Lightning laser breath attack thingy

This week I’ve primarily been working on the boss of our game, Aetherial. The boss of the game is a huge, flying whale, that you as a player is supposed to hunt down. The boss appears multiple times during the game, at first you only see its back as it soars through the clouds, but in the final scene you actually face this leviathan head-on. During this fight the boss will use several attacks against the player, one of which is a huge “lightning breath” attack in the form of a laser that’s supposed to cover a large part of the screen. It looks a little something like this:

As you can see there is a charge-up, the actual beam, and then it fades. The charge-up is not only there because it looks cool and makes the attack seem more powerful, but also to give the player a heads-up that something big is coming. This will also be accompanied by the whale opening its mouth while charging up the attack. The beam part is of course the part when the player needs to avoid, hopefully already being out of its way if the warning is communicated clearly enough. The fade-out part is mostly for looks, but does serve as a moments peace for the player as they can ready their next plan of attack against the creature.

The actual look of the beam is supposed to replicate the look of another enemy in the game, an enemy we call the “Manta Angler” as it was designed as a mixture between a manta ray and an angler fish. This enemy also has a charged-up electric attack, so the plan is that the player will already be familiar with the look of the warning signs and should know that something dangerous is coming. This is what the previous attack looks like when it charges up:

If all goes according to plan then the beam attack should feel very powerful in the game, while also being clearly telegraphed and provide some interesting gameplay. It should also blend well with the other attacks that the whale fight offers, and hopefully work well with them.