one second. Cooldowns, man.

Finn: Guys?

Spike: *dramatic pause*

Spike: …Sweet briny mackerel. What is that!?

It was, of course, the eye.

*  *  *

The titan’s fiery, blood-red eye had gazed out, unblinking, for the last several minutes. It’s watching them. In utter darkness, the only clue to their whereabouts had been the growth of the eye. It had grown in their vision, a swimming, hateful crimson pool leering at them from beyond the fog. And still they keep going.

Finn is not in the business of giving up.

Dorsa shakes her head. There’s no way the eye is this big. It keeps growing, filling up most of her forward viewport. Growing and pulsing. Radiating malice. And, no… Could it be? Perhaps radiating something more…

Dorsa: Look out! I think he’s charging something up!

Spike: Looks like! Stay behind me, little fish!

Dorsa: But-

Spike: I can take whatever he can shell out!

Something is definitely happening. They’d seen it before. Each of the dolphins’ diabolical devices had done this.

Pulse once…

Twice…

Then…

*  *  *

Finn isn’t about to just wait around. Revving his Gatling gun, he prepares to send a storm of hot lead into the eye.

The weapon is custom-built, and against every regulation known to fish and man. Its barrel assembly rotates so fast that energy must be pulled from the rest of the ship to power its devastating rate of fire. When Finn shoots, he is destruction incarnate. He is also nearly immobile – a big part of why he needs Spike to defend him. With a grimace, Finn pulls the trigger.

It’s no good. A ten-mile-long behemoth deity of the deep isn’t about to awaken from its vigintillion-year slumber just to die to a fish with a gun. Finn is dealing damage, but barely. He begins directing energy into his trusty GigaBlaster. The process diverts his attention as Spike lurches into place, ready to take whatever hit this thing is about to dish out.

Spike: Don’t try to stop me.

Finn: We won’t.

Spike: This is my choice.

Finn: It’s your job, dude.

Spike: This is my sacrifice, for all the-

And then it happens.

A hot red lance of screaming energy explodes from the eye, directly toward Finn. Spike steers himself into its path, protecting his little comrade as Finn keeps his gun spinning.

Spike has flashbacks to the nightmare all turtles have when they’re little: the one where you get cooked in your shell. He watches as first one, then another gauge on his dashboard turns red. He’s long past the point of losing shields. The blistering hellstreak is cleaving through the ship’s vitals. Spike lets it continue, casting a glance toward Finn. As long as the little guy gets out of this alive…

The lights go out. It’s okay. Spike knows the inside of this thing like he knows his own shell.

The heat goes out. It’s fine. Things are toasty enough in here as it is.

The air goes out. Whatever. Turtles can’t breathe underwater, but Spike can hold is breath a long time.

But there’s one thing the laser hasn’t touched yet. Spike grins, reaches over, and flips a switch. In his front viewport, the eye begins to shrink. It contracts, smaller and smaller, until the pillar of fiery energy becomes a bright sliver. In reality, Spike has just become massive. Like a monster truck on the highway, Spike gazes over the hood of his submarine, down at his modest-sized foe.

*  *  *

Dorsa smiles. She, too, has a device specially installed for this occasion. It’s whirring now, and is already giving an occasional rattle and pop, reminding her that her timing has to be precise. The light show is getting dazzling outside. She doesn’t know if she can hold out any longer, but she’ll only get one chance. Slowly, gingerly, she reaches down. The device is warm to the touch. Outside, she sees Spike’s ship rattle and absorb another hit. It’s time. She grits her teeth and pushes the button.

Success!

The popcorn is perfect. Only a few old maids. She leans back in her custom lounger and munches happily, enjoying the Toho-esque spectacle unfolding before her. A brilliant green flash illuminates her cabin, exposing lush carpeting and tasteful decor. She shrugs, and tags Spike with a quick patch-job. If the boys ever came in here, they’d probably accuse her of spending scrap frivolously — which is why she installed the reinforced doors. Being rich is about so much more than just having the biggest guns.

*  *  *

Spike: Thank god for you, Dorsa.

Dorsa: Just doing my job.

Spike: Well, I owe you one. How are you doing, Finn?

Finn: Turbines spinning and enemy at 33% health. Can you hold out?

Spike: Easy, baby. Just gotta-*BZZT!*

Finn’s jaw drops. His pectoral fins go white as they grip the steering column. The ship rumbles around him, and he watches in horror as the eye beam does something that would have been unimaginable a moment before: it becomes even more powerful.

Scoff if you will, human. To you, this might be a simple equation: a five gigawatt beam becomes a ten gigawatt beam. Big deal. I humbly implore you to work on your empathy. Finn watches, awestruck, like an ancient sun worshiper during a solar flare, as the brightest object he’s ever seen redoubles itself. Then again. And again.

Finn: SPIKE!!

