An ichorous green meteor plummets through Earth's atmosphere, fracturing and showering the earth with glowing green space dust that affects all forms of life nearby. Some plant life - like mushrooms and cacti -acquire sentience. At the same time, the green glow twists and mutates other life forms like spiders and roaches, transforming them into semi-intelligent, warlike communities.
WII BOSS BATTLES
When I came onto revising the boss fights in Mushroom Men, we had some basic mechanics in place but they needed a lot of iteration to make them truly interesting. We didn’t exactly have a lot of time, so I looked back on some of the fun boss moments I’d experienced in the past. I’m a huge retro-game fanatic, with a big collection of old systems, so I spent an afternoon or two with some of my favorite old games to find out what made those bosses fun.
Bosses as Mechanic Reinforcement
Several of the bosses and mini-bosses were included to reinforce a specific mechanic, such as the Telekinesis-Throw (whereby Pax uses his Telekinesis ability on an object and tosses it back at the enemy). Players had the option to use this ability during the game to get the upper hand on an opponent, or could let Player 2 perform this to help them out in the midst of battle. But it was never enforced, as we didn’t want to force the player to use them. However, with bosses we had a chance to make a puzzle and to encourage the player to use those mechanics. Several of the bosses require this Telekinesis-Throw attack to dispatch. One of the mini-bosses actually acts as a tutorial for the Spore Punisher maneuver, flying out the player’s reach until they can successfully execute it.
Boss as Action/Puzzle
Some of the bosses had to be stand-alone encounters, and that allowed us to borrow a trope from the Zelda series: the boss as an action/puzzle exercise. In some of these encounters, the player wasn’t strong enough to hurt the boss directly, or couldn’t get at them, and had to use environment components and specific game mechanics to take them out. This framed the whole boss fights as puzzles to be solved, not simply a skill exercise (although there is some of that, surely!).
Bosses as the Level
In the Parking Lot, the player will face not one but FIVE bosses to deal with. The entire area is centered on these encounters, and I’m willing to wager it will be one of the most well-received experiences of the game. I won’t spoil it, but each of the bosses will use their environment in interesting and unique ways closely tied to them.
Mushroom Men – The Spore Wars and Mushroom Men – Rise of the Fungi will be available across Europe in March, 2009.
TITLE: Mushroom Men – The Spore Wars
PLATFORM: Nintendo Wii
TITLE: Mushroom Men – Rise of the Fungi
PLATFORM: Nintendo DS
DEVELOPER: Red Fly Studio
GENRE: Action Adventure
RELEASE DATE: March, 2009