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[Shoot-em-upper]

Sure, it would damn the balance of the game, but the game would probably be unbalanced anyway.

It wouldn't be that unbalanced.  Like Ixis said, it would just make the game hard to play and would make it way less fun.

Oh, nobody actually nominated Naija from Aquaria.  So I will.

I nominate Naija.

[Ixis]

Actually, Naija made the list shoot-em-upper  

I nominate Li and...

*Aquaria spoiler*
Naija's son as summons.

[Inane]

I nominate Sootpanthers the Fire Man from Dwarf Fortress.
Or just a crossbow dwarf.

[Ixis]

Ok, it's 3:17am here lol!

Here's the rough design document. Nothing is set in stone, especially since this is a forum full of game designers I didn't want to go and make a whole bunch of decisions, so feel free to edit/delete/comment/question/whatever any and everything in the document.

I'll finish patching it up and stuff tomorrow.

[Ixis]

EDIT:


Anyway, during my greasy attempt at stealing/controlling the development of Indie Brawler, I thought up a possible combat system I think is pretty interesting that uses only one action button and 4-directional buttons (so far.)

Key (using fighting game jargon):
N,S,E,W - the 4 directions, assuming the player is facing right.
A - the only button
, - indicates a succesion of pressing buttons, for example A,A would mean pushing the A button twice.
+ - indicates pressing two buttons at the same time, i.e. E+A

-Movement: E or W will make the character walk left or right
-Dash/Run: E,E or W,W will make the character dash or run (depending on the character.) Hold down the second E to make the character continue to run.
-Jump: N
-Double-Jump: N,N
-Block: W or nothing (this is borrowed from Naruto: Ninja Taisen/Great Ninja War. By holding back, or not pressing anything the character will block attacks from the front. However there is a block meter that slowly goes down before it breaks.)
-Parry: E+A when pressed right when the character is about to get hit will cause the character to parry the other characters attack. A parried character will be stunned for a second.
-Reverse Parry: W+A same as the parry, but with a pushback effect (great for characters with ranged attacks, like Quote most likely.)

I'll get into attacks and comboes later.

[Shoot-em-upper]

N, S, E, W as directional keys?  That's incredibly counter-intuitive, as is the blocking control.  The former is just hard to use, while the latter detracts from gameplay by forcing players to attack from the left.  The whole point of having a block button rather than automatic blocking is that it's possible for a player to make a mistake and let an attack through, putting more focus on dodging and the like.  Either have directional blocking, one-button blocking(like in Super Smash Brothers), or no blocking at all.

Sorry that I didn't notice Naija.

[sega]

N, S, E, W as directional keys?  That's incredibly counter-intuitive, as is the blocking control.  The former is just hard to use, while the latter detracts from gameplay by forcing players to attack from the left.  The whole point of having a block button rather than automatic blocking is that it's possible for a player to make a mistake and let an attack through, putting more focus on dodging and the like.  Either have directional blocking, one-button blocking(like in Super Smash Brothers), or no blocking at all.

Sorry that I didn't notice Naija.

I think he meant North South East West.  Maybe "U D L R" would have been more clear to use.  I doubt he was talking about the actual N, S, E, and W keys.  As for automatic blocking, it's still quite possible for an attack to get through, because any attack has open frames before and after.  Combined with the block limit meter, it pushes people to go on the offensive.  And if they are on the offensive, they are vulnerable.  I personally like the control of doing my own blocking, however.

How many players did we settle on again?  I think if it's more than two players, blocking, reversals, etc... have to be handled very differently than a 1 on 1 fighting game.  By the way, I also want to throw in that a balanced VS fighting game is one of the hardest kinds of games I can think of to polish.  This is quite a big project, in design and tweaking.  Unless you don't care about balance.  Then it sounds fun to work on .

[Inane]

Drastically different take (Also take note! I believe in a unified play experience, not a mishmash of random control schemes):
What if we had movement similar to one of the newer Castlevania games?
Say, ctrl or C does a quick backwards dash, and the arrow keys have, for most characters, very high intertia so you come to a stop and start very quickly.
As far as combat blocking could be done with simply holding Down, or just fully automatic and only affect things in front of the player, and the players would attack with Z for Bludgeons and X for Pierces.
Bludgeons would be stronger and/or quicker, while pierces would be slow but go through shields. (This could actually be simplified to just one key if we so want)
Furthermore, attacks could be modified by the arrow keys, like in SSB.

For example, Naija's moveset could be something like:

Code:

X = Punch or something?
Dir + X = Beast form tackle!
Up + X = Upwards beast form tackle!
Down + X = Shield spell (takes a moment to cast)
Z = A quick jab or something?
Dir + Z = Non-seeking fireball!
Up + Z = Throw seed (follows a Castlevania Axe arc-ish thing)
Down + Z = Store energy (Effects fireballs and seeds, where seeds go from a small sea-cactus to a big one and three seeking fireballs are shot instead of one)

Argh, I didn't take jumping into consideration!
Also, fuck, I totally put X and Z in backwards in that example originally!

[Ixis]

Sorry about the directions thing. If you've read guides and stuff online for fighting games they use NSEW or UDLR.

As for the block, by not pressing anything you could block mid and high attacks, but you'd still be open to low attacks, which could lead into launches and air-juggles (both harder to defend then a normal combo.) This way the gamers are more offensive and looking for gaps in their opponents combos when a counter could be used.

