I don’t care for football… but I work in a West Ham / Arsenal pub so I’m always checking the fixtures

We’re gonna get smashed today 😅😩

#arsenal #football #pubworkers

Starting to experiment with building out levels for my Chess Combat Platformer game

This is hard af, the amount of second guessing is driving me insane 😅

#gamedev #indiegamedev #gamer #gaming

replaced | fighting the Mites

Been playing through Replaced tonight and man.... it's a gorgeous game

The combat is pretty fun too

#replaced #pixelartgame #newgame

I think the next step in my journey as a developer is adding boss fights to my games

So, if I’m gonna learn about boss fights, I might as well start at the very beginning (best game ever 🙌🏻)

#legostarwars #legogames #ttgames #youtube

Invincible and The Boys come out in 3 hours

I'll be watching The Boys first

#theboys #invincible #amazonprime

Got a long night of figuring out terrains for my 2d Platformer game

But after this development should become easier

#gamedev #indiegamedev #madewithgodot

I game for about an hour a day, so record it and post it on YouTube

It doesn't do much, but it slowly gets followers, and it's something I'm already doing anyway

I then have high-quality footage I can use for Tik Toks or Tweets

Work Smarter Not Harder

#youtube #contentcreator

How do you make an interesting sniper fight with limited resources?

It's all about keeping the player under pressure, not giving them much time to take a shot

Creating a frantic feeling, and leading to players acting under pressure

#gamedev #metalgearsolid #kojima

All of this comes together to create a boss fight where the player is never comfortable

They either don't know where the enemy is, leading to frantic, quick searching

Or they do because the enemy is aiming at them, giving them little time to land a hit

It's stressful

#mgs1

Sniper Wolf's sniper has a red laser dot, which achieves 2 objectives

It tells the player that they're being targeted, forcing them to move to avoid taking damage

But it also tells them the rough area their opponent is, allowing them to plan their own attack

#solidsnake

It also means the strategy is to take aim, quickly scan an area, and if the enemy isn't there, then get up and move

The player cannot afford to slowly scan the area and plan

They're forced to act frantically, getting up and moving constantly

Never being comfortable

#kojima

The fight takes place across a field, with a black smoke covering the centre (this is likely a tech limitation)

Meaning the player can only see their opponent when they're looking through the scope, leaving them exposed at all times

It adds a lot of pressure

#mgs1

The Sniper Wolf fight is a great case study for taking limited resources and making something special

It truly is one of the best sniper boss fights in gaming

(Kojima likes to collect that title 😅)

Here's how you can do the same

#gamedev #metalgearsolid1 #kojima

So what can developers learn from the Hind Boss Fight?

Vehicle boss fights can be interesting if you give the enemy interesting behaviour patterns

This keeps the fight engaging, keeps the player on their toes, and makes for a fun boss fight

#gamedev #metalgearsolid1

Another brilliant addition is where the rations/ammo are placed

They're placed on a raised platform with no cover, meaning the player must plan their sprints to the resource

Turning getting resources into extra gameplay

#liquidsnake #makinggames

The 2nd phase of the fight has the Hind circling below the building, unable to be targeted, before randomly rising up to attack

This is tense, as the player must track the Hind while preparing to attack, but also be ready to hide if need be

It's a simple yet brilliant addition

Adding to this pressure, the Hind can turn and fire upon the player at any time, potentially disrupting their plans to attack

The players' only chance to survive an attack is to hide behind a container, which the hind will then circle

Creating constant pressure

#kojima

The player must use the Stinger Missile Launcher to fire at the Hind after locking on

The 2 chances to do this are 1. Before an attack starts, and 2. Straight after an attack

Meaning the player is always at risk when dealing damage

#bossfight #howtomakegames

The Hind circles around a rooftop, coming in close to fire at the player

This forces players to keep track of where the Hind is, as well as whether or not it's ready to attack

Keeping them constantly busy wherever the Hind is

#solidsnake #mgs1

The Hind Helicopter Boss Fight from Metal Gear Solid 1 is a great case study for making a simple vehicle fight into something memorable

Through an interesting level layout and enemy behaviour, this simple fight becomes memorable

Here's the breakdown

#metalgearsolid #gamedev

I can't get Metal Gear Solid 1 out of my head

Played it for the first time 2 weeks ago, and it's stuck with me

THE TORTURE SCENE USES YOUR SAVE FILE AGAINST YOU

SAVE FILE AGAINST YOU

What other games would even attempt that??

Best game of all time

#metalgearsolid #kojima

So how can you create a similar deep choice for your own games?

You need to give the player a consequence that will affect them personally

For example, the loss of a weapon or an in-game companion

Link the player to the character, and then pressure them

#gamedev

Making matters worse, this sequence repeats potentially up to 3 times

With the difficulty getting harder each time...

Meaning players consider sacrificing her to save themselves more and more as it goes on

Putting the player into the characters mind

#metalgeargame

So the options are "attempt to save Meryl or risk losing my progress"

and that pressure builds as your resistance metre goes dangerously low

Players will start wanting to resist, but this changes as their life depletes

#choicesingames #metalgear

Metal Gear Solid 1 makes the boldest move I've ever seen and uses your own save file against you

No one saw this coming, save files are a meta element of games, but here it's now part of the game

It's pure outside the box thinking

#solidsnake #kojima

It starts with a detailed explanation of what's going on, what the choices are, and what the consequences of each choice are

You can attempt to resist the torture - saving Meryl
But if you fail to resist - you'll load at your last save (which could have been a while ago)

#mgs1

Metal Gear Solid 1 features the best player choice in gaming history

It's honestly genius, using systems you'd never think would be used against you, combined with human psychology

Let's breakdown Kojima's greatest moment in gaming

#gamedev #metalgearsolid

Chess Combat Platformer by Jambuckett A Pawn vs the world

Turning this demo into my first full release

Enemies that move like Chess Pieces, jump over Rooks, fight bishops in the air, don't let pawns promote

I'll follow you if you play it and leave a comment with feedback on this post

#gamedev #indiedev #itch

jambuckett.itch.io/chess-combat...

I agree, there's some benefit to your first 4 likes being automated, but at the same time it's much easier to get stuck in a "game dev" audience

It's why I post a lot of educational content

What I will say, is that there's been more conversions to my itch from Blueksy than Twitter,

I've found that Bluesky has a lot more "bot groups" that automatically engage with anything under game dev hashtags, while Twitter has a larger audience.

I use Buffer to post on both, but prefer Twitter due to the larger reach