Okay, I've got one going up, BUT, *every* video of hard mode bosses is going to illustrate certain problems that the game has, when it comes to difficulties higher than Normal.
Those issues:
1. Hitbox is still way too big. I've heard this complaint from more than a few people, and even I refer to it as "bloated". This actually could be a major issue later; misery mode may be literally impossible to implement, particularly since it goes along with:
2. Player range is still way too short. Most patterns cannot be increased easily simply due to the fact that the player must be super close to the boss at all times to hit it. And that's with the basic gun; anything with shorter range is so bad it may as well not exist. If the boss is on the edge of the screen, you cannot hit it; that should not be the case. This isnt as much of an issue with bosses that have you circling around them (though it's still definitely an issue), but for all other types, it's a big problem. Aberration is a good example of this. You *have* to be close to hit it, but the closer you are, the thicker the mess you're in. The only way to solve this would basically be to take the firing systems OFF of the boss and shove them really far behind it, so you have something you can hit while the pattern is operating from a sensible distance. This would, though, look fairly ridiculous.
3. It's *really* hard to figure out where the hitbox even is. I know where it is now.... but it took alot of experimenting and purposefully crashing into bullets very slowly to figure this out. That's a bad thing. I've never had to do that before. F7 doesnt show it, by the way. It shows it around the full sprite, which isnt where it is.
4. Mobile bosses.... probably not doing anymore of those. They're just too uncontrollable. In the video you can see this one sorta shove me into a few nearly-unavoidable walls because of the random nature of the AI in the third pattern. I may have to actually remove that pattern entirely later on and replace it with a stationary one. It works right now.... but only barely. That pattern cannot be increased further, it's effectively maxed out.
Now, to be fair, a couple of hits I took in this video were because I was rushing a bit; this damn recording software is infuriating and I was getting just a tad fed up with it. And granted, the player is *not* expected to perfectly dodge these as they would in a "pure" shmup (I make it still technically possible though). The boss (and normal enemies) need a high chance of striking the player many times, due to the player's ability to take quite alot of hits before going down (that Isaac's enemies/bosses dont use heavy attacks like that is one of the reasons why that game is so easy; you can take *alot* of hits before going down but avoiding taking any damage from a given boss really isnt hard to do).
But still, these are definite issues. They're not a problem on Normal mode, but the more of a challenge the player wants, the bigger these problems get. The hitbox one is by far the biggest though.
Anyway, I apologize if that sounds too negative, it's just mild feedback from me in my usual manner. I always sound negative. I need more time to experiment with it before I see how the misery mode is actually going to go.
....also Battleswarm's hard mode pattern is all sorts of glitched out. How.... how did I not spot that....
If all goes well there will be an enemy (or more than one) in the next version that will inspire more hatred than Blaze Cannons. So cheer up. >D
I'll increase the annoyance on those things if I need to, just see if I dont! They're the Medusa Heads, dagnabit!
Still resisting the urge to make a "blaze boss" though. Even I'm not THAT unpleasant. At the moment.
