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[Rat Casket]

man this is what my stupid ass game should have beeen.

following.

[JobLeonard]

Looks like fun! Following.

I realised the game was way too fast, it was pretty much impossible to react to opponent's shot because they were way too fast.

OTOH, there is the case of Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting. Perhaps an optional Turbo mode for the twitchy caffeine addicts?

[Blambo]

Yo guys I'm the artist for this game! Nobody can keep me away from sidescrolling futuresports.

I've got some stuff in store, please stand by.

[ashtonmorris]

Awesome! Cant wait to see what you come up with. 

[Ouren]

really wanna see more soon

[eigenbom]

awesome!

[Eendhoorn]

It's been a while since I did any updates here. I had a bit less time to spend on the project, and the time I did spend wasn't gameplay related.
I finished the tile-editor so I've made some levels to playtest them.

These levels are just experimental, to get some practise in level design.


A level with screen wrapping, the lower 2 sections wrap to the upper section of the opposite side. The bottom gap wraps with the top. One player makes pretty smart use of that to beat the other guy to the ball.


Just a short clip.

After such a long break between playing against a human I got kind of sad. Playing in a "real" level as opposed the flat level completely changes things. The mode with the seperator in the center of the level plays fine. But the free-roaming mode is a mess. The 2 players are running mindlessly after the ball and don't make any use of the level at all.
Here's a little sample of such a situation;



There needs to be a reason to keep your distance. I'm afraid my lacking game design skills are starting to show here. Not having a reference game is not a lot of help.

Spawning items will help, but that's just a cover up for lacking mechanics in the core gameplay, as the cage proofs.

[Guv]

I'm just a random dude with no dev log (yet) so feel free to ignore my rambling.

I still think it looks like a lot of fun but like you say, the stage has to allow for a lot of tactics otherwise players may get bored just smacking it back and forth in one spot. The first gif is a good example of what you should aim for in my opinion; It has a lot of possible shot angles and the potential for some sweet last second saves.

Random Ideas from looking at those gifs:

- Make it so the charge shot and hook affect the other player? Depends how much you want it to be a sports game against a brawler I guess. Just thought this might stop the clustering effect you get on flats/idle parts of the map, as you'd start to fight each other for possession of the ball.

- A map with a single goal, last person to touch the ball when it goes in scores the point. Would mix things up a bit and allow different approaches for a stage, as both players would be pushing in the same direction but trying to out manoeuvre the other one.

- Team play, instead of 1 on 1? Each team could have like a Defender and an Attacker with different skills? I guess this depends if it's local or network multiplayer.

[karlozalb]

This looks Xtremely fun, following :D

[Sebioff]

What about angled tiles? Could open up the level design possibilities and might allow for some neat trick shots. Also, it seems like it could get frustrating after a while getting caught on all these rectangular walls.

Been following this for a while because it looks like a lot of fun, keep it up! Reminds me a bit of an advanced version of Blobby Volley, which was a huge and addicting local multiplayer hit where I live.

[lionfish]

I'm following this now, this looks like alot of fun.  Ha, great job!

[Eendhoorn]

I'm just a random dude with no dev log (yet) so feel free to ignore my rambling.

I still think it looks like a lot of fun but like you say, the stage has to allow for a lot of tactics otherwise players may get bored just smacking it back and forth in one spot. The first gif is a good example of what you should aim for in my opinion; It has a lot of possible shot angles and the potential for some sweet last second saves.

Random Ideas from looking at those gifs:

- Make it so the charge shot and hook affect the other player? Depends how much you want it to be a sports game against a brawler I guess. Just thought this might stop the clustering effect you get on flats/idle parts of the map, as you'd start to fight each other for possession of the ball.

- A map with a single goal, last person to touch the ball when it goes in scores the point. Would mix things up a bit and allow different approaches for a stage, as both players would be pushing in the same direction but trying to out manoeuvre the other one.

- Team play, instead of 1 on 1? Each team could have like a Defender and an Attacker with different skills? I guess this depends if it's local or network multiplayer.

- Yeah as you mentioned, I want to avoid player interaction. I don't want to turn the game into a brawl, all focus should be on scoring points with the ball. You can interact with the opponent, but only through the ball. The player gets stunned for a moment when hit by an opponents shot for example.
But fighting for possesion is a good idea (whenever you hit the ball, it's in your "possesion" as the colored ring on the ball indicates).

