MONDO MEDICALS

I tested the current build today with a friend, and after about two hours of playtime, I have a much better idea of how the game plays.

First, he played Naija and I played Quote. I won a few more times than he did (understandably), but it was still very close. He created a lot of plants, but I could usually avoid them and punish him with a Spur, Fireballs or Spirit King. He could do some serious damage if he ever got close, but Blade and Booster were usually enough to save me.

Then, he switched to Quote and I used Nikujin. It was a bloodbath. I was quick enough to avoid most of his attacks, and once I reached him, I could take him out with a few powerful combos. Booster prevented things from getting too one-sided, and he got a few good hits with missiles and fireballs. This isn't necessarily a problem; a ranged specialist should logically have problems with a fast, acrobatic character.

Finally, he went back to Naija while I continued to use Nikujin. This time, I had huge problems, since his plants not only took out a huge portion of my health, but also made it impossible to reach him quickly. This time, I suffered a horrible defeat.

My first reaction was that the game was damn fun. The characters are all very distinct, and even after a few hours, the game didn't get stale.

My main concern, however, was testing balance, and here's what I found-
- We did not shield very often. Perhaps this was just because we were both new players. Honestly, I don't mind that shielding doesn't see a lot of use, because dodging makes fights more exciting.

- Spike Seeds can be summoned too quickly. They're designed to be powerful, but they were intended to be balanced by the fact that summoning one takes so long that it can't be done while under attack. However, even as Nikujin, my attacks weren't quick enough to keep him from constantly summoning seeds. I'm going to increase the time it takes to summon them by about 50%; that ought to prevent this sort of abuse.

- My friend didn't find Whirlpool very useful, for either attacking or recovery. He said it was too slow. I'm not sure about this; it is unblockable, after all. But it might bear watching.

- Quote's attacks all seemed fairly well-balanced, and each saw a good deal of use. If I had to name his most powerful attack, it would probably be fireball (tough to dodge) or booster (great for evasion).

- Nikujin's shuriken came in handy from time to time. I didn't use them a lot, but I got a few surprise hits in with them. Honestly, though, if he wasn't protected by plants, I would not usually have used them. I think it might actually be better as an instant attack that doesn't require charging (that deals less damage, of course). Standing still doesn't mesh with Nikujin's fast and furious fighting style.

- I hadn't added Nikujin's wall run or head stab at the time, so it may not have been a fair test of the character.

- My friend said that the platforms in the background of the Outer Wall looked like you could stand on them. Perhaps they should be a little subtler.

- He also was confused about which platforms you could fall through. The one-way platforms in the outer wall probably ought to be thinner.

- The camera was a little jerky when one of us died, but it was perfectly functional, and wasn't distracting or ugly at all.

The stat bars should not be affected by the scrolling. I just wanted to release the camera demo and didn't have time to fix it.

What they said. Smoother would be nice, but still awesome nonetheless.

I agree that the camera can be a little schizophrenic now. It kind of flips out when you die, for example. I'm working on trying to make it smoother, but if you have any suggestions on how to do this, I'd like to hear them.

I made a little demo to demonstrate camera scaling (and the Outer Wall, too). Let me know what you think.

Here it is.

I can set the window to 1024x768 pixels and scale the graphics to double their normal size. The viewable area will be a little smaller, but it shouldn't need to scale up to often, and when it does, it won't be too ugly.

Scaling could totally be manageable. Just have certain zoom levels that it settles on, such as 1x, 2x, 4x etc., which preserve the look of the pixes. Only allow the art to be scaled to more awkward sizes in the transitions between these "safe" scale areas.

There are two problems with this:
1) We need to scale down, not up
2) The sprites are pretty big, so even scaling up just to 2x will be too much for most resolutions.

In any case, I don't think zooming back will look that bad. Non-scrolling levels shouldn't be too big, anyways, so it shouldn't happen often.

But I still like the mini-nuke effect it has, so I decided to leave it as it is for now and maybe give it another shot if it doesn't look right ingame.

It looks great when fired into the ground. When fired into an enemy or wall, it looks a little awkward. Hence, my suggestion for an aerial explosion.

With each frame lasting two steps, 1 for windup, 1 for start of the slash, 1 for final part of the slash, 1 for cooldown. You've already provided all steps but the windup.

I guess I just forgot it for the hurting animation... I have to go over it anyway a little bit again..

Don't worry about it. I'm not even using most of those animation frames right now.

Actually, I think the attack works best with 8 frames. A good wind-up frame is definitely needed.

edit: also, could a gauntlet-esque camera work, where the view sort of lies at the average of all players' coordinates, and if they get too far away from one another, they go outside of the view and die? No scaling, larger levels, happy people. Offscreen items could be represented by an icon at the edge of the screen. (Just an exclamation point or something, to reduce the sprite requirement)

That's what I was thinking would work best, only I think the camera should zoom out if the characters are too far apart. Zoomed out pixel art is ugly, but random deaths are just not fun.

