Boss Feature Prototype
Project Type: Group Project
Role: Technical Designer,
Feature Owner
Engine: UnrealEngine 5.4.4
Project Duration: August 26 - September 13 2025
Description
This prototype was made as an assignment for our Advanced Game Design course.
We were tasked with creating a Boss Fight feature for a hypothetical game in “active development” but was missing a key gameplay feature to serve players who want challenging encounters.
We knew from the beginning that abilities would play a big part in this feature. As such, I decided to learn the fundamentals of Unreal’s Gameplay Ability System, which we utilized for this prototype.
We were immediately faced with an interesting challenge: We needed to make a prototype of a Boss Fight feature for a game that not only doesn’t exist, but also hasn’t even been conceptualized.
We decided to make the prototype for a hypothetical online third-person action RPG. Although the system we ended up making could work well in other types of online games.
For the prototype, we decided to make a boss themed around the classic video game enemy archetype: the slime.
It would consist of three phases different phases:
Players fight 6-8 small slimes that can jump and attack.
Once they are defeated, they combine into one big slime with additional abilities.
Once defeated, split into two semi-big slimes. These have the same abilities, but they happen more frequently.
For replayability, we decided to tie narrative, power, and cosmetic progression into the system, making it likely to appeal to a more varied set of players. For the people who just want the story, they can play the content to experience that.
Players interested in power or cosmetics can grind the bosses to obtain the loot they want, allowing them to fight harder bosses within the system itself. We also thought it might be good to have a currency that could be used to buy items, allowing players to target specific rewards rather than just relying on random drops.
Concept
Gameplay Ability System
As mentioned above, I took this course as an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of Unreal’s GAS framework. It proved to be a really interesting and versatile system, though it took some time to set up.
The player has access to a melee combo consisting of three attacks that deal increasingly greater amounts damage.
The combo is reset if too much time elapses between attacks or if the combo completes after three hits.
They can also fire a magic projectile at their enemies. This projectile deals a relatively high amount of damage, but its high mana cost will leave you drained if you aren’t careful.
Lastly they have a Heal ability. It heals the player by 60% of their max health over 5 seconds. It comes with a high mana cost and a long cooldown, though.
In the first phase of the fight, a giant ball of slime in the ceiling will periodically shoot down balls of slime that leave a pool on the floor. Standing in the pool slows the player’s movement speed.
The boss also has a jump attack. It will either trigger once or several times. If the player is hit, they will take damage.
Lastly on this showcase is the Slime Slide, as I like to call it.
The boss will rush forward, leaving a trail of slime on the floor. Standing in it will cause the player’s movement speed to be slowed, leaving them open to more attacks.
Player Abilities
Boss Abilities
This was a really interesting assignment to work on. Trying to come up with a feature for a nonexistent game proved to be a tough, if rewarding, challenge. Some days, however, it felt like driving a train while the tracks were still being laid.
My teammates were professional, driven, and a delight to work with. I’m really quite happy with what we managed to achieve in those three weeks.
Leaning GAS was also really fun, and it was evident from the very start, just how powerful that framework can be.
We did run into a massive roadblock, though, which cost us a lot of time. The C++ code I had written at home to do some setup would not run on my school PC. After many, many hours of troubleshooting, we decided to try running it in a different Unreal project, which seemed to solve the issue. In short; computers are weird sometimes.