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Those are the book covers for The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. It is an interesting story.
I'm planning on replacing those horrible episode finale Shalrath battles with unique boss character battles.
I'd imagine the inspiration should also pull from Lovecraft mythos. What do you all think should be the three bosses leading up to Shub Niggurath? Why not Cthulhu himself? He's a badass if done correctly.
Maybe we can find some low poly Cthulhu concepts that would fit into the Quake aesthetic?
Hmm. The problem w/ Lovecraftian stuff in a video game is that "unknowable horror" doesn't fit nicely into "shoot it til it dies".
Chthon was not a great endboss in that light (if any). Shub was kind of good tho. At least the method of defeating her was sufficiently weird. I'm going to ramble a bit here about the gameplay rather than specific names of Lovecraftian creatures... Quake is a straightforward action game so you can't go too crazy with boss mechanics. But bullet-sponge bosses in Quake maps/mods have almost always been a bad way to end things. Maybe a fight that requires clever use of the level architecture, or manipulation of other monsters? Or maybe it requires some action that would seem to be suicidal at first glance (e.g. lava diving), until you get hints otherwise as the fight progresses. For continuity, Shub could be present in some fashion in each fight, just as a sinister presence or actually intervening, but retreat/escape after each of your victories (until the end). Perhaps remix Shub into all the existing end-episode fights; in e1m8 just an observer overhead, but then getting more and more active in each following bossfight. It keeps mentioning Shub-Niggurath in the messages but the entity at the end is very clearly The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath , not the real deal herself.
Also consider this bit from The Moon-Lens:
The gof'nn hupadgh Shub-Niggurath is the name given to the favored, once-human worshipers of Shub-Niggurath. When the deity deems a worshiper to be most worthy, a special ceremony is held in which the Black Goat of the Woods swallows the initiate and then regurgitates the cultist as a transformed satyr-like being. A changed worshiper is also endowed with immortal life. That's basically what happened in end.bsp, did it not. Maybe Chillo could create something that is impossibly huge and only suggested via gameplay. Imagine a huge octagon shaped area with giant tentacles reaching in through the windows attacking the player. Cause enough damage to a tentacle - it gibs or retracts. Cause enough damage and the creature "surrenders" and retreats to fight another day.
You'd only have to create and animate one tentacle and then through code give it enough variations and randomness to make them feel unlinked and party of a larger creature. You could also use one of these tentacles in other maps in simpler ways. There are a lot of great boss battles in the more recent Legend of Zelda games that would be fun to translate into the Quake universe. I like the idea of making the boss only defeatable with some clever puzzle embedded in the environment. I agree that the "shoot it until it dies" mechanic was never used in any actual boss battle in Quake. I also like dumptruck's idea of segmenting a giant monster into separate entities, in order to create the feel of something larger than the game could actually handle as a single entity.
Aside Cthulhu, what are some other creatures we could use that would suffice as a formidable boss? Fuck YouTubers. WTF do they know? Seriously. As soon as I heard the pitched up voice YA LOST ME.
As I referred to in another post you don't have to beat a boss in a battle... remember the ending of Zerstörer? Anyway. But I did watch the tube and understand the point the pre-pubescent was trying to make... so if not Cthulhu... then his much more fierce and much smaller scaled step-brother Todd. I could help woth the coding for whatever monstrosity you come up with.
@dumptruck_ds: Your tentacle idea is rather intriguing. Combined with breakables it could be rather interesting to have the player running through a place getting tentacle smashed. The Thing (1982) has some Lovecraftian stuff. Maybe you could try a monster like this:
https://xgulyabanix.deviantart.com/art/The-Thing-1982-Dog-273221922 Since it's a boss it can stay put like this beasty. Giga Shamnler and Giga Fiend
https://goo.gl/images/e2USJV Lovecraft's monsters don't actually translate that well to Quake, because his stories aren't about badass soldiers killing things with rockets. Quake may have channelled some of the essence of Lovecraft in its visuals and naming conventions, but that's really where the similarity ends so I think it's a mistake to look for specific mythos creatures to turn in to bosses. Instead do what ID did, and design something new that fits an action game.
I took the liberty of sketching out a couple of concepts this morning: URTHKLAH MECHOGRE Apologies for poor image quality, I'm not near my scanner. URTHKLAH can move through walls like a ghost and when she's really angry she'll charge with all of her front mouths. Her back mouth fires a volley of zombie gibs. Think projectile vomit. If a gib volley completely misses the player a zombie gets spawned wherever they hit. MECHOGRE has a slow turning circle so it's wise to get behind him to avoid his charge and rocket attacks, but as soon as you do so he'll launch a volley of grenades to keep you busy dodging whilst he turns. And yes, he does have a giant toothy vagina. It's purely for decoration though, so don't get any ideas.
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