BOSS RUSH (a boss theme album) 

There are a bunch of apple slices lying around Citrus Knight's castle... the protagonist is an apple... 😱

Orchard Ogre seems like the type of guy who would fight you once, try and fail to be a recurring antagonist through out the rest of the game, and then teams up with you near the end of the game after you show him an act of kindness.

kwackpot seems like the type of boss that is inexplicably hard despite only being a mini-boss...

I love Kirby vibe of fighting cute food themed bosses in the early game, then having to fight a literal god for the final boss

I love HOGWYLLD, feels like the kinda villain that’s thrilled when the hero shows up so they can test out their new gadgets. They have no beef with the hero, they just love the spectacle of being a villain.

I like how during the Kwackpot boss fight the Apple isn’t even bobbing up and down like he’s ready for battle; he just looks at it confused because he genuinely doesn’t know if it’s a threat

I love the concept of non-existent bosses & characters getting battle themes 😩 I’d love to see more at some point

The fact that they don’t actually battle leads me to believe that they have really intense staring competitions. The final boss further points to this, with those giant eyes. You have stared down a great many rivals, but you cannot beat the Void Mother’s gaze… *funny boss music starts*

this feels exactly like a japan-exclusive game from the 90's that no one remembers being rediscovered by the internet and becoming a cult classic

The Void Mother is an insanely terrifying design, and 0% what I'd expect out of a nonexistent game that starts you off at a cute farm. It's so perfect.

I noticed the further it got away from nature, the more synthetic the music got.

I like watching Apples health slowly go up as we move through the game and level up

Now we have music for the levels, the dlc and finally the bosses. The only thing we are missing is the actual game

This album has perfect nintendo game flow. *World 1:* Large, more powerful than the player, but very easy to outsmart. A simple fellow to help you get the controls. *World 2:* The game starts showing you a bit of its edge. This boss is entirely antagonistic, but is also very charismatic and you kind of grow to love when they're on screen. Thinks they're very cool. *World 3 mini-boss:* duck *World 3:* Coming right around the midpoint of the game is the first proper challenge: a doppleganger boss. Propells the main story forward, genuinely a little scary. Defeating this boss feels like a huge achievement. *World 4 mini-boss:* Yeah, it's a little silly, but also kind of a tank and you don't fully believe it's a mini-boss. It plays around with the environment and hits like a truck. *World 4:* We're nearing the big bad now, so this is a huge challenge in the game's core mechanics. The fight itself contains a puzzle aspect that is really frustrating because it's like playing tic tac toe with lava. *World 5:* Final thing before the big bad and while they're tough to beat, it's nothing you haven't seen before. They're really there to hype you up and to get you pumped for the final boss. Making you overconfident. What's the worst that can happen? *World 6:* Complete lovecraftian horror. A full departure from the lightharted, kind of campy aesthetic the rest of the game has had, it is now you against an unfeeling, all-powerful darkness. The threat they pose is existential, every time you die to it you feel stabbing pain and fear in your heart. This is the worst thing that can happen.

The other bosses:🐖🚍🍑 Void Mother: 👁👁

Kwackpot is a shopkeeper, and his shop theme is that basic “quack” rhythm at the start of the song. A secret item is available for purchase after completing a long side quest from his brethren, called Challenge. After saving up money, a special dialogue happens and then a cutscene showing the caravan shop Kwackpot was inside of unfolding like a cardboard box and instead of the overworld, it’s replaced with the Kwackpot void (as shown in the video) If you defeat him, not only do you get a discount, but his cousin Kwacker fills in and explains that Kwackpot wasn’t possessed or too self-important, he was just a duckwad.

Orchard Orgre is one of those characters that come back as an ally later on.

What a lot of people don't know is if you unequip all your weapons, you can actually choose to interact with Quackpot and pass by them without battling. Not only that, but you'll also unlock the exclusive Duck Hat that gives you +10 Charisma.

Man, the more I hear the Citrus Knight theme, the more fire I realize it is. Even without this being an actual game, that boss represents the “wake the fuck up, the real Dark Souls starts here” mid-game boss so perfectly.

Man, the Apple Man Cinematic Universe expands with every BANGER Louie makes

I like how he just looks. Mildly confused at Kwackpot.

Fun fact: VOID MOTHER's boss room is the only one to contain a 3D object in the skybox. By loading the Orchard Ogre sky texture and wrapping it around two rings rotating in two directions (rotating around the ring's curvature produces the wavy motion and rotating horizontally creates the actual motion), the orange rifts are created over the black skybox, creating the background.

