Progress continued this week! I’ve done some highly exact figuring, and there’s about 32 pieces of content (bosses, cutscenes, level segments, etc) that need to be produced for level seven. I’m done 11 of them so far, so we’ll say I’m a third of the way finished. Go team!

 

Ultra-Mild Spoiler Warning

Here’s the topic in general: The fights against Valentine (the main baddie) were some of the most difficult to pin down conceptually, and I’ve gone through a lot of ideas in my quest to give her quality encounters that fit her character. That means I’ve discarded plenty of crap ones, some of which I’m about to share. The fights in the final game won’t look anything like what I’m showing — even her sprites have been mostly re-done — so I don’t believe this post will count as a spoiler. But hey, here’s your warning, in case you’re sensitive.

Gifs and explanations after the break!

 

Alright! I present to you, some fights you will never play: Valentine-With-A-Hammer, and Valentine-With-A-Spiked-Ball-On-A-Chain!

So… huh? Well, first let’s rewind way back, to when I was just beginning to plan Bleed 2. I wanted the game to be based around a large number of bosses, so one of the first things I did was to brainstorm as many encounter ideas as possible. At first nothing was held back or dismissed, so I ended up with over 75 concepts.

As you might guess, not all of those were great. I went over the list many, many times, exploring which ideas had the most potential and removing ones that were simple or silly or otherwise sucked. Cut ideas included a kitty warrior with a fancy hat or bandana, a boss that ran on the ceiling, a boss that attacked based on the music, and a boss you fought in the dark. You get the idea.

Once I had a collection of boss ideas I liked, I tried fitting them together into a narrative that would justify fighting all of them. A bunch were airborne opponents (like the flying cowgirl Red) so the sky level became a thing. A bunch were cool conceptually but kind of out-of-context (like the Blast Jumper or Segment Slider) so they became death machines from the Warship. It was a push-and-pull of boss ideas and narrative that evolved slowly over time into what I’ve got now.

So where does Valentine come into all this? Well, Valentine and the Invaders were some of the last elements to fall into place. For Valentine especially, it took a long time for me to grasp her personality and what she was all about. Before I developed that understanding, I had a bunch of middle-of-the-road boss ideas remaining on the list — not amazing, but good enough to maybe make decent fights — and Valentine was the narrative justification of those being in the game.

You can see some of them in these gifs: a boss with an explosive hammer, and a boss with a spiked ball on a chain. Others were shout outs to other series — like a boss that used a sword, boomerang and bombs. They came together into this pedestrian, limp collection that ultimately had no unifying personality or punch; definitely not what I’d want out of the enemy leader.

So! Her fights are being totally re-done (collective groan from the studio audience) and will be so much better for it. Most of the new content wasn’t even on the original list of ideas — I just finally think I’ve found a good way of handling her, and it inspired a fresh bunch of new ideas!

Until next week, back to the crunch I go!