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[doompuppet]

Hey all.

I'm putting together a concept for a fighting game.

Essentially it would check a certain directory for image and text files.

Image files would be the spritesheets for fighters. Text files would hold data on the fighter's stats, description, "ending", etc.

This means that anyone could create their own fighters just by copying/pasting/editing a sprite sheet and doing the same with a text file.

Another key facet is that the sprites are very tiny, cutting down on the amount of toil one has to put into creating a custom fighter.

Anyway, getting to the art... I'm concerned I don't have the artistic skillz to make this work.

This isn't an "I'm looking for praise, lavish me!" thread - but honestly, am I completely dreaming, here?

[SundownKid]

Doesn't MUGEN let you do something like that already? I don't know if it would be worth making something like that when a more detailed fighting game maker already exists.

[doompuppet]

I looked at MUGEN a few years ago, and AFAIK it's a bit more complex than what I'm proposing.

[Nix]

The idea of a fighting game where you can design your own characters does intrigue me. It makes me think of Iron Realms MUD games and the combat system where you can really only be competitive (and I was a moderately competitive, low tier combatant, when I played) you had to script your own combat system to respond to the other combatant in the proper way. There was certainly decision making involved, but the more you could automate the better you could be, especially considering the fact that in top tier combat the text flies down the screen so fast that it's virtually impossible to read.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is the idea of scripted combat. It might be cool to have a fighting game where you can script your own combos. Maybe the length of the script you're allowed to write depends on how difficult the button-combination is to activate it. I'm not much into fighting games, though, so maybe that would be really dumb.

[Toom]

'Sup Doom.

Are you looking to create a simplified MUGEN-style fighting game creation tool, or a stand-alone fighting game with uncommonly far-reaching character customisation?

[Jesse]

I think your sprites look great! The only thing I would suggest is a bit more contrast and clear light source, maybe.

Why not go ahead and give it a try?

I'm curious, how will you handle attacks? Especially special attacks?

[shig]

please make this and make it online 

[Toom]

I'm curious, how will you handle attacks? Especially special attacks?

Personally, I think the best thing to do would be to have a number of generic specials - melee, projectile, beam, transport (teleport/dash etc), buffs and so on - that afford a comparable level of customisation to the player characters. I'm not a Programming Dude at all but I imagine the text file-driven system you're proposing could easily support such a thing - just have a section of the file with, say, four specials outlined in terms of type, damage, speed etc.

It's areas like this that the "simpler MUGEN" versus "super-customisable standalone" difference becomes crucial. If it's the latter, you definitely need some sort of checks and balances in place to stop players just cranking every stat to maximum and building unstoppable übermotherfuckers who fire a constant stream of infinite-damage murderbeams. Is this the kind of thing you can have the game check from the information presented in the text file? Like make sure that all the numbers in each section come in below a certain total?

Of course, if you're looking at the simpler-MUGEN approach, it's not so much of a problem, because then it's entirely up to the players what sort of game experience they want. Balancing becomes their problem. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing it like that, but I'd be much more interested in a standalone.

[doompuppet]

Wow! Now that's a buncha responses...

Let's see...

* Nix:

Glad you're keen on the idea. Ideally I'd like to keep it really, really simple - at least for the first go-round. Know what I mean? Maybe some day there could be more options for combo info, coding your own AI to fight against, etc.


* Toom:

'Sup Toom. Definitely going for a standalone fighting game with unnaturally far-reaching customization.

Theoretically, I'd like people to be able to say: "Hey, grab this zip file with my characters in it!" or "Here are some versions of Mortal Kombat characters I made for this." etc.

Sort of like how you could create your own characters for Free Lunch's tower game way back in the day. Blanking on the name, which I know is shameful. SORRY.


* Jesse: Glad you're liking the sprites. That was really the biggest question in my post - essentially I was wondering if I was dreaming about anyone being interested in a game with graphics like those sprites I provided.

IE: Badly done sprites that look all weird.

I was thinking attacks would be handled by the game loading up the info from the text files, which would then assign power levels to attacks, defense, speed, etc.

Ideally, the game would know you only get a certain number of points.

Let's say the number cap is 100.

If you gave your character 100 punch strength, 100 kick strength, etc. it would read that as "100 used up by punch, so all below are ignored and considered zero."

Know what I mean?


* shig: I have my fingers crossed as well. I am not a programmer, but I am working with one. I'm more of the idea/website/paying-for-advertising/story/sometimes-bad-pixel-art guy.


* Toom: WHAT? YOU AGAIN?

I agree with everything you said. See above, etc.

[Cow]

Just saying that even with all the stuff you did to make it easier, it's still a lot of effort to do things with so it probably wouldn't be picked up. It's a cool idea, but I just don't think it would pick up steam. Just saiyan, though I don't necessarily want to be a downer.

[doompuppet]

Well, actually the difficulty is entirely subjective depending on how a player would want to go about using the program. For example...


Easiest - Play with the pre-packaged characters.

Easy - Play with characters others made that you downloaded.

Normal - Edit some characters a bit yourself.

Hard - Create entirely new character sprite sheets and stats

Hardest - Do the above, but with some sort of theoretical aforementioned "combo" factor and/or "scripting an opponent" factor.


Really, it'd have playability for the casual gamer, all the way up to a knowledgable programmer.

[Jesse]

* Jesse: Glad you're liking the sprites. That was really the biggest question in my post - essentially I was wondering if I was dreaming about anyone being interested in a game with graphics like those sprites I provided.

IE: Badly done sprites that look all weird.

They're not badly done at all, and leagues ahead of many other games. There's a few stylistic choices I'm curious about, however. I'd love to see more, and maybe some animation..?

[Cow]

Seems like you're set on doing it then. Why bother with this topic?

[TheLastBanana]

He was asking if people think it's doable, and the topic has turned into a really interesting discussion of what could make the game work. I'd say that's a perfectly valid reason for a topic.

[doompuppet]

Plus, from my original post: "I'm concerned I don't have the artistic skillz to make this work."