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. The Masterclass consists of 10x hour long lectures, each equipped with exercises, templates, and additional resources. These sessions are given live, with one session per week. If you are interested in joining her next Masterclass, sign up below or through her Eventbrite page. If you are interested in having the Masterclass run exclusively at your studio or event, get in touch.
NEXT RUN
Marie will run her next online Masterclass with one session per week starting on April 10 until June 12, 2025. Each class will be 1 hour long including a short Q&A and starts at 9AM PT / Noon ET / 18.00 CET. Classes take place on discord. Each class is followed by an optional exercise that helps the participant practice what was taught. Between session, Marie is available for questions and exercises feedback. After the last session, participants have the option to either get a diploma or complete a test and get a certification. Tickets will be on sale soon on Eventbrite or via a form below.
SESSIONS
All Masterclass sessions are listed below. Most also include a template and an exercise.
The Arena
When making a boss, we first need to establish the creative framework we work in, and the world the boss lives in. The first step is to identify the narrative context and then to define the boss arena.
Boss Archetype
We continue with the boss itself and a foot in the familiar. What archetype(s) is your boss based on? We walk through 10 common ones from popular media. We also go through ways to combine archetypes into hybrids.
Player Challenge
Let's look at the very fabric of your boss - what challenge must the player beat? Do you defeat it in the same way as other bosses, or does it offer something new? What is the player doing mechanically and tactically?
Boss Actions
We'll walk through typical kits of abilities for different archetypes and hybrids. We also explore abilities that matches the player's kit, and challenges what it can do. Lastly, we consider give the PLAYERS special fight actions.
Unique Identity
This session explores traits that makes the boss unique, and how these are used to define how to beat the boss. We also dive into how to make the larger fight unique by adding minions, traps and arena interactibles.
Fight Phases
We zoom out to look at the timescale of the fight and the phases it goes through, and best practices for how to design each. We also walk through staging and set piece boss fights, where the boss is more of an orchestrator.
Fight Flow
As the boss fight's layout is now set design wise, we walk into the actual development craft and how to combine gameplay with scripted and cinematic sequences to create an engaging player experience.
Boss Behaviour
Time to implement! This session goes into crafting the boss' behaviour using 4 decision making algorithms. It also goes into the combat systems aggression, target selection and reactions and how to instruct minions.
Boss Defense
During implementation, the boss will need more defense to add difficulty and safeguard how it should be beaten. This session looks at defensive capabilities that ensure an optimal player strategy and that it cannot be cheese'd.
Final Touches
As the gameplay is set, all that remains is to make small adjustments to balance the fight. We walk through options and tools for this. Lastly, we unveil useful hacks to ensure the boss fight runs smoothly and bug-free.
TAKEAWAYS
In this course, you will learn (to):
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Design a boss fight from intro cinematic until death sequence
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Pick or combine archetypes into a coherent identity
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Decorate your boss with properties to craft a unique identity
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Which actions to equip to match your boss' archetype, challenge and arena
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Craft the boss's behaviour
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AI Combat systems such as target selection, reactions and aggression
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The interplay between bosses and their minions
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Add stability, immunities and defense maneuvers to secure your boss' integrity
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Design additional stages or rage modes to increase the fight intensity
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Balance your boss to ensure a good fight
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
YOUR TEACHER
MARIE MEJERWALL
Marie Mejerwall is a long-time veteran within gamedev. She has led creative teams at more than six game studios around the world and has worked on several famous award-winning franchises. Marie has a rich experience within boss fights – she was the NPC designer responsible for all boss fights at Capcom Vancouver, working on the Dead Rising franchise, where she led a team of 17 cross-disciplinary creatives. She also worked on many of the boss fights in Batman Arkham Origins at WB Games Montréal, where her focus was on the technical execution and how the fights come together. Lastlyn, she led the whole AI Combat team making on bosses at Jagex whilst working on a game in the RuneScape franchise. In her role as consultant, Marie has also supported several studios with advising and redesigning their boss fights, and she has now ran and iterated on this Masterclass for two years. Read more on Marie’s in her About page.
TESTIMONIALS
Past participants say…
"Top industry knowledge"
"Learned a ton"
"Incredibly insightful"
Keep an eye [...] if you want to join her next masterclass, I most definitely recommend it!"
"Great experience"
Of course I recommend you to be attentive to any masterclass of Marie Mejerwall. It has been a great experience."
JOIN NEXT RUN
Buy an Eventbrite ticket below to join as participant on in the next online run of the Masterclass:
WHAT YOU GET
Two ticket types exist – funded studios or indies. Individuals who pay our of their own pocket are also included in this category.
Online class - individual or indie
For self-funded studios with < 30 employees
- 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)
€250
(excl VAT)
Online class - funded game studio
For studios with funding secured
- 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)
- Feedback on a boss fight of your own
€400
(excl VAT)
EXCLUSIVE RUN
If you have a group or participants, you might also opt to get an exclusive run of the Masterclass only for you:
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)
GET NOTIFIED
Send an email to bossfights@mejerwall.com to get a notification sent next time Marie announces a run of this Masterclass.