I think Citrus Knight's theme is my favorite. When it fully comes in, you really feel the weight of the story

I was trying to figure out why void mother was so unsettling to see during her section even though if I paused it it wasn't nearly as bad. I realized it just creates a super uneasy feeling watching her eyes since they are the most prominent part and the face behind is just barely out of focus enough to feel uncanny and frightening. Then as I watched her eyes I realized that they kept going back and forth. Then I realized what she was going back and forth from. She focuses on apple guy for a bit then sort of shifts and the pupils seem to look at the screen implying that she is aware of the player and damn if that isn't just the best little addition to push her over the edge on the scary-as-shit scale.

I really hope there's a lot of people who appreciate how clever of a name LAN GNOME is ALONG with him being a literal gnome AND ALSO with the banger track this goes so HARD DUDE

I love the concept of the corrupted comrade being a lemon/orange, the name reminds me a lot to hollow knight and I love it, it’s perfect and the theme is just epic

Boss gameplay walkthrough for newbies: The Orchard Ogre dashes with his pitchfork aimed at you. You have to pick up chickens and jump with them (making use of the slow fall mechanic) to dodge his attacks. When he misses, his pitchfork gets stuck - giving a chance to land some damage. Hogwylld moves mechanically, throwing bombs that explode after a few seconds. A well-timed bomb will explode in Hogwylld's face, upturning the robot and exposing the curly tail. Kwackpot does a spin attack that homes in on you. Lead it over to one of the pillars to make it crash, then land some damage. Be sure not to jump on the pillars themselves, or Kwackpot will jump up into the air onto you! Citrus Knight is tough. He won't attack if you are standing still, and will block all attacks if you aren't z-targetting. I recommend going back to W1's combat tutorial to learn Citrus Knight's moveset and use it against him. Minnie Bus's weak spot is her exhaust pipe. If you run ahead of Minnie, she will spit nuts and bolts at you. Wait for a nut and double-jump over the bus, throw it into the exhause pipe, and her engine will go down. Attack her from the front window, where her eyes are (though she sucks them in snail fashion when the engine busts). The timing for this one is super hard to get right, especially in her final stage where she spits explosive nuts. LAN Gnome is notoriously the easiest boss in the game. The lasers spit out a plasma ball that you can volley back. You need to volley each laser 3 times before they explode. When you explode both the Gnome will jump out of the bay and shoot lasers, which you volley again until he collapses. Peach and Nectarine hail lightning from the sky to hit you. It doesn't show on some screens, but the colours are slightly different (peach is more orange, nectarine is more pink). They are immune to their own lightning, but you can stand next to one at the right moment to make a lightning bolt hit them (hit Peach with Nec's lightning). Once one is dead they leave behind a stone, which you can use to finish off the other. Void Mother is hard. It's a combination of her hands trying to smoosh you and her eyes which send out beams of light (notice a theme?). You need the Chestnut powerup to destroy the hands (go into the shell right when she's about to hit and her hands will get beat up until she stops using them), but you can just destroy her eyes by shooting pips at them too. It is a good idea to sort out the hands though, because the time it takes to aim is time where she'll be getting ready to smoosh you. She'll also be spitting out ghost fruits, so I hope you've gotten good at slicing them. Good luck!!

Love how Kwackpot stops our little buddy's idle animation from confusion, and then instantly transitions to a complete opposite tone

I wish this genre would genuinely be a thing. There's just something novel about having specific tracks used when you're fighting against a specific characters. More so, when the boss themes are going against you (like the Colossus of Rhodes boss from God of War 2).

I love how Apple man was sort of jamming in the songs until the duck comes along He just stands there with such a confused look and I love it 3:45

You start as an apple who's fallen from a tree. You have three close friends (a lemon, a pear, and a durian). The world is being corrupted by black stuff and you decide to try and fix it. You fight through the Orchard, defeating the Orchard Ogre, then go through the barn. In the fight with Hogwylld, Lemon 'dies'. In world 3, or the farm, you fight off the kwackpot, then meet the citrus knight, your old friend, but corrupted and trying to kill you, though you and your party fights him. Pear dies in the process, but you and Durian survive and kill Lemon. You two reminisce in the resting area. You then wake up in a strange world, with nonsensical things. You fight off a bus, before meeting your old friends revived, Pear and Lemon, and everything seems to be good, until you realize you're in a simulation. You and Durian manage to break free and kill Lan Gnome, the programmer. You and Durian continue towards the source of the black stuff, until you arrive at a castle. You fight your way through it and meet Peach & Nectarine, who are defending a black portal. You kill Peach, and Nectarine kills Durian in revenge. Bereaved, you are determined to find the source of the black stuff and why everyone wants to kill you. Nectarine warns you to not go through. You kill Nectarine, silencing him, and walk through the portal. Here, you meet Void Mother, who initially hides, generating fake clones of your friends to tempt you to stay. However, you know they're fake, so Void Mother commands them to attack you. You fend them off and kill them. Void Mother then tries to kill you herself, and you fight. No matter if you win or lose, just before her or your death, she will use her 'final attack'. The screen goes black, and you reappear, back in your Orchard, with all of your friends congratulating you for defeating the void mother. However, all of your friends have something off about them, a dark spot, a scarred eye, blackened leaves...

