Making A Boss Fight For My Game!

[crowds cheering] [intense breathing] ROOOARR! It's been a while guys but today - it's  time for another devlog! HUGE updates today so put your diapers on get,  your formula ready and let's do this!   So far we've made boxing dudes, we can fight,  added multiplayer.. Started over a couple of times... Made a free demo, added some physics - everything  is looking great except...   It's not fun. It's time to tackle the most difficult task so far  on this epic game dev adventure. Today we're   gonna start putting the single player together  and make a boss we can actually play against.   How's it going everyone I'm Pontypants. Welcome!  Uuuuh... I make games. Yeah.. Hah! [Intro Playing] Ok here's what I'm thinking: We can move around, we can throw different  attacks, dodge, block - all that good stuff but   unless you have a friend to play with - which I  mean come on let's be real here you probably ... *unaudible*  a game needs a single player mode maybe you just  want to practice or perhaps you just like single   player games better i've been gathering references  and writing down ideas for a while that i think   could be fun for a single player campaign  the tool i'm using for this is called Milanote  who were also kind enough to sponsor this video  thanks so much for supporting our community guys   i really appreciate it! For the single player -  the idea is that the player will enter   leagues of varying difficulty and face off with  different bosses and make their way to the top   each boss will have its own special attacks and  weaknesses so rather than just fighting opponents   that just get harder and harder - each fight will  be unique and feel more like a boss fight where   you have to figure out how to beat it in order to  continue to the next stage. I've been using Milanote   for about a month now to organize Punch A Bunch  and it's been such a huge help during this process   I am 100% hooked. It's super simple if i find an image  that i like online i can simply copy it, paste it   into my board, write down some ideas, make to-do  lists and so much more. It's easy to move things   around, you can stay organized by using different  boards and the sky really is the limit in terms   of what you can use this tool for! Anyways give  Milanote a try for your next project. Show those   guys some love for supporting the channel! You can  sign up for free using the link in the description.   i'm gonna keep using it and i'll show you  some more cool stuff i did later in this video Okay.. Here's you and here is the boss. The problem is he doesn't move... It just stands there So how do we make him move and perform attacks and stuff? yeah see that's what i didn't know either which is why it's been three months since the last devlog  okay so a few different ways we can do this   one way is using a neural network - It's similar to  how your brain works.... if you had one... Enough with the stupid jokes! Please don't unsubscribe! Neural Networks - similar to how our brains... lol Neural net.. net.. You just give the computer  some basic things like punch, move, dodge and give it a goal which in this case is  simple: win and then you just let it play against itself over and over - and over time  it'll start learning how to play all on its own!   In theory... which means that I won't have  to do anything! And I like that! Let's go with that. you might have already seen this but a simple  example of what i'm talking about here is this   browser game by kiwan where you put together  a creature with bones and muscles however you   want and its only goal is to learn how to  move forward. It will randomly just squiggle   around without much success until it finds a  pattern that makes it go forward... sound familiar? It then tries to build upon what worked the last  time in an attempt to master the art of walking   Come on toby! look! it's starting to walk upright freaky.. so i started looking for a plugin for  unreal engine that would just automatically   teach my boxer how to play. To my surprise - that doesn't exist so okay i'll just make this thing myself i mean how hard can it be  it's sort of like training a dog right Ziggy - SIT! So i found this thing online with instructions  of how to get this thing set up in Unreal Engine   [Music Intensifies] Change your plan guys. I took a break and i worked  on some cool collectibles for the characters   instead! Cool cap, straw hat.. Heeeey the official Ponty hat! And something to remember the times by *sigh * i'm thinking that each boss will have its own  look in clothing and whenever you beat one   you unlock something. I've also gotten some awesome  inspiration from you guys in our Discord Server   so much amazing fan art.. Speaking of discord - it's time we put some new additions to our   epik pegboard - Lester's looking a little lonely. I  want to give a massive shout out to our amazing   wonderful super awesome discord mods for sticking  with me for so long!   welcome to the epic pegboard Oh and speaking of the epik pegboard - did I  tell you about the new menu? NO? Let's check it out! I've been secretly working on a new menu for the game since the old one looked like a five-year-old made it behold the new punch a bunch menu... the epik pegboard IS the menu! Look look here  you are, IN the game! And also, i'm snatching the Fan Art that you guys are making in the discord server  and i'm putting it up here like little posters and   cards and stuff. I just appreciate you guys so  much and i wanted to somehow put you in the game   as a huge thanks for all your amazing support so  now if you want to be and punch a bunch join the   discord make some epic fan art or surprise me  with something really cool for a chance to land   a spot on the mythical, epik, pegboard! But hey! we still got a boss to make! Clearly, I'm not smart enough to make a neural network but we could  use a State Machine. It has a set of tasks to   do it executes them in order and then around  it goes it works it's used in most games but   it often ends up feeling a little bit robotic *game dialogue* "have you seen Armand Christophe?" "don't worry we'll get him" but my boy morgan hit me up on twitter about  some mysterious thing called Utility AI which   is supposed to be a little better and  hopefully not too complicated to set up   you give your A.I a certain amount of tasks