   Death for the invincible
  I am currently working on a 2d platformer game much like I Wanna Be The Guy. In fact, it is a fangame of IWBTG.Anyway, I am having trouble with the final boss fight. I want it to look like a normal boss fight, except that it turns out that the enemy is the good guy and the player is the real bad guy.The idea is that players go through the fight normally, and then when they think they've won, they get the Game Over screen instead. Then they have to figure out that the actual way to win is to just press the suicide key.This leads to several problems.1. The player should not be able to die except by pressing the suicide key. Otherwise the puzzle is ruined.2. In order to look like a normal boss fight, it must be hard, and possible to fail. 3. So there needs to be someway to fail the fight without dieing. Furthermore, it should be clear to the player when they have failed so they know to restart the level instead of wasting time.My first idea was to give the player an invincibility powerup right before the fight, like the starman from Mario.In order to make the fight hard and possible to fail, I thought of giving the boss stunning attacks. Once the player is stunned, the boss would be programmed to continually spam that attack so they player can't recover. At this point, it would basically be equivalent to death, and the player would be forced to restart the level.The problem is in making the stunning a logical mechanic, when it is not used anywhere else in the game. Also, the player might not realize that they are permanently stuck once stunned.   
  Are you intentionally trying to think of the most un-fun game play possible?You want the player to feel like he is invincible, then spams stun attacks until he gets so pissed at the game that he restarts the level (if he isn't just quitting). If he ever manages to actually beat the stun spamming boss, he gets a game over screen and loses? An ultimately after countless frustrating battles the final solution is he has to suicide with a single key press?   ;  Sounds like an art game to me, a design aspect that reeks of poor game design but offers metagaming satisfaction.  If you want it to work well, you'll have to load your game chockablock full with foreshadowing and unmistakable hints.  I've always been a fan of this kind of game design douchebaggery, and personally harbor a vision of a game where the protagonist is possessed by the player, with cutscenes between levels playing out like an amnesiac realizing (with horror) the things he did while "blacked out" and under player control.It can work, and it can be fun, and I hope you do well, but don't make it a total surprise for the player when it comes up.  You'll have to orchestrate the whole game to complement the revelation and suicide.   ;Quote:I am currently working on a 2d platformer game much like I Wanna Be The Guy.Please don't.   ;  How about a simpler option. You are the invincible hero who can't die, but you can be locked in a cage, loaded on a truck, and 'escape' farther back in levels you have already played through.   ;  Plenty of other games have invincible heroes that can't be killed and they don't resort to stun locking the player.  After all that’s no fun implies either the game is broken or it's possible to escape.What about having the final battle floating above a building carried by balloons? If you get hit 3 times you fall part way down the level and have to climb back up start the fight over? Or some other contrived location where getting sets you back.   Also how are you going make clear and obvious to the player that they have kill them selves to win?;  Why don't you just let them see the good ending if you die fighting, and a bad ending if you kill the final boss?   ;  The existence of a suicide key raises the following question. Does it have any use in the rest of the game?;  After playing MMO's for over a decade now, and anyone that has played an MMO(especially in a competitive PvP setting) would probably agree with me....being stun-locked is the most un-fun, absolutely annoying, most absurd thing ever.  I'm a pretty calm guy when I play games. I'm not the type that follows my controller into the screen, bashes his keyboard, /ragequit, etc....but being stunlocked pushes me almost to that point.So a suggestion, unless you want people to turn off your game...don't.Players like to feel that they're always in control of their character, even if they aren't.  If I wanted to "watch" my character do something, I'd watch a movie...not play an interactive game.   ;  I think the idea of an unwinnable boss battle is a very tricky one to implement. If the rest of the game is quite traditional then you will have been rewarding the player for success ("killed the baddy? Shiny text! A new level!") - with this idea you will be doing the opposite, and encouraging them to fail. It's an interesting topic for games but not one I think has been successfully implemented yet.Personally, by the time i've reached the boss battle I'm only playing for completion - unless I am compelled by the story. If I get frustrated by a boss battle I just turn off - there's little actual reward as the game will be over after the battle.The idea of an unbeatable enemy is often presented in games earlier in the story - the idea being that you lose, then spend the rest of the game training up to defeat your nemesis. See Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast for an example of this.SPOILER ALERT!--------------Two games that spring to mind where the only option to defeat the final boss are Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (where to win the final battle you have to put your lightsaber away, at which point your enemy realises he cannot kill you) and Escape From Monkey Island (where you straight out have to lose the final battle).It might be worth checking these out to see how they handled your problem. And good luck!   