Mammon Boss Design
The Backdrop
Mammon was the first boss we brought to a shippable quality on Darksiders Genesis in anticipation for a demo build we were preparing for E3 2019. This was my opportunity to bring design ideas to the table in a boss fight, but we had a compressed iteration loop due to the looming deadline.
Mammon is a Demon Lord and avarice incarnate, and one directive in working on this fight was to have his fight take place in his hoard full of gold and treasures. It was only natural we had instant parallels to Scrooge McDuck and his signature swan dive into his pool of gold coins.
Mammon McDuck
True to our original inspiration, a key Mammon ability is his gold dive into his hoard to avoid threat, reposition, and even damage the player on emerge.
I wanted to create a balance between the threat of Mammon’s rare artifacts and Mammon himself, so Mammon brings forth an arsenal of artifacts while taking advantage of the resulting chaos throughout the encounter to catch the Horsemen off guard.
Mammon's Scepter - Mammon utilizes his enchanted scepter to create a barrage of projectiles and beams for players to dodge in a variety of ways.
Mammon's Tail - Mammon can poison the player with a jab of his surprisingly mobile and lengthy tail spike.
Mammon's Coffin - An enchanted coffin that spawns skeleton minions.
Mammon's Tome - An enchanted book that casts a random spell, including healing.
Mammon's Hammer - An enchanted hammer that hovers above the field and slams down.
Mammon's Mirror - An enchanted mirror that summons Mammon clones.
Storytelling Through Combat
The variety in this fight gave us an opportunity to create aspects of the fight that better suited Strife (ranged) players and others that suited War (melee) players. For example, Strife could more easily take out the artifacts from a range while War could go toe-to-toe with Mammon and even stagger him since he's not Since you could actively swap between the two, it gave a lot of room for player skill expression in both single and multiplayer contexts.
Another valuable takeaway from developing this fight was proving out the boss extension of our dialogue system. I wanted bosses to feel responsive to your actions and worked closely with our writer to time the beats and work out a sample script. Mammon’s quips throughout this fight are some of my favorites, such as when you destroy one of his prized artifacts.
It's Just a Phase
Mammon retreats throughout the fight to dig up a new artifact. This gives a chance for the player to get some damage in while Mammon's back is turned and a bit of surprise as part of each artifact sticks out of the hoard prior to entering play. The player can decide to ignore Mammon or focus down each artifact. It's a risk/reward balance that each player can tackle in their own way, if they take ignore the artifacts the fight gets very chaotic, but the fight will take longer if they stop to tackle each artifact.
In the final phase of the fight, Mammon revives all of his artifacts that are imbued with a gold aura and are immune to damage. This is a last stand from Mammon that forces the player to tackle him head on while withstanding the volley from all of the imbued artifacts.
Did we win?
This was the boss fight we brought to E3 in 2019, and it required a fast iteration loop from everyone involved. I was lucky to have some super talented folks in all disciplines helping realize this fight and the trust from leadership to deliver it. Overall, the fight was wall-received by folks playing the demo and stands out as one of the fan favorite fights from Darksiders Genesis. The combination of mechanics ramping up over time creates a whimsical chaos for the player to manage whether playing co-op/solo, with Mammon trying to thwart the player at every turn.
