Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Tides rise, the moon falls, and FISH FEAR ME Friday returns gently once more.
Today, I wanted to talk about everyone's favorite eldritch monstrosity, the Leviathan! Making a satisfying ending to a roguelike presents interesting challenges for design, programming, and narrative, so let's dive right in!
Spoilers abound for the end of the game, so beware!!
Designing the Leviathan
From very early on, I wanted FISH FEAR ME to have a strong finish to its "main storyline." The obvious comparison point is the Reaper from Vampire Survivors: you've reached the time limit, which means it's time to die! Overcoming this barrier (and meeting the actual endpoint of the run) is the final challenge of the main campaign, so it's important that it shines.
The design for the Reaper is interesting to me for a few reasons. First is the fact that it can be done in any run once you reach a certain point. All the items you need are available on every map; all you have to do is take the time to walk to them (and accept their downsides/challenges). This is a very core principle which I wanted to uphold while making FISH FEAR ME. Preparing to fight the Leviathan may be a significant undertaking, but it's doable in every map once you've unlocked the Bell of the Deep and Ghost Knife.
However, where our design sensibilities differed is that I wanted the Leviathan to be a unique fight for each map. An original design for the game had a completely different encounter for each map: a kraken for Shipwreck Bay, a horde of fish for Nightmare Lake, etc. It would've been a cool idea, but a significant chunk of work (and it would've somewhat dampened the impact of the fight, being with A Leviathan rather than The Leviathan). In the end, I made it so that the Leviathan summons guardian fish from your current map and forces you to fight them, making each fight substantially different while maintaining the unique character of each map!
Programming the Leviathan
FISH FEAR ME is a game with a wide variety of player builds, which means it's very difficult to know what setup the player is going to have when they reach the Leviathan fight. All I can know is that they're strong enough to complete all five altar rituals. Can they deal fifty damage per second? Five thousand? I don't know!
Therefore, the Leviathan boss fight must be winnable by all types of endgame build: if you have high DPS, you can gun it down (but not too fast). If you have high health, you can outlive it (at a high risk). If you summon the undead, there are undead for you to summon (but not an infinite amount). Eventually, the following design decisions were reached:
- The Leviathan itself has relatively low health, but regularly becomes invincible. This way, high-DPS builds are rewarded but can't completely curbstomp it, and low-DPS builds can make decent progress.
- To end these invincibility periods, you need to either kill all summoned guardian fish OR survive for 45 seconds. Again, multiple solutions! A good survival build can make it through the 45-second maximum no problem, while the DPS build can chew through the spawned enemies.
- When the clock strikes midnight, ALL fish spawning pools are refilled. Even if you fished out the entirety of Nightmare Lake on Day 7, there are still new fish for you to catch during the fight. This way, you're given ample opportunities to heal (and summon skeletal minions) while battling the Leviathan!
Writing the Leviathan
"Writing" is an interesting word given the low word count of the game, but I do generally try to keep an internal sense of logic: why things happen, why things happen again, etc. The biggest question every roguelike invites writing-wise is "Why does this keep happening?" Why does the Fisherman keep fishing after he dies? Why can you fight the Leviathan multiple times? Why does paying off the life debt not end the game?
The world of FISH FEAR ME is one of cosmic loops: death and undeath, debt and undebt. "As above, so below, so further, so above." The relationship between the Leviathan and the Fisherman is one of these loops: we live, we fish, we die, we fish again. The two are permanently connected. Even when you slay the Leviathan, it gets its revenge.
That's all for this week! Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week for another FISH FEAR ME Friday!
Question of the Week
What are some of your favorite bosses in roguelikes/survivorslikes?
Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers