Chinese Dragon Train Boss

Hello and welcome back to another episode of our series on boss fight design! It is actually the first time we are posting an article from this series on IndieDB, so if you are interested in previous installments visit our blog on Gamasutra - Gamasutra.com boss we showed you last time was relatively easy to implement and made it into the final release of X-Morph: Defense. The one we will be discussing today had no such luck. Made up of hundreds of little pieces, the task of making all the components work together turned out to be a little bit too much for us, given the time restrictions we eventually had to impose on ourselves. Let's take a closer look at it - here's the Chinese Dragon Train.

This is the untextured prototype from a very early stage of development. 
Notice the scale of the train compared to a regular tank.

Even the sheer size of it is quite daunting. This boss was supposed to be the final enemy of the China stage in X-Morph: Defense. The battlefield is located in the middle of a military base. It is not unusual for the army to carry their freight by using specialized trains, so we decided it would be fitting and more unique than another ultra-heavy tank or a gigantic aircraft. Comprised of four completely different carriages, the Chinese Dragon Train had a number of ways to make the players sweat.

TRAIN DESIGN

The entire Chinese Dragon Train would fill up a large portion of the level

and would be too large to fit on a single screen in-game.

As you might expect from EXOR Studios, the visual aspect of the boss design was rather over the top. The train with all its carriages spanned across almost half of the map. Since each part was specialized to carry out a different task, all of them had to vary significantly. That meant, of course, that our artists had to prepare 4 models to be later connected into one consistent entity. It was a tall order, especially given the fact that all the parts had completely different purposes.

The parts of the train were connected by dynamic joints, 
allowing it to slightly bend while making turns.

The Chinese Dragon Train is not just a vehicle packed with weapons. In fact, it is a military base on wheels, complete with an artillery cannon, a nuclear strike calling satellite dish and even an aircraft factory! A MIRV missile launcher rounds up the package nicely, giving the boss complete control over all the aspects of the battle taking place around it. There simply isn't an aspect of the warfare the train couldn't control.

The cannon carriage doubles up as an engine for the whole train. 
It is able to move forwards and backwards. It's better not to ask about the power of its engines.

译文：

中国龙列车头

您好，欢迎回到我们的另一集关于老板战斗设计系列！实际上这是我们第一次在IndieDB上发布这个系列的文章，所以如果你对之前的部分感兴趣，请访问我们在Gamasutra-Gamasutra.com上的博客boss，我们上次向你展示的是相对容易实现的，并使之成为X-Morph:Defense的最终版本。我们今天要讨论的那个人没有这样的运气。由成百上千个小部件组成，考虑到我们最终不得不对自己施加的时间限制，让所有部件一起工作的任务对我们来说有点太多了。让我们仔细看看它-这是中国龙列车。

这是一个开发早期的无背景原型，注意火车与普通坦克的比例。

即便是它的庞大规模也相当令人望而生畏。这位BOSS本应是《X变体：防御》中中国舞台的最后敌人。战场位于军事基地的中间。军队用专列运送货物并不稀奇，所以我们决定它比另一辆超重型坦克或一架巨型飞机更合适，更独特。由四节完全不同的车厢组成的中国龙列车有很多让运动员流汗的方法。

列车设计

整列中国龙列车将占整个水平的很大一部分。它太大了，不能放在游戏中的一个屏幕上。

正如您可能从EXOR工作室期望的那样，boss设计的视觉方面是相当过分的。火车及其所有的车厢几乎横跨了地图的一半。由于每个部分都是专门执行不同任务的，因此所有部分都必须有很大的不同。当然，这意味着我们的艺术家必须准备4个模型，以便以后连接成一个一致的实体。这是一个很高的要求，特别是考虑到所有部分都有完全不同的目的。

列车的各个部分通过动力接头连接起来，使其在转弯时稍微弯曲。

中国龙列车不仅仅是一辆装满武器的车辆。事实上，它是一个轮子上的军事基地，配有一门大炮、一个叫卫星天线的核打击装置，甚至还有一个飞机工厂！一个和平号导弹发射器很好地包围了这个包裹，让老板完全控制了围绕它战斗的所有方面。火车根本无法控制战争的任何方面。

炮车兼作整列火车的发动机，它能前后移动。最好不要问发动机的功率。