Final Boss

This week I worked on two of the three final boss battles in Viola. There will be spoilers in the blogpost. Be wary!

Click 'Read more' to find out more about some of the story and the boss battles.

Return or Remain

Viola has three endings: "Return", "Remain" and the "True Ending". The True Ending can only be unlocked by recruiting all the characters in the game, and completing their personal quest.

Return and Remain are pretty straight-forward. Either Viola returns home, or remains in the violin's world. I want both of these endings to be slightly... unsatisfactory, so the player knows there may be another ending they should be getting.

 To start, I made some concept art for both the final battles. I wanted a strange, faceless look for the regular final boss battle, and I wanted something that breaks the art-style of Viola to show off the otherworldly appearance.

I chose to go with a diamond. I'm not sure why: I was kind of thinking of a prism, which is often associated with colors. The final boss is the "Aspect": the creator and 'god' of the violin's world. So he's supposed to have "all colors", like a prism. But prisms look dumb, so it's a diamond now.

I gave him piano claws, and a violin head in his final battle, along with a space cape.

Return or Remain

True Ending

The actual Remain/Return battle.

I worked on the pre-boss cutscene, a lengthy conversation between Viola and the Aspect, where the Aspect mimics his creations, Fenrys, Sybil and Momo. Their avatars however, have empty eyes and noise over them. Their "talk sounds" are also slightly more bit-crunched. Almost like a video game glitch.

A corrupted Fenrys.

The Aspect's actual talk avatar.

I was surprised at how well just adding noise to each frame worked when animated.

Finally, I worked on the credits and the actual endings that comes after the boss.

Return.

Remain.