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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSuper Metroid Tournament - Advanced Combat
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J-Snake
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« on: January 09, 2014, 12:23:41 AM »

Super Metroid Tournament - Advanced Combat is the tournament mode of an upcoming spiritual successor to Super Metroid. SMTac can be considered a "Super Metroid skinned" version of its tournament mode.

At its heart SMTac is a PvP fighter aiming to enable strategic gunplay utilizing sophisticated environmental traversal. To achieve that a new suit - energy/power model will be introduced.

The important mechanics, their purpose, and the philosophy behind them will be presented during its development. At times some work in progress will be offered for feedback to the fans.

The game is currently developed in XNA. Over time I am considering to switch to java. There are also other games in development but SMTac will be developed on the side to reach a bigger goal in future.

the youtube channel for upcoming video content:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTac

The main purpose of the devlog is the interaction with interested. It might be beneficial for more things aswell. So I will give it a try.

See you next post;)
« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 06:12:11 AM by J-Snake » Logged

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« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2014, 12:27:35 AM »

I remember seeing this elsewhere. Your YT page is lacking the videos I remember watching. New build? The concept is pretty cool by the way.
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J-Snake
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« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2014, 12:47:28 AM »

Yeah, it is a new build.

The old build was hacked together(in C++ & DX9c) to provide a quick prototype and is no longer an accurate representation of the actual matured ambition. Those videos are set to private to avoid possible confusion but for history's sake I can link some footage of the brainstorm prototype era here:







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQQ0kPk4vuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfaSoYkEgOM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIf1BuHFUj8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl6TFUglxH0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu4ccsuigUM
« Last Edit: January 09, 2014, 01:16:15 AM by J-Snake » Logged

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« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2014, 04:47:58 AM »

subscribed
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J-Snake
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« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2014, 07:37:59 PM »

First I want to share some fundamental insights of mine which are driving the decisions how the game is created. Before we even think about cool gunplay I want first elaborate on space:

My first two public games, TrapThem and TrapThem-RC, are working in a grid-based space despite of the smooth visual flow on the screen. Unfortunately a grid-based representation of space might be considered not modern enough by many, but it is the native space for those puzzle games to live in.

The way space is represented can fundamentally affect the game since often microscopic changes affect macroscopic results, this is something very important to realize. Natively SMTac lives in continuous space. That is where you are supposed to move and act. Since I am serious about mechanical quality I have to answer how I should go about representing continuous space. One thing for sure is that you cannot represent it perfectly with finite ressources, but that is not necessary. Looks like we have floats vs integers for that. Unfortunately most will just go with floats because of the ease of use, lack of knowledge, or possibly because the used engine dictates how things should be done. It can be easily shown why that choice is bad from a mechanical perspective. It is mainly because we have to represent positions, not vectors. Ideally, the player assumues the space to have equal properties (having the same continuous quality and feel to it) everywhere as he moves through it. Since the precision of floats decreases over distance starting from the origin we cannot use them optimally for that. By using integers we get a uniform representation of space. And if we interpret a fractional part into them (fixed point) we can scale them to meet precision demands. If you want to get familiar with fixed point arithmetic I have written a hopefully comprehensive introduction to get you the basics down:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35880.0

My engine is currently setup to use fixed point arithmetic on 64bit integers and having 16 bits being reserved for the fractional part.

Next time I can tell a little about the new engine I am making, if someone is interested.
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« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2014, 06:19:10 PM »

Interesting idea. Sounds like it could be fun.

EDIT: Okay, after seeing the homing missile and the game in the classic side-scrolling perspective, I like it so far! Are you going to do any online play, or would this be too precise a game to play online?
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J-Snake
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« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2014, 08:11:09 PM »

It is not that heavy on reflex based guessing games which are typical in fighters. So one thing for sure is that it will be suited for online play more than a Street Fighter. It is more about using space to your advantage and making strategic decisions. In fact, the mechanical design accounts for not rewarding keyboard acrobats too much. For example (unlike shown in previous brainstorm footage) you won't be able to perform continuous wall jumping on a single wall. So the potential abuse to just "fly up" the walls is killed. However that doesn't mean substantial timing and coordination skills aren't necessary. It is just that the design accounts for clean time and space windows to execute advanced action-combos.

Btw. it is not the only reason why I decided to prevent continuous single-wall-jumping. It has something to do with generating depth in traversal. It will be explained as I go along. A whole video is reserved only for the wall-jump.

