Shades of Europa

Shades of Europa is just the boss fights.

You and up to three friends play the Ignis, flame spirits sent down through the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa. Under the ice sleep the Shades, and their ruins are the arenas. Every fight is a raid boss tuned for four players, with its own tells, adds and phases. Learn them, call them out and kill it. Or wipe and go again.

I made the first version of this as Boss Battles, a Dota 2 custom game for my mates and me, because the boss fights were the part of raiding we liked best. The biggest influence is Impossible Bosses, the Warcraft III custom map.

What's in it

• Five bosses so far: a beast tamer with a bear, a bird of prey and a pack of boars; a lumber machine sawing through a forest that a druid keeps regrowing; a bomb-maker and his minefield; a gyrocopter strafing the arena from above; and a clockwork engineer with furnaces and turrets. More are designed and coming during Early Access.

• Four classes. An Ice Mage who builds Shatter and spends it on burst. A Fire Mage whose beam grows stronger the longer it stays on target. A Paladin with party auras and a split heal. A Ranger whose arrows hit harder the farther they fly. A Rogue built on bleeds.

• Bots take any slot without a human. Learn a fight with three bots, then bring your friends for the kill. The boss never changes with the number of players.

• Every big hit is marked on the floor before it lands. Most deaths are a mechanic you saw coming.

• Switch class between fights on the class pads, and practise your rotation on the target dummy while you wait for the others.

• Online co-op over Steam with friend invites. No dedicated servers: the game runs in lockstep on everyone's machine.