and it  can then score each task based on the situation   it's in and then makes a decision based on the score Do you understand? No? Yeah me neither which is why i decided to start with something a little  easier. Or shall i say... Cheesier.. now pay attention! What you're looking at is a mouse. Okay i made  it myself don't judge.. to better understand about this A.I stuff i decided to put a bunch of mice  in this room that run around looking for cheese   okay easy but when you eat cheese  there are certain side effects   okay but to keep things tidy we want  the mice to go and do their business   in this box here so we need to make sure that  the mice start heading to the box before there's   an accident... but also if a mouse goes  too long without food it dies oh no Hahaha! and i'm thinking that this is the  perfect scenario to put our new   Utility AI to the test. The mice will run around  looking for food, if it's not hungry enough but   it's "needing to go" it'll make the decision to  head to the box. But if it's failing to find   food it will prioritize finding food  because it wants to stay alive and   this way the mice will behave a little  bit more naturally. To my big surprise   it actually works and it's pretty cool the mice  are able to decide when to go to the box depending   on how close to the box they are. If a mouse feels  really full but it's kind of needing to go but   not urgently it can still decide to swing by the  box in case it's close by and there are a lot of   different configurations i can do with this so i'm  actually really happy with this and i can't wait   to try to implement this now and to punch a bunch  and actually apply this to something uh useful While it was pretty easy to set up the mice getting  this working for our boxer is going to be a little   bit more complicated first thing was to just get  some basics going like being able to move around   the ring. He also needs a way to defend himself so  blocking is pretty essential. So the more you punch   him the more likely he is to start blocking so if  you start mashing him he's just gonna turtle up   i can also adjust how aggressive or defensive  he is, basically whether he'll be more likely   to attack or defend. Some bosses in the game  will be very defensive while others will be   a lot more aggressive just to keep things  interesting. We also need our boss to look cool   so i took a break and i made this cool bandana for  him i think it looks pretty cool what do you think   after weeks of figuring this whole A.I thing out  and almost giving up ain't gonna lie i finally   had something up and running that was working  what i found really helpful was to first quickly   visualize how the AI would work using Milanote  and then use that as a reference when building   it all up in unreal engine this gave me just a  good overview to keep referring back to and to   not get lost in the details. Our dude can now lean,  move around, block and fight us back and the cool   thing is that he's using all the same controls  we are using - there's no cheating involved, he   has all the limitations that you have which.. well i  think it's pretty cool! And of course as all bosses   he also needs to have a SPECIAL ATTACK because  bosses need to have those.. so i made this super   epic ground slam animation and these smoke puffs  inspired by Breath of the Wild. If you get hit by   it; you get dazed and take quite a bit of damage  one thing that might be helpful in a boxing game   is to have a health bar the one we currently have  looks like this uh yeah i quickly put something a   little bit better together that i think matches  the style of the game, i'll probably go back and   change it later - i'm saving some cool references in  this board for the final design but i think this   will do for now and i'll keep gathering references  as i go. And before i go ahead and actually do the   first fight against the AI and get absolutely  wrecked probably.. of course i need to put some   epic drip on my dude. You know what they say, losing  is fine so long as you do it in style, am i right   am i right! And here is the result of three  months of work for our first epic boss battle! You wanna knock my thugz off HUH? hehehe it's really difficult right now, i had my friend  play it and all he sent me was this screen grab   i'm guessing he didn't have a great time heheh. I'm  really happy with how this turned out though   because i'm working on this game all alone and i  needed a way to quickly make bosses and not have   to program every single battle by hand so this  utility ai system i built is really gonna help   me out here and because i have a really difficult  boss setup right now i can simply pull back on   the difficulty and start making more beginner  friendly bosses and then kind of increase the   difficulty as you climb the ranks. If you guys have  any awesome ideas for bosses, what they could do   and what they would look like - drop a comment below  and if you want to make some fan art remember to   join a discord community and i'll put YOUR art  in the menu! Make sure it looks good though hey   and guys remember to support Milanote for their  generosity give it a try for your next project   i promise you won't be disappointed use the link  below in the description to sign up completely   free of charge! And of course if you want to play  Punch A Bunch when i release it head over to Steam   and give it a wish list. If you want to support  the channel the best thing you can do is simply   watch another video - there's lots to choose  from and it really gives the channel that   sweet algorithm juice in fact just leave a  playlist running in the background while you play   fortnite or something i don't know okay that's  it for me i'll see you in the next video bye

Channel: Pontypants

Views: 202,479

Keywords: Unreal Engine 4, Unity, gamedev, devlog, game devlog, boxing game, physics based boxing game, good boxing game, making a 3d game, making a game, how to make games, programming a game, game design, creating a game, making an indie game, indie game, boss battle, dani, sam hogan, jonas tyroller, mythic legion, randall, randy, brackeys, programming a boss for my game, gamedev journey, making my first game, dev blog, ponte pants, pontepants, pontypants, devblog

Id: VBiA9yXW1ro

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021