A friend of mine sent a screenshot of the chickens from the Orchard Ogre, and didn't even say where she got it from, so coming here and finding them in the corner just tickling my brain into recognition was such a pleasant surprise!!

Void Mother is exactly the kind of creepy, awful nightmare fuel Nintendo would put in a Kirby game. Well done. 10/10 I'll be sobbing in the corner if anyone needs me.

Citrus knight's theme has a certain cockiness to it that I love. Like they'd boast about their evil deeds, knowing full well that they used to be a completely different person, before kicking their former ally's ass.

Louie, trying to sneak in models of an actual industrial robot, a U.R. 10, on that digital goblin stage. Choice and cheeky. I love it.

nothing like a goofy looking game with a banger soundtrack and a nightmare inducing final boss to start the year!!💙

I love this so much, citrus knight needs a redemption arc

Super apple boy games be like: world 1 boss: stop big mean ogre final boss: destroy the embodiment of a fundamental concept of the fabric of reality

this feels like a Kirby game what with the cute graphics, circular main character, knight with a similar appearance to the main character, an unknowable void being as a final boss and amazing music!

Void Mother music is somethind i'd expect in an ENA video also a mini bus as a mini boss is both genius and dumb and i love it

In true cute-game fashion, the last boss is a deeply upsetting horror from beyond the stars

I love the strange things Louie comes up with. These are both amazing and hilarious. Also I love the apple guy's expression when facing Kwackpot

And then there's a post credit cutscene that shows that Citrus Knight survived the encounter and there is something deeper and darker working behind the scenes

We need this to be a game Louie, we NEED IT. One little detail I really like is the fire in the rest area being a little open shape, with orange on the inside and yellow on the outside. It's so simple, but I always find it interesting how elements like fire are stylized. Keep up the great work!!

Fun Fact! When you beat a boss, you can go to Grandpa Grape’s house for his thoughts on each of them. When beating Orchard Ogre: Ha! That idiot really thought it was good idea to chuck Parry Plums at ya! When beating Hogwylld: My, what peculiar fellow. Though, that glint in his eye does look familiar… When beating Kwackpot: You ok? You passed out when you touched the knob. Hey, where did you get that door key from? When beating Citrus Knight: Orange I’m glad you beat him! What about this dog? I found him and thought to give him a home! When beating Minnie Bus: Stupid ogre traffic! Causes nothing but trouble! They have tasty jam, though. When beating LAN Gnome: What happened to my radio! I need it for my news! Oh… at least you’re all right. When beating Peach & Nectarine: Those gals used to be so lovey-dovey with each other. They would always be holding hands everywhere they went… When beating Void Mother: *Grandpa Grape isn’t in his house when you enter. Only markings covered in orange jam and his dog is cowarding in the corner.*

Lan Gnome is my favorite by far. Love how there were warning alarms incorporated into their music at the end, as though the boss was on a sliver of health and they had some big final move to close out with.

The struggle I face as a music producer knowing that nothing I ever make could compare to the genius that is Citrus Knight's theme

I absolutely love all of the clever names (Quackpot, mini bus, LAN gnome, etc) I can't wait to see what else you do with this concept in the future !!

This feels like the kinda game that has crazy lore... I wanna make crazy lore... like you know, fruit, and the first and final boss being the only "humans" even if neither are actually human, also industrialization

Made a bunch of random sounds and voices to go along with each boss as if you were hearing actual gameplay of them as I went through this video and I think that really added to my experience here

Is no one going to talk about how good LAN GNOME is, the bass is incredible

Love how the heart counter increases with each battle like in a real video game. VERY COOL!!

I swear I've had the idea to develop an imaginary game based on boss battles a long time ago - and you just did it. I can't even say that I'm mad about it because I love what you did - it reminds me a lot of Mother's official render artwork (and its whole general quirky whimsical but dark vibe), Yoshi's Crafted World's bosses, the Switch remake for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and a PS1-era inspired look. I love it.

This feels like an Earthboundlike game that i would totally play

man citrus knight motif goes sooo hard, i could see this theme being first meeting him normally, then a more sped up intense version for his battle. Great album!

I was so hyped for this upon being teased and it exceeded expectations. LAN GNOME 😤😤😤

I want to make a sound effects pack for each of these bosses so badly, but I feel they wouldn’t do justice to the genius of this soundtrack

I love making art for nonexistent video games! I shall now listen to this religiously and base an entire drawing session around it

I would love to imagine such a happy and fun looking game just being the most terrifying bullethell you’ve ever seen, being second in difficulty to Getting over it.

