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SERVICE SUMMARY

MASTERCLASS:

BOSS FIGHT DESIGN

Join Marie Mejerwall in her Masterclass in Boss Fight Design to learn the process, tools and best practices to design top-tier boss fights. Marie has long experience from working on boss fights on acclaimed AAA franchises Batman Arkham, Dead Rising and RuneScape. She now shares her knowledge with the wider industry to in a series of live sessions where she guides you through her process to make elaborate boss fights. Her Masterclass consists of 10x hour long lectures, each equipped with exercises, templates, and additional resources. Marie runs her Masterclass both online, on-demand and at certain conferences. If you are interested in joining her next Masterclass, sign up below on her Eventbrite page, or scroll to the bottom to get an email notification on her next run. If you are interested in having her perform her Masterclass exclusively at your studio or event, contact Marie here:

CONTACT
SIGN UP

TAKEAWAYS

In this course, you will learn (to):

OUTLINE

Intro

The design process

Course overview

Warmup

Design considerations

The Arena

Event page & additional resources

Q & A

Common archetypes

Hybrids

Set piece bosses

Picking your archetype

Getting started with your own boss

Q & A

Introduction to challenges

Classifications

Mechanical challenges

Tactical challenges

Compounded challenges

Composing your challenges layers

Q & A

What is  primary action?

Design approach

Offensive actions

Auxiliary actions

Movement actions

Boss kit – typical number of abilities

What are secondary actions?

Challenging player abilities

Actions versus ranged players

Actions versus high player movement

Actions versus tanky players

Actions versus multiple players

Challenging player resources

Special actions

Plot twists

Q & A

 

Positive traits

Negative traits – weaknesses

Resources & arena interactions

Traps

Minions

Weapons & throwables

Q & A

Fight phase intro

The usual suspects

The Intro

The Warmup

The fight

The plot twist

Intermittent state

The Finale

Factors to consider

Cinematic content

Fight intensity curves

Composing your fight flow

Q & A

Introducing the Flow Board

Degrees of content

Elements to develop a boss fight

Deconstruction of famous boss fights

Fight phases

Q & A

Behaviour basics

Design values – Integrity versus responsiveness

States and transitions

Behaviour tree implementation

Reaction system

Target selection

Combat Director

Attack allowance

Aggression & state changes

Leashing and tethering

Q & A

Plot an optimal player strategy

Prevention overview

Stability & Hit reactions

Stun bar

Immunities

Uninterruptable maneuvers

Animation frames

Stunbreakers

Getting out of sticky situations

Evades

Blocks

Protective maneuvers

Counters

Armor

Defense toolbox

Q & A

Balancing single-player games

Balancing multiplayer games

Balancing toolbox

Commandments

Smart tutorials & clues

Number tweaking

Script modification

Behaviour change

Dynamic difficulty scaling

Q & A

TESTIMONIALS

"Top industry knowledge"

"Marie's taught some top industry knowledge in her Masterclass. I feel inspired and ready to craft some kick-ass boss fights."
Artyom Volkov
Housemarquee

"Learned a ton"

"Marie's Masterclass in boss fight design was great - I learned a ton and am already putting it to use in my game. Thanks Marie!"
Corbin Reeves
Azure Ravens studio

"Incredibly insightful"

"Last year, I had the absolute pleasure of attending Marie Mejerwall's Masterclass in Boss Fight Design. Over the course of seven weeks, Marie shared some incredibly insightful boss design knowledge and practices that she attained in her 15+ years of industry experience. Especially her direct and individualized feedback during the course helped me a lot to refine my design skills!

Keep an eye [...] if you want to join her next masterclass, I most definitely recommend it!"
Tristan Hantschel
Good Evil GmbH

"Great experience"

"Last week I finished Marie Mejerwall Boss Design masterclass. Combat design and boss design are some of my favourite parts of game design along with level design. I've been learning by myself over the years but I have to say that thanks to this masterclass I'm now much clearer about my knowledge, I've learned more stuff I didn't know and how to document it and transmit it to a team.

Of course I recommend you to be attentive to any masterclass of Marie Mejerwall. It has been a great experience."

alejandro lopez
Alejandro Dávila López
Raised By Monsters

SERVICES OFFERED

Online class - individual or indie

This service includes:

  • 10x online sessions
  • One session per week
  • Summarized notes
  • Optional exercises
  • Additional reading material
  • Access to her Masterclass community
  • DIploma or Certification on completion
  • For one person (one seat)
  • Whenever Marie runs her next online class

€220
(excl VAT)

SIGN UP

Online class - funded game studio

This service includes:

  • 10x online sessions
  • One session per week
  • Summarized notes
  • Optional exercises
  • Additional reading material
  • Access to her Masterclass community
  • DIploma or Certification on completion
  • Feedback on your boss fight
  • For one person (one seat)
  • Whenever Marie runs her next online class

€350
(excl VAT)

SIGN UP

Exclusive Masterclass for your studio

This service includes:

  • 10x sessions online or in person
  • 1-2 sessions per day
  • Summarized notes
  • Optional exercices
  • Additional reading material
  • Access to her Masterclass community
  • Certification on completion
  • For up to 30 people
  • At a time convenient for you

€5000
(excl VAT & travel)

BOOK

GET NOTIFIED

Send an email to bossfights@mejerwall.com to get a notification sent next time Marie announces a run of this Masterclass.