Remember Boss Rush?  The game about being a boss, that seemed like it wasn’t ever going to actually come out?  Well guess what.  Boss Rush is done.  Released.  And playable.  Finally!

BossRushGame.com

So what are you still doing here?  Play it already!  Go!  Go!

Artist's Conception of Justin

[Justin Mullens, the man behind the fine, fine music in Boss Rush, has graciously offered write down some of the thoughts he had while he was composing.  For anyone interested in how the music came to be, it's a fun read, and offers a fascinating glimpse into what his creative process looks like.  He clearly knows what he is talking about, since he specifically calls out the Moon Level music from Duck Tales.   -Montoli]

First of all, a little personal background: I loved shooters when I was growing up. I was addicted ever since I first laid my hands on Defender in the arcades, I got really into them with Gradius and R-Type on the NES & SNES, and was completely hooked when Square released Einheinder on the Playstation. There was a ton of shmups I didn’t play, but the ones I did play left an indelible impression. It was around this time that I first started making electronic music using Impulse Tracker in DOS, which is basically the origin of my career as a sound designer in the video games industry. Even though shooters and tracker music were two of my loves growing up I’ve never had a chance to work on a “classic style” 2D shooter before now, and I was really excited by the opportunity to work with Chris (Paper Dino) when he asked me to do the music and sound effects on Boss Rush.

That being said, I didn’t really do any research before starting to write the music for Boss Rush, I just pretty much let it flow out of me based on the feelings I remember having as a kid when I played these kinds of games. I started off by writing 2 or 3 songs as “sketches” to get my bearings, and once I finished those I knew where I wanted, and more importantly, didn’t want to go with the final tracks.

The main thing I realized was that I didn’t want to make “chip-tune” music. Been there, done that. Plus the fact that it’s so en-vogue right now makes me really want to stay away from that side of things. Instead, what I realized that I really loved and wanted to capture about those old songs was the grittiness and energy that they exude. I mean, even Ducktales on the NES was RAW! (Moon level!!!) My goal became to achieve that same gritty feeling while using an instrument palette that combined distorted synths with distorted traditional instruments. This led me to some unexpected instrumentation for main parts like a church organ & pan flute (used in Upward Spin) or a glockenspiel (used in Colossal Terend).

The other thing I loved about those old songs was the ultra obvious melody line, and underneath that, harmonies and rhythms that created the perfect atmosphere. The music in these games was NOT background/ambient music, but it did a great job of giving a mood to the experience that put me into the right space (literally).

Step 1: Grittiness – check. Step 2: Obvious melody, maintain ambiance – check.

Anytime I write music that accompanies visuals my main concern is to tie the feeling of the songs so strongly to the imagery that the player feels like it is all one contiguous thing that was forged from the same fire. If it doesn’t feel like that, then I have failed. The next step after sketching some ideas and determining the direction I want to go in is to sit down in front of the game and let it tell me what the music should sound like. As soon as I get a playable version of the game I will run through each level 20-50 times and just see what ideas come to me. I normally like to start off with just a portable recorder and my voice. I’ll hum some melodies and rhythms completely free-form as I play through the game. I use these snippets later on if I need to, but sometimes I don’t use them at all – I really just like the process of getting some music happening in my head first before I sit down in front of my keyboard (plus I’m playing the game, which makes it pretty hard to play my midi keyboard at the same time).

Next, I’ll capture some videos of the most inspiring and important parts of the game, loop those up, and start hammering away on my keyboard while I watch them. Almost everything is written really quickly while I watch these videos. I tend to spend less than an hour writing each peace of music initially, and then I’ll spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks tweaking them and getting them just how I want them. I design the music to help make the visuals pop, and I spend most of my time adjusting instruments and song arrangements to get that happening. The music should reach a state where it is emphasizing all aspects of the game, which will in turn make the music stronger as well. Also, it’s very important to make the music NOT ANNOYING.

As for my tools, I used Logic 8 to write everything in Boss Rush. The ES1 was my main instrument, followed by the ES2 and Sculpture. All drums were done in the EXS24. For plug-ins I used Dist II, Bit Crusher, Guitar Amp, and a ton of Tape Delay and reverb to add spaciousness.