- I actually had one of those planned haha. But I'm not sure if it would work the way the game is right now, as you have nothing to defend anymore, so you have absolutely no other focus point then the ball.

- The game is planned to have 4 player support, but it should of course be playable equally well with 2 players aswell. No network multiplayer though!

Thanks for the feedback, I might be able to think of something with ball posession.

What about angled tiles? Could open up the level design possibilities and might allow for some neat trick shots. Also, it seems like it could get frustrating after a while getting caught on all these rectangular walls.

Been following this for a while because it looks like a lot of fun, keep it up! Reminds me a bit of an advanced version of Blobby Volley, which was a huge and addicting local multiplayer hit where I live.

Yeah angled tiles are planned. But right now I'm just experimenting with rectangular tiles to see what their limitations are. This way I should get a better idea which issues could be resolved my adding sloped tiles.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

[LightEnt]

I think a simple solution would be for different levels to have different small objectives that are either required for a score, or make scoring significantly easier.

[Noogai03]

What about having items and powerups that spawn, encouraging players to go for those and take a risk? They could give them a speed boost or something like that.

You could borrow from Smash Bros and have a special ability that is given by a smash ball-type item that floats around and you have to break it, so players might temporarily abandon the ball and go for the "smash ball". This could be taking a risk however, as while you are going for it the other player could score...

Don't know much about game design but items sound like a good "distraction" to make them move around the level more.

You could also have level-specific things like Smash Bros does - for example the cannon on the Halberd map (shoots at the players) or the vans that drive past and hit the player in the Onett stage

[Ouren]

She's coming along very nicely!

[Eendhoorn]

What about having items and powerups that spawn, encouraging players to go for those and take a risk? They could give them a speed boost or something like that.

You could borrow from Smash Bros and have a special ability that is given by a smash ball-type item that floats around and you have to break it, so players might temporarily abandon the ball and go for the "smash ball". This could be taking a risk however, as while you are going for it the other player could score...

Don't know much about game design but items sound like a good "distraction" to make them move around the level more.

You could also have level-specific things like Smash Bros does - for example the cannon on the Halberd map (shoots at the players) or the vans that drive past and hit the player in the Onett stage

Whenever you leave focus from the ball you are guaranteed to give your opponent multiple free goals. I found that I cannot use smash brothers as a reference for gameplay unfortunately. Being bound to a goal, no player interaction and the ball just completely changes everything. We have some fun plans in mind for the levels though!

I have discussed the issue with my teammates quite a lot lately and we have some idea's that might work. I'm pretty busy in the next 2 weeks unfortunately, but I will post up my conclusions here

We did use a lot of the feedback we read on here, so keep it coming

[Noogai03]

What about moving goals? Or goals that you can move around with items or stage objects like buttons?

[Eendhoorn]

What about moving goals? Or goals that you can move around with items or stage objects like buttons?

Oh moving goals, that's pretty cool.
I managed to find a decent solution. It's actually pretty simple, but it just never came to me. You now get more points (ranging from 1 to 4 points) based on the distance from which you scored.
I haven't playtested against a human yet, but the AI's agressive behaviour wasn't doing him any good, he was only scoring from close distance and I managed to outscore him by a lot of points by making more distant goals. I myself felt inclined to keep my distance, but I still have to see in a player match how it goes.

Other than that I'm prototyping pickup items now to see how that fits in the game. I hope to show something here soon.

[diegzumillo]

This looks pretty cool :D

I'm also really impressed with the fact that looking at a gif for 5 seconds told me so much about the game.

[Inanimate]

I managed to find a decent solution. It's actually pretty simple, but it just never came to me. You now get more points (ranging from 1 to 4 points) based on the distance from which you scored.
I haven't playtested against a human yet, but the AI's agressive behaviour wasn't doing him any good, he was only scoring from close distance and I managed to outscore him by a lot of points by making more distant goals. I myself felt inclined to keep my distance, but I still have to see in a player match how it goes.

That sounds like a very clever solution, nice job!

Pickup items is also a nice idea, as long as their power level is worth the risk of leaving the ball unattended.

Including ways to give the ball 'distance' is another way to keep people moving. Trick shots like piercing, hooks, loops, etc. will all keep the ball moving in unique and interesting ways around the map, and encourage people to chase it.

Stage hazards are another good solution. How best to keep people moving? Punish them for staying still!

Moving goals, as mentioned, is a fantastic idea. It's not as punitive as stage hazards, so it will probably play a bit better.