I would vote for including another button, but any more than that and I'd be afraid the game wouldn't be as pick up and playable.

@sega
I don't think anyone decided on 1v1 or 2v2 yet, but I assumed it would be 1v1 for the sake of simplicity. And I do think balance is an issue. So, I'm thinking a secondary block button would be the way to go, and then open a myriad of ways that players can defend that's standard for all the characters (like GGXX.)

@Inane
I agree attacks should be modified with keys. But I think we should get the basics down first before going into attacks and combos (like what Alec was saying.) Though, I was thinking about Naija's attacks on my own and thought about a beast-form tackle, heh.

Ok, so lets say we have two buttons. One for attack (A) and one for defend (B), these aren't their actual key-flags, just letters that could represent buttons one day.

Same controls as before, but we add...

- B is guard, and we make guard only last 3-4 hits before it breaks or disappears.
- B+L is a backwards defensive dash. Very short in range, you take 1/3 the damage you would normally take, and you cann't be stunned (unless by a super.)
- B+R is a counter-tackle. So, you're blocking and then hit the R button and go into a tackle. If you time it right when the enemy is in their recovery period from an attack, you'll tackle them and knock them horizontally to the edge of the screen (check Ciel's 3-hit punch at 0:38 in this vid for an example.) A counter-tackle followed by a ranged attack or dash/run can lead into a corner air-juggle, though it'd be hard to get your timing right.
- B+A starts a special drive. While the drive is activated the controls for the character change, allowing for specials, supers, and shield breaks. And, let's say special drive lasts about one second. Or B+A and a direction will create supers.

So we have blocking, jump, double-jump, back-dash, defense dash, tackle-counters, parry and reverse parry. And to add even more defensive strategy, we could allow parries and reverse parries to be used while a player is in a combo, only after a certain number of hits in the chain have connected, and make it harder to time than normal parries. That should be more than enough defense, and if it's standard for all characters then we can go the GGXX route of characters who are all broken, but in their own special way. And so long as no character's offensive capabilities supercede the defense rules the game will be less broken than it could be.

[skaldicpoet9]

One of the admins should sticky this thread somewhere.

As a constant reminder to whoever takes on the task of development that we're all watching him with anticipation and will never forget his treachery should he abandon the project!

Aye.

This should definitely be an official stickied TIGS thread. This game needs to be made, neigh, must be made!

[Inane]

I think we need to decide what direction we're taking this before anything else.
Are we going for a more standard fightery route, which is what I imagine given Ixis' thoughts, or more Smash Bros style, with large ammounts of terrain based movement.

I vote for a mixture of Jump n' bump and Smash Bros! Lots of jumping, lots of dodging, and lots of people exploding!

[Ixis]

 :D Sorry, been busy with Mass Effect, lol!

Yeah, for the most part I've seen people suggest the game be easy to play and intuitive, but not a mindless button masher like Smash Bros. (... can be at times.) Plus, it's a lot more fun for newbies. Having non-standard fighting game maps (like the ones in Power Stone, SSB and Jump Superstars, with interactive environments and items) seems to be popular as well.

I think for the sake of organization and getting stuff done quickly let's start the voting and get everything down solid, then move on to development. I'll make some threads in the community projects board. The polls will be open for, let's say a week and a half (so voting ends the 12th of December.) This will allow enough time for people who don't visit every day to have a chance. Voting threads will be on "gameplay mechanics", "main characters, hidden characters and bosses" and "stages and music".

You'll have three votes to use for every subject, and at the end the articles with the highest votes will win. I'm going to include the votes from this thread as well, but if you made any suggestions or votes (in this thread) they won't be counted towards your three vote total.

EDIT: You can also make new suggestions and vote on those in the threads.

[Shaheen]

What do you mean by 'mindless button mashing' specifically relating to Smash Bros. (and related)? I'm not one for the game, I prefer 'traditional' (ugh) fighting game systems, but I don't exactly understand what you mean by the difference. It seems like you mean mindless button mashing = less complex controls? When it comes down to it, any fighting game can be a mindless button masher under the proper circumstances.

And with that said, I think that's the best way (the less complex way) to go with a game in this style. Pick up and play over something you have to put long periods of effort into.

[Ixis]

I can't think of any better explanation that button-masher. I guess saying mindless is a bit extreme. I meant to say that in Smash the strategy is less based on memorizing the flow of combat, and more on split-second decisions.

[Stij]

Personally, I'd rather have Smash-Bros.-style platfomring combat instead of "traditional" Street-Fighter-style.

[fish]

what if the controls where just d-pad for movement/jump and a single button for all attacks?

[Wilson Saunders]

I am surprised I never saw this thread before (disclaimer I did not read the whole thing).

Anyway I made a simple fighting game a while ago that makes use of variable height platforms and bottom less drops. I called Sketch fighters and here is a link: http://www.monkeydev.com/sketchftr/index.htm.

I bring this up because it seems like you intend on having distinct levels for each character. If you want to make each level more than just a flat plane this might be useful. I will help you cannibalize my code for you project if you ask. It would mainly help in the areas of and map editing, player to level collision detection and resolution.

[Alec]

Wow, sweet.

[Shoot-em-upper]

I vote for a mixture of Jump n' bump and Smash Bros! Lots of jumping, lots of dodging, and lots of people exploding!

I second that.

[Radnom]

what if the controls where just d-pad for movement/jump and a single button for all attacks?

I love this idea. Keep it simple. It means less moves, so less sprites have to be made.