Citrus Knight is my favorite so far. I love any song with that kind of chord progression

During the minnie bus fight, there's a bug if you dash into its charge attack which sends you flying upwards if you use your s right, triggering the void mother fight. Scared me the first time but a good time save.

This art style reminds me so much of old claymation cartoons like Gumby or Davey and Goliath, and this game concept has a Earthbound/Super Mario RPG feel to it. A pretty cool combo!

So happy I found this. I wish this was an actual popular genre, but also a way for unfinished indie games to show off their concepts despite not materializing.

I don’t know why but I think MINNIE BUS’s theme is so good

Lan Gnome's theme (9:03) has a distorted version of the rest zone theme at the start

As someone who absolutely loves Mirror Battles, I have a feeling Citrus Knight would be my favorite boss...

The funk-o-meter is off the charts with this one!

The Void Mother is legitimately terrifying

This album is amazing. I honestly can't stop listening You are a very, very talented composer

Man, i had this idea around my head for a long time... glad to see someone already put it into reality. Much respect.

I absolutely ADORE the animation for the fire in the rest area. so simple, yet so effective! Thank you for the tunes.

this has to become a real game!!

the secret boss gotta be an doctor.

Damn louie really brought out the chorus kids for the final boss

Kwackpot did not deserve to be one of the shortest songs, it's a bop. but all of em were amazing. to my playlist they go!

Big Kirby vibes, particularly the rest area. Lovely!

man leave some talent for the rest of us but in all seriousness you have quickly turned into a huge inspiration for me you are amazing

Getting some major Kirby vibes from how the world and characters start of simple and cute but the the final boss is some kind otherworldly entity of evil. Great stuff Louie! You're an inspiration!

These all slap, but I'm particularly fond of Citrus Knight's theme 🤘🔥

Returning again to say LAN Gnome feels like something I would make if I perfected the style of music I started with.

I would pay copious amounts of money for someone to actually make this game, and also a dlc for it using the dlc album. I also like how both the boss album and the dlc albums ending songs have the same motif as the very first apple related song: melody meadow

Very few people know of the secret superboss that you can unlock in the optional Dream Gauntlet boss rush. If you damage Kwackpot's vessel with a high damage hammer, you receive a fragment of the pot. Entering the final version of the Dream Gauntlet with the chip on you generates random ceramic vessels scattered around the boss arenas. Breaking the marked jars before the penultimate boss unlocks a secret passage to the superboss. While bearing no official name (no title appears and all related files do not share any names), the secret hunters dubbed him *Kwackpotless* (due to the bird being freed from the bindings of the pot, revealing it's true power). As a word of warning to anyone who tries to do this: the fight's difficulty has been often compared to rage games with it pulling out ALL of the dirty tricks it had in store.

this idea is so interesting. Making music for a non-existent game you have an idea for? very intriguing. I like it

Corrupted Comrade: Citrus Knight has to be my favourite!! It’s so dramatic, tense and spooky!

NOOOOO CITRUS KNIGHT YOU WERE LIKE A BROTHER TO ME DON'T DO THIS

The "go" and then then the drums brought me back to the 90's

I love how Apple Guy just. Stops moving at the Quack Pot. They're staring in confusion.

Everything from the concept to the execution of this whole album is pure genius. Your work is incredible.

This makes me want to make legit attack patterns for these bosses so bad 😫😂

Words cannot explain how much I love this!!! Anytime I try to find boss music its not like this & It feels like something I can buy on my switch or something Conclusion: I love this sm ty for making this

I feel Kwackpot would be one of those joke bosses you unlock via an easter egg that's either a complete joke or somehow super tough

I like how apple dude gains more heart containers after each song, makes it feel more authentic!

LAN Gnome's theme goes so hard

God, this vid is FANTASTIC. All the effort and care put into the minute details is really something, it elevates the music to a whole other thing. And the music is already fantastic. But the little rest area, the inclusion of a miniboss, the hearts growing with each world. Amazing work. I love how Louie elegantly implies a wider world with all his work.

This feels like a Kirby game boss lineup. It starts all fun and cutesy and then you fight a horrific nightmare deity at the end

when I misread the "two bossas" video title as "two bosses" I was expecting THIS but I never got it, BUT I HAVE IT NOW!

Love the music! A lot of the boss artwork have me some strong SMRPG vibes~ Great stuff all around!

I love the concerned expression of the hero during the KWACKPOT fight

The light-up reveal of Citrus Knight caught my eye, it was really cool! I really want an isolated video/track of LAN Gnome's theme to loop, that rocks hard

The super authentic 90s video game sounds mixed with funky vibes make this a super fun listen! Also love that you took the time to make animations for all of them, they really add to the lore 👏🔥