All in all, I had a really awesome time creating the audio for Boss Rush. This was my very first attempt at this genre, and I loved it. I can’t wait to work on more shooters in the future!

Check out the mp3‘s that are available on PaperDino.com, all comments and feedback are appreciated. Please, let me know what you think

Justin Mullens – Sound Designer

November 2009

jmullens@gmail.com
www.jmullens.com

Not a whole lot to say here, but progress on Boss Rush continues well.  At this point, the game is basically nailed down and probably a good 90% complete.  Most of the work at this point is down to playtesting and polish, and occasionally adding a new level or two if I think of one that seems like it would be fast, easy, and safe to add.

In addition to the occasional friend or family member that I can rope into playing my game, I have enlisted the aid of some forumgoers over at TIGSource.  I have to say.  They have been wonderful fonts of information, suggestions and excellent feedback.  (Frankly wishing I had gotten around to adding more playtesters quite a bit earlier.  One more data point for the postmortem I guess…)

It’s getting close though!  I finally realized just how close when I watched a friend play on Sunday.  I think he spent a good hour playing through levels, and still didn’t get through all of them.  (And he didn’t even touch multiple difficulty levels.)  It was an interesting perspective moment, where I realized just how much I had completed, and started to feel, really feel, like “huh, it’s starting to feel like a full game now.”

It was a good feeling!   I’m feeling kind of proud of my game at this point.  Now to just finish it!

An audience.

Since people already read TIGSource’s dev logs, I had people reading and commenting pretty much from the get-go.  And of course, I answered back, because it’s fun to participate in a conversation, when people want to have that conversation about something you’re working hard on.  Especially when they’re nice and say nice things like “that thing you are working on looks like it might be fun!”

The kind of high quality content you've been missing!

Also, the informal nature of the dev log helped a lot.  I mean, it was just a forum!  Not some stuffy website where maintain the fiction that I am to be taken seriously!  I posted things to the TIGSource Dev log that I wouldn’t bother posting here.  Random crap, like what’s on my whiteboard, or what Unicorn Mode looks like.

Which of course is a far more accurate depiction of what the game’s development actually looks like than anything I’ve put on here.  So far, I’ve mostly just posted screenshots and media.  The results of the creative process.  But on that dev log, I’ve actually posted a lot of the process itself.

So.  What to do now.  The TIGSource Dev Log has far more information than my official page.  Anyone reading this page would actually get less information.  I could try to start migrating it over.  Or promise to myself that I’d be better about posting random crap on this webpage.

Or I could just be lazy and throw out a link, add a link to the official page, and say “Go there for up-to-the minute info on the state of the project!”

Boss Rush’s Dev Log Page on TIGSource!

Laziness wins!

For example!  Behold!  MenuMusic!

There is a magic part of development, where it starts to change from “fun little diversion” into “holy crap, that’s an actual game, there!”   Real, non-placeholder sound effects are (for me at least) a big part of that.

It’s getting very close to done!  Almost ready to start the final round of playtests!

I had convinced myself it was done before.  But really, all it was was just the regular game except with a custom AI for the ship that listened to keystrokes instead of performing its own evaluations.  This had the downside that the games always played out the same way as survival mode.  (Namely that the boss always died, and the only real variations was how long it lasted and how many spaceships it took down in the process)

So while you could still make your own rules, (“let’s see if you can kill me in less than 3 minutes this time!  And no dying more than twice this time either!”) it occurred to me that it wasn’t much of a versus mode if the same side won every time.  Really, if I’m expecting this sort of play pattern, then shouldn’t I be doing more to support it?  At the very least, the victor should get some little graphical flourish announcing their triumph at the end of the game, right?

An Unexiting Screenshot

Also set up a way to swap which player got which side of the keyboard, since my left-handed friends were starting to grumble.

Unfortunately, UI work does not generate the most exciting screenshots.  Oh well.  Have a boring screenshot of the versus mode UI then.

