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Boss Attacks
Every boss attack has its own hand-made animation, in three parts that follow the attack's timing (see Bosses):
- Windup, during the warning: the boss shows what is coming, and holds its last pose until the strike. This is the tell to read.
- Strike: the blow itself, when the damage lands.
- Recover: the boss stays open and spent for exactly as long as its opening lasts, while it takes extra damage.
Each boss also has its own phase change and its own fall, which plays out for two seconds. The Artisan's Shadow keeps its animations in step with the world whose timing it borrows; the Unfinished's are cut for the shortest tier, the one it fights on.
For each attack below: two in-game shots (the held windup pose, then the strike, both on a test floor) and the contact sheet of the animation. A contact sheet has one row per part (windup, strike, recover) and frames at regular times; python3 tools/anim_preview.py in the mod repository renders them.
Contents: Block Guardian, Spore Queen, Ash Titan, Grand Jailer, Storm King, Light Eater, Your Double, Pressure Leviathan, Master of Seasons, Heart of the Terrain, The Unfinished, The Artisan's Shadow
Surface. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
The right fist cocks back past the hip while the left guards, then drives straight ahead.
A double fist raised overhead with the torn blocks rising, then the ground is struck.
It stoops, tears the front block out of the ground, heaves it overhead and hurls it.
Phase: it falls apart into the arena and rebuilds itself, bigger, with a roar. Fall: staggers, its knees give, and it crumbles face first; its blocks drop around it.
World 1. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
She rears up on her stilts, scythes high, and drives both into the ground before her.
The egg sac swells and pumps over her back, then bursts its spores as the wings beat.
Rearing, wings spread and quivering, she calls with her head thrown back while the sac pulses ever harder, then she slams it down to drop her brood.
Phase: she folds her wings around her body into a cocoon and shivers inside it. Fall: the stilts give way and splay, she drops on her belly, the wings droop to the ground.
World 2. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
The beam hammer swings up over the right shoulder and chops down diagonally.
The left hand digs into the furnace in its chest, then flings the burning ash ahead.
Both hands lift the hammer high, the forge in its chest beats harder, and it drives the anvil head into the ground.
Phase: the armour melts open; it throws its arms back and roars, the heart blazing. Fall: it lets the hammer fall, drops to its knees and topples backwards, the forge going out.
World 3. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
The chain in its left hand swings back, lashes out ahead, and is hauled in.
The key-staff rises high, the keys whirl, and its butt is struck on the floor.
Arms spread like opening doors, robe billowing, keys flung wide; then the arms swing shut before it like two walls closing.
Phase: the arena becomes a cell; it thrusts the key-staff forward and turns it like a key in a lock. Fall: the robe empties and settles, the staff topples, and the prisoner's soul rises free.
World 4. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
Wings drawn back and high, then clapped forward in one beat that throws the air ahead.
The trident is raised to the sky, crackling, then pointed down at the target.
It rises high, wings spread, both fists joined over its crown with the orb blazing, then dives and hammers the islet apart.
Phase: a whirlwind; it spins twice on its funnel with arms flung wide and roars from its beard. Fall: the storm leaves it; wings fold, the funnel unravels and it spirals down.
World 5. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
A foreleg rises with the claws hooked, then rakes down and across.
It sits back, lifts its head and opens its maw wide, then gulps the light down.
It sinks low and stalks, rump twitching, then pounces a full block forward.
Phase: it sits and howls, head raised, feelers waving, the swallowed light flaring. Fall: the legs splay, it drops on its belly, the head hits the ground and the light leaks out.
World 6. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
Your own sword swing, mirrored: blade up past the shoulder, then a fast chop across.
Its open hand reaches for yours as if reading it, snatches it closed, and the glass copy of your blade lunges straight at you.
It floats up, palms raised, starts to tip backwards, and turns head over heels.
Phase: it adopts your style; a full turn on the spot with its arms open, then a mocking salute. Fall: it kneels, then shatters: head, arms, sword and the copies drift apart and wink out.
World 7. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
It coils the tail round to one side, then whips it across in a wave that runs to the fluke.
It draws back into an S, jaw ajar, fins folded, then rams a block forward.
It raises its head and opens its maw impossibly wide, the lure dangling bright, then inhales the sea in a bulge that runs down its whole body.
Phase: the depth worsens; it thrashes and barrel-rolls, the roll running down to its tail. Fall: it goes limp, rolls belly up and sinks, the jaw slack and the tail drooping.
World 8. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
The staff is drawn across the body, then swept out in a wide arc.
The staff lifts high, the year-ring tilts, and it is driven into the earth.
The right arm sweeps round the dial like a clock hand while the year spins, then both hands drive down and out as the season turns.
Phase: the seasons overlap; arms wide, it shakes its antlers on four beats, ring and halo whirling. Fall: it withers like an old tree: knees bend, it bows, and topples slowly to one side.
World 9. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
One boulder fist rises high and pounds the ground in front.
Both arms dig into the ground under it while the heart swells, then rip upward and forward, raising the earth before it.
Three heavy beats, each harder, arms spread gripping the ground; then both fists are raised and brought down together to split the floor.
Phase: it beats its own heart with its fists, left, right, left, right, and roars. Fall: the beats slow and fade, the heart deflates, the arms slump and the earth falls out of the air.
World 10. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
The doll rocks back on its base, brush raised high, and paints a slash across the air.
The top half lifts off and turns, the inner doll rises with its core blazing, arms up; then the lid slams back down and the whole doll rocks.
It spins on its base faster and faster, the lid rising, arms flung out; then halts and the lid bursts up off the inner doll before crashing back.
Phase: a shell breaks and a new face is painted: the lid rises, spins a full turn and settles. Fall: a tiny final form; the two halves of the last shell fall away and only a small doll is left.
World 0. Its attacks and their numbers: Bosses.
Chisel set against the air, hammer high; one sculptor's blow drives it forward.
The hammer rises like a gavel over an open palm, the doll halves gather above, and the verdict falls on the palm.
Down on one knee, it taps the ground faster and faster as if nailing the walls of ten cells at once, then one two-handed blow.
Phase: every seam gives way; head, arms and the doll halves burst apart, then stitch back together. Fall: it kneels, lays its hammer and chisel on the ground and bows its head.
