Dev Diary #3: Boss Mechanics

Greetings, heroes of the realm! After implementing a whole new class to the game in the latest update of Stolen Realm, we wanted to up our ante with even more exciting content for you to enjoy your Summer holidays (if you’re in the Northern hemisphere, that is!) We’ve been hard at work overhauling a very important aspect of the game: its bosses!

Bosses are an essential part of the culture and history of games, sometimes becoming as iconic as the actual protagonists. Even in a turn-based strategy games like this one, their final battles are key to the experience, a climax for the whole adventure that crowns and justifies all the efforts the player has put into it. Ending a game without a final reckoning whatsoever feels like climbing a tall mountain only to realize it’s got no summit.

That’s what we had in mind when working in this update: bosses should not be just bigger versions of normal monsters, but unforgettable enemies with their own unique flair and mechanics. When discussing different possibilities, we decided we would add triggers that modify each boss’ behavior when their health crosses certain thresholds. Multi-stage boss battle are especially popular now thanks to soulslike games, but they’re way older than that, having started in the 80s (at least).

We also wanted to make sure that every special attack and stage made sense for each boss’ lore and setting, giving them a unique flavor. Let’s see a few examples. Admiral Blackbeard summons cannons with an area-of-effect attack that can hit a big portion of the map; at some points he also summons a treasure chest that makes him and his allies invulnerable, forcing you to focus your attacks on it for a while. The Sultan summons an Efreet that grants his wishes (i.e. huge area effect damage, large amounts of healing, and summoning a powerful ally, because the Sultan is not exactly a nice person).

The Crystal Golem splits into smaller versions of himself the more damage you do to him. The Herald of the Abyss summons clones of the players that use their skills against them. And it goes on and on – we’ve tweaked 30 bosses, and added two new ones on top of that! As you can see, they are now not just more strategic, but also better rooted in their themes and settings. To defeat them, you’ll have to learn how each one of them work – so you will need to study them thoroughly, especially in the highest difficulty settings.

And that’s not all there is to this new update! We’ve also tweaked a little bit how the game generates enemy parties. We were aware that some battles were difficult to read due to the number of different enemies spawning on screen. To avoid this, we’ve decided to only spawn two types of enemies during a battle so you can adapt quickly and easily to them. And to prevent battles from feeling repetitive, we have decided to throw in a new mechanic: unique hard champions. There will be a chance (15% at level 4, 20% at level 30) that random enemy mods will roll with multiple modifiers, think of enemies that teleport and have a fire aura; or others that are able to regenerate and do extra damage. This way, every battle might have a unique twist and things can get ugly really quickly if you get a special visit.

That’s all for today. We hope you really enjoy these new mechanics. As always, please let us know your thoughts about it, as your feedback is one of our most valuable assets.