I have never dedicated myself to networking before but you can expect me to make a solid job on it once that happens. So for the first it will be the XNA implementation with local play. I guess the networking will happen after the java port.
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« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2014, 08:20:50 PM »

Are you planning on building a competitive AI for this, or will it be MP only?
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J-Snake
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« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2014, 08:54:05 PM »

AI is certainly a very interesting topic and I am interested in that. But I also know that implementing competitive AI for SMTac is one of the extremely difficult problems to solve, probably a lot more difficult than regular fps-AI because of the varied feature set and suit-energy management. So it is taking a backseat for now.
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« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2014, 09:01:30 PM »

That sounds much easier than the calculations that would go into 3D AI development. I highly doubt that any amount of suit-energy, difficulty-spline, or cross-contained micro-actuation could make this "more difficult" than what goes into an average FPS's AI.
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« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2014, 09:05:06 PM »

I'm affraid the arithmetical inaccuracies of modern computers will make this game's ideal unattainable  Sad
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J-Snake
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« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2014, 09:34:05 PM »

Digital computers are all fine for that if you use them right. All I need is 64 bits;)

That sounds much easier than the calculations that would go into 3D AI development. I highly doubt that any amount of suit-energy, difficulty-spline, or cross-contained micro-actuation could make this "more difficult" than what goes into an average FPS's AI.
You will be surprised. It is too early to debate it here, just short elaboration:

First thing to consider is that moving from A to B is not simply walking from node to node here, and it comes with a cost. Sure I can just assume a certain style I am expecting the player to play and define preferences on the way environment traversal, energy management etc. should be done by the AI. But once the player changes his style the fight can become dramatically different. To account for that is something really difficult to do. It is certainly not the type of a fighter where you can just say "for every opponent-action A I have an action B to beat it".
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« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2014, 09:55:43 PM »

You raise an interesting point, but have you considered the following concepts?
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J-Snake
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« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2014, 12:21:37 PM »

Solved one of the difficult problems for the main part: Controls Design

It is difficult, especially in an early stage, because of two problems I have to face:

1.(the most difficult one) deciding what mechanics and abilities the player should be offered

2. designing input to access all of the abilities in a non-conflicting, most economic and direct  
   way possible

Regarding input devices, I want it to be potentially equally playable on a xbox360-controller and the keyboard + mouse combo. But the xbox360-controller is its native device. So I will refer to that for the time being. There will also be several control-types, for more and less skilled players. The type respecting point 2 is called "competitive" and that is the point of interest here. I came up with a solution candidate that is worth showing at this stage:





The idea needs some elaboration. First it might seem that the jump on the L-trigger is not intuitive but otherwise it would not satisfy point 2. So it is worth to get accustomed to it.
In this design you can play an entire match without moving the thumbs from the thumbsticks, the path all the fingers have to move is kept minimal. In addition no simultaneous action conflicts with another.

Things like crouching and running have been optimized. On joypad it is trivial, you have the analog stick to control the speed. On the keyboard however you run with the maximum regular speed by default since that is what you most often want to do. You don't have to waste one finger to accelerate like in Super Metroid. If you wish to decelerate or run with the slow speed you push the opposite run direction while running. You crouch while you hold down, otherwise you will stand up. That way the up direction is not required to stand up and is free for something else. Here it is used for the so called sniper mode. While you hold up you are in a precision mode. It is a new mechanic which allows 2D thumbstick-shooters to have pixel-perfect aiming in long range. It will be explained later.

The weapon change allows for instant switching between 4 weapons (can also be higher but requires more precision). Pressing R3 (press right thumb in) will select the weapon corresponding to your thumb position (right, left, up, down). Of course all that requires you to be familiar with a joypad to not accidently click R3.

One thing to notice, since the sophisticated feature set is packed optimally now the face buttons and directionals are completely free for potential other needs.

The next video content will likely introduce running. It will take a while because I have to copy and modify the sprites from Super Metroid again.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2014, 07:30:21 PM by J-Snake » Logged

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J-Snake
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« Reply #14 on: February 04, 2014, 03:17:12 PM »





vs





Which of those would you prefer to listen to when slowly introduced to the philosophy and mechanics of the game on youtube.
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Conker534
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« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2014, 03:22:08 PM »

The metroid one
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Gregg Williams
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« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2014, 03:26:39 PM »

The original Metroid cut Smiley
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Manuel Magalhães
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« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2014, 03:29:53 PM »

I prefer the Super Metroid Remix track.
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« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2014, 04:41:45 PM »

The Metroid remix sounds really thoughtful and pleasing to listen to. I prefer it.

Interesting write-up on controls. Sounds like you've got a lot of actions to map to the controller's inputs. Definitely a challenge considering how much it sounds like you're packing in there. Keep it up!
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J-Snake
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« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2014, 02:41:44 PM »

Next up to design is the mobility system. It can be broken up into two parts:

1. basic actions
2. power actions (actions which require suit energy)

The basic actions come first. I want to start them off by introducing running.

The following vid explains the important aspects of running and shows them in action:




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