So to make sure that doesn’t happen, I need to make sure that stasis is never reached.  And one of the easiest ways to do that is to gradually shift the game rules.  This gives me two advantages.  First, if they have found something that works, then as I shift the rules, there is a good chance that it will stop working at some point.  (Provided I’m shifting the right rules at least.)  Second, I can use it to effectively put a cap on game time by shifting towards something that is, for all intents and purposes, impossibly hard.

Tetris is a classic example of a game that uses this.  (Particularly the impossibly hard part.)  It gradually gets more difficult by making pieces fall faster.  At some point, the pieces are falling fast enough that it is not even physically possible to move them to the edges of the board before they hit the bottom.  At this point, the game is effectively over.  The player can, if high enough skill, put off the inevitable for a little bit, but the writing is on the wall.  The game is going to end.

So too in Boss Rush.  The little red ships eventually gain homing missiles as an upgrade.  If they survive long enough, this gives them the ability to hit you from just about anywhere on the screen.  This is important to me for balance, since it is my only real defense against strategies that involve bugging out my ship AI by trapping it in a corner somewhere where it can’t hit you.  (I have far more faith in players’ abilities to abuse my AI than I do in my own ability to foresee all such gimmicks and plan against them.)

However, here is where playtesting gave me some interesting insights.  It turns out that, while players don’t mind being hit by missiles if the little ship got them through power ups, they detest having the ship start out with missiles.  This feels completely unfair, and they generally feel (fairly correctly, really) that the game is effectively over, but for the screaming.

“Huh”, I said.  “That’s problematic.  I really kind of need ships to start getting missiles, as part of the difficulty curve.”  So as an experiment, instead of letting the ships start with better weapons, I instead cranked up the spawn rate of ship power ups.  It becomes somewhat absurd now, with powerups pretty much pouring from the sky in curtains, like some kind of weapon-improving raindrops.  The ships still get missile upgrades pretty quickly.

And yet…  It works.  Players (at least the ones I tested with) don’t seem to mind this nearly as much, even though the net result is the same.  Some theories as to why:

• Since it’s a familiar scenario (little ship vs. big ship) changing the little ship starting loadout feels like it’s breaking the metaphor.  We’ve all played shmups before, and we know, the reward for being blown up isn’t starting up again with full powerups.  It’s being kicked back down to weakling level, and having to claw our way back up.  So maybe this implicit break in the expected structure is jarring?
• Having the ships collect items feels like there is more agency involved.  It is still theoretically possible for you to stop them, or at least delay them from getting enough to hit missiles.  And if you can kill them before they get the missiles, then they have to start over.  So even though it’s hard, it presents the players with more of a feeling of “I have a chance”?
• The abruptness of the spike.  While missiles are only level 3 out of 5 possible power ups, they represent a significant increase in danger level.  Players tended to not care as much about ships starting with more guns, but once they started with missiles, it suddenly felt like they were on borrowed time.
• The two step process “it’s raining powerups” -> “he has missiles now, oh crap I’m dead” is better for the anticipation than just jumping straight to the “crap, missiles” stage of the game.

I’m still not completely sure what the exact motivation is here.  I still don’t feel like  I completely understand what is going on in my testers’ heads.  (Which, I suppose, is why I’m running playtests in the first place…)  It might be different for each person, and might not be any of these.  Even so though, I think I can draw at least a couple of useful lessons from the experience that I should keep in mind in the future.

• A slim chance that is almost impossible feels better to players than zero chance.
• Anticipation and telescoping are good.  (Valve talked about this at GDC this year in fact.  Hearing “rumblerumblerumble” and going “oh crap, incoming tank” is a more memorable experience than just “Surprise!  Tank!”)
• Attacks that are very difficult to dodge are acceptable as a punishment (you didn’t do XXX so now he gets to attack you with YYY) but not as an unavoidable part of a game.

Good stuff!  Hooray for playtesters, I guess!

“All of this is fine and good”, you probably say.  “But what I truly crave is PICTURES!”  Well, I say to you, you are in luck!  I have just completed uploading the first batch of screenshots on the aforementioned bosses that are complete!  Head on over to the Boss Rush dev page, and have a gander!