Abstract

Bosses have always been a crucial part of video games. They offer a peak challenge, breaking the regular gameplay loop and rewarding the player greatly when overcome. Due to their importance, the quality of a boss encounter can make or break a game. Therefore, development of these encounters has to be done right. This thesis explores the design space of a tabletop modeling approach to engineering bosses called the boss board. By breaking the boss fight down into segments and using augmented reality to enhance the development process further, the boss board model is intended to improve the overall quality of boss development. The model is aimed at development teams working in collaboration. In two conducted test runs the model generally fulfilled the expectation of enabling the generation of complete and interesting boss encounters. The technological side of the model has room to be improved and other features, such as adding gamification elements may prove beneficial for the boss board. As the design space is not yet explored thoroughly, further research and testing is required. Scientific evaluation of the model is best conducted in a production setting using game designers to evaluate the efficacy of the boss board model.

Results/Implementation/Project Description

Conclusion

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