Does it really make that big a difference?

It looks smaller than it is because of the thick platforms. The scale is easier to see with the versions on the first page.

The problem with scaling back is that it makes the pixel art look less good.


Also, this:

having those REALLY skinny platforms is out of place in the cave story world because the smallest platform is as big as quote himself.

The platforms are really skinny to indicate that you can jump through them. My biggest worry about your mockup is that it isn't clear which platforms are solid and which are one-way. Otherwise, it looks great - although I think Kovski's map is more interesting from a gameplay perspective. We should try combining Kovski's layout with Annabelle's sprites.

Just trying to get the ball rolling here, has this issue been discussed yet?

It has. I can add scaling if it's necessary, but it's not implemented yet. I'd try to keep the levels on a single screen if possible.

Alternately, if there's enough support for it, I can increase the size of the game window, although that means making levels will take longer.

Nightshade, I saw you edited the list with the missing sprites and that you suggested(?) a bigger missile. Do you mean another one that is shot when the player charges or should I increase the size of the current one? What did you have in mind in first playe, anyway?

Since the missile is more powerful when used on the ground than in the air, it was suggested that the missile be larger to indicate that. It's not terribly important, though.

Well, the way I imagine his Through Slash is a bit like that anime cliche (you've probably seen it somewhere) where the two guys run past each other and slash and then they wait and then one of them dies.

Got it. I'll just make the initial attack nondamaging, and have it create the real attack after a few frames.

It looks even better in action. 

One-way as in, you can jump up through them (and fall through them if you hold 'down'), instead of hitting your head against them. Like the platforms in the test level.

I just tested him out, and I have to say, very nice work! I'm going to focus most of the remaining post on fixing some of the balance issues I encountered, but I want to emphasize that overall, he played very well. Let me know what you think about these ideas; since you've taken the most active role in Nikujin's creation, you certainly have a say in how the final character will turn out.

I played around with his speed a bit, and tried decreasing his acceleration to 2, and increasing his aerial acceleration to 2. This made him a little slipperier on the ground, but exceptionally mobile in the air.

I guess my biggest criticism is that some of his attacks don't seem exceptionally acrobatic. Making his attacks faster and more mobile would make him seem more ninja-like in my opinion.

Also, I noticed some attacks caused a great deal of downward knockback, which I don't think was intentional.

Katana Slash is a problematic attack for several reasons. The attack lasts quite a long time for a lighting-fast sword slash. Most importantly, the attack does lots of damage, and doesn't leave the opponent enough time to dodge or guard in between attacks. If they're up against a wall, hitting with this attack is an instant kill. I like the idea of the attack being a combo, but there should be a cooldown between every 4th sword swing or so, to prevent this sort of abuse.

Through Slash is awesome, but I think there are a few ways it could be improved. If you create the attack at Nikujin's position partway through the attack, it will look a bit more natural and will not have troublesome slope issues. You'll just need to set the attack's duration to 2 so it won't follow the character. If you don't want the attack to cause Nikujin to travel down slopes, you can set the variable 'grounded' to 0 early in the attack sequence.

It's very difficult to hit enemies with High Slash while they're grounded, and I'm not sure whether or not this is intentional. Otherwise, it's a pretty good attack. It's lousy for recovery, though. It also might be interesting if the first attack automatically combo'd into the second.

Ground Slash is more or less the same as High Slash, but aimed in a different direction. Again, I think it'd be cool if there were more combo possibilities. It could possibly be like Naija's flipper sweep, knocking the enemy slightly into the air and setting them up for another attack.

Flip Slash is very nice. I think it's good just the way it is.

Shuriken Throw is cool (especially the way the shuriken spread), but it deals an obscene amount of damage (about 50% more than Quote's fully charged Spur). I'm also curious if you think a charging mechanic more like Quote's Spur would be a little easier to use (although the current system's pretty nice, too). I think a little knockback might also be fitting.

Spear Barrage is probably my favorite attack. It would be cool if you could influence your movement while spinning (by setting drift to 1) or if you could control how many times you attacked by holding down the attack key, but even as it is right now, it's great. I'd also like if it was a better aerial attack, since Nikujin's supposed to be an expert acrobat.

Wall Run works just like I'd expect it to. Very nice.

Head Stab actually seems a little weak. It's a very slow attack (uncharacteristic for such a fast character), and very finicky over whether or not it hits. I think just giving it a tiny hitbox would be sufficient to make the attack require precision.


Anyways, great job. I'll integrate him into the game tonight. Is there anything I need to copy besides the scripts?