It’s too late. The light lashes out like the fist of god, and Spike is blown to smithereens.

Finn has no time to react. The illumination splits open the darkness, revealing two titanic figures: enormous dark shapes have loomed up on both sides, like immense fleshy monoliths rising from the ocean floor. A dim, rational part of Finn’s mind takes note: where there is ink, there will be tentacles. The rest of Finn’s mind is screaming.

The light fades, Dorsa and Finn are left in blackness. The eye itself slowly closes. Light reaches Finn only in glimmers: reflections from the shattered pieces of Spike’s ship.

Finn: Dorsa… you there?

Dorsa: …Yeah.

Finn: Spike, he-

Dorsa: Don’t get sentimental. He’ll respawn in twenty seconds, you know.

Finn: Only if we live through this.

In the next few seconds, they begin a dance they’d performed so many times it had become rote. They note the low growl of revving laser cannons, the dim pulsing, the hypnotic patterns of passing bullets. They dance in figure-eights, anticipating the crisp lines of oncoming fire, slipping through the gaps. They’ve done this again and again on their adventure; by now, it’s so automatic that Finn can look ahead, scanning for the perfect spot to enact Plan B.

Finn: You thinking what I’m thinking?

Dorsa: I was just waiting for you to catch up.

Dorsa accelerates to the spot and begins charging her repair beam. Finn arrives after, drifting in slowly, killing the last of his engine power to rev up his cannon. The spot will give them three precious seconds to fire in safety. After that, it’ll be up to their hulls.

*  *  *

Years later, Finn’s grandchildren whisper to themselves, asking “why is grandpa so quiet?” They’ve come up with all sorts of theories about war flashbacks or silence over lost friends. Their theories couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s that darned gun. The weapon that tore swathes of devastation through the deep took with it precious things from Finn himself. His thrusters. His shielding. His regard for animal life. Very slowly, the gun began to eat away at something else. Weeks trapped in an enclosed space with a screaming death machine had robbed Finn of his hearing.

The elder fish smiles at his many, happy descendants, and returns to his newspaper.

*  *  *

Here and now, though, the gun is doing work. He keeps the cannon trained on where the eye was, and fires away. Finn doesn’t know how or why his HUD is able to display the health of enemies, but he watches with satisfaction as the behemoth drops to 10%.

8%, and the window of safety closes.

7%, and a flurry of bullets rattle Finn’s hull.

6%, and Dorsa releases the healing pulse.

5%, and nanobots knit Finn back together.

4%, and even though it’s not enough, Finn keeps his gun spinning.

3%, and Dorsa throws herself into harm’s way.

2%, and she shatters like glass.

1%, and so does Finn.

*  *  *

Spike is, as yet, unsure why Finn trusts a dolphin to do the repairs on their ships, run the resurrection equipment, and return them to combat. He can’t deny, though, that Flipper does excellent work. I mean, who else could take a dead turtle and a pile of shrapnel and re-assemble a fully-equipped warship in twenty seconds flat?

Spike takes his new freighter forward, watching as Finn has his blaze of glory. The little guy is always so dramatic. Spike isn’t much for theatrics. Instead, he calmly levels out and grips the cannon controls, preparing for mop-up duty. Then, that leviathan eye peeks open, just a sliver, and Spike gets a different idea.

He’d read somewhere about heroes making triumphant last stands, flying into the face of danger their faces locked into fierce grins. Spike doesn’t know what a fierce grin is. He isn’t even sure a turtle’s face can do that. But still, it sounds like fun. He lifts his finger from the trigger and guns it, full-speed, directly into the eye.

Spike: Once more off of the beach, dear friends!

Flipper: That’s “Once more unto the breach,” old chum.

Spike: Not where I’m from.

With amazing speed, the blocky freighter hurls itself forward. Bolts of red streak past the viewport. It turns out that turtles cannot, in fact, grin fiercely, but Spike feels a strange stirring within. He’d lost his friends. He’d lost his home. He’s going to enjoy killing this thing.

Cold blood has never burned so hot.

*  *  *

What happens next makes Flipper want to tear his degree in Physics off the wall. See, Spike has built up a lot of speed. When he reaches down and flips that switch of his, he makes his ship ten times as large with no reduction in velocity. This puts Flippers teeth on edge. Kinetic energy should be conserved, blast it! Spike will need a severe talking-to once this whole mess is behind them.

*  *  *

Spike isn’t much for fancy degrees, but he knows damage when he sees it. His ship hits the eye with the force of a tectonic plate. The behemoth might be huge, but a weak point is a weak point. English has many words, but few of them come close to describing the degree to which this thing dies. “Obliterated” comes close. “Annihilated” tries and fails. To be more apt, we’ll borrow the Chienese zhū lián jiǔ zú and call ourselves done.

Slowly, and with a *tink,* the boss’s HP bar drops from 1% to 0%.

fin