next »

[undertech]

I'll work on another animation in the meantime, while you get the design decision for the hitboxes sorted out.

[William Broom]

I finished Nikujin! He could still do with a bit of tweaking in timings and damages, but all the meat of the code is done. You can download the exe here, or the source file here.

Notes:
 - Crouch slash doesn't change your hitbox. It does more damage in exchange for more wind-down, making it easier to counter.
 - Down aerial is not the 'ninja kick' I originally posted about. Instead he flips over in midair and slashes both in front and beneath himself. Well, that's how I imagine it. Right now it's just a yellow hitbox, eh.
- Head stab (down+S) does nothing on the ground. You gotta be above the enemy for it to work, and it takes fairly precise timing, but the payoff is hopefully worth it, since this is basically his signature move. I haven't been able to test it since I only have two hands, but I imagine that if you head stab someone above a hole, then the vertical knockback will make it an instant KO.
- Shuriken (neutral S) you need to hold down to charge it up. Once you release the button or charge to maximum, you can move freely, and the next time you press the button, it fires. The more you charged, the more shurikens you throw, to a maximum of three. Right now it's hard to tell how many you've charged, but that won't be a problem when he's animated.
- Wallrun goes further up walls! I'm pride of that.
- Nikujin can cling to walls. Nightshade did all the wall-clinging code, btw, not me.
- I'm thinking of adding some code to make his side A look better. Right now, if you use it down a slope it goes half into the slope. That's not really essential though and I really gotta get to bed.
- The idle sprite is an old one. I forgot to replace it. I do want to use Inane/Xion's version eventually.

Please play and give feedbacks!

[Soulliard]

Nevermind.

[medieval]

That's pretty awesome, but it's hard to actually get to stab the opponent in the head.

[battlerager]

That's pretty awesome, but it's hard to actually get to stab the opponent in the head.

Haven't played it yet, but its also difficult to use Jigglypuff's down + special in Smash, eh. 

[undertech]

I think the head stab works fine - he falls slowly enough (and you can still make adjustments in the air) that people should be able to do it with enough practice. The nice thing is it isn't so forgiving that the average player can just pull it off whenever you feel like it.
Now the real trick is, will I feel the same way when the nice big yellow hitbox isn't shown anymore???

[Soulliard]

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?

[undertech]

Through Slash

As you can see, I gave up trying to do values justice halfway through. (It's a prototype anyway!) How you guys can do values on tiny sprites is beyond me.

[William Broom]

Oh, yes. I made a list of all the things I changed to make integration easier.
-   action, step1, step2, step3, step4, finish_creation (obviously)
-   attack_hit (I gave it some more variables to communicate with the player object. I dunno if it was very 'good' coding but it was the best I could do and it doesn't affect the other characters.)
-   attack_template, missile_template, missile2_template, blast_template (again with the variables. I only needed to modify attack_template, but then all the other templates started whinging that I didn't initialize the variables for them.)
-   a_check, s_check, j_check (changed them from keyboard_check_pressed to keyboard_check)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm off to a friend's house in a second and we're going to playtest all the characters there. I'll try to implement some of your suggestions at the same time.

[undertech]

I wouldn't mind some feedback, unless I'm not welcome to contribute?

[William Broom]

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. You know what I'm talking about. So the idea is that it's a kind of retroactive attack - it's so fast, it hits in the future. Or at least, it hits after Nikujin has gone past. So I hope to have two sprites for it, one of Nikujin, and one that is just a slash coming out of nowhere behind him. I think it would be cool if Nikujin's animation doesn't feature any slash at all. It could go straight from pre-slash to post-slash. And then just as his animation is finishing, the slash pops up behind him.

I don't want to force the spriters to do everything exactly how I imagine it, but that's what I had in mind when I programmed it.

[Rostiger]

I wouldn't mind some feedback, unless I'm not welcome to contribute?

You are definitely welcomed to contribute!  This is a community project, everbody can contribute as much (or as little) as they want to. Everybody should profit from their output and be able to learn something in the process.

The animation is alright, but there are quite some things that could be improved. Animationwise I think the legs are a little bit to static and the sword blow is too fast (I know it is supposed to be really fast but if the swoosh of the cut is delayed it doesn't matter that much and will look a lot better). I think this could be solved if you added another two frames after the third one. The first of the two new frames should contain the ninja with the same pose as in the previous one, but the front leg could be put one pixel higher and the back one stretched one more pixel. The second new frame should contain the ninja in a pose where his front leg touches the ground and his back leg begins to pull forward. Also the sword could be pointing straight forward (as if in the middle of the blow).

Also I think at the end of the animaton he slides to far, which makes the animation a bit jumpy, since there are only three frames used for it. Try to decrease the distance of the ninja in the last three frames and it will look a lot better.

Concerning the values and the outlines you should really try to do it without first. Once the basic animation looks more or less right, start filling the areas with the appropriate colors and and lights and shadows. Clean everything up and add the dark grey outlines once you're finished with the rest.

It's also a good idea not to draw the sprites from scratch. If it wasn't for Oracle I would have never been able to come up with such a great Quote sprite. I'm also not overly praticed with pixeling especially when it comes to things like values. But with his 'template' it was a lot easier. So my hint is to work from Oracle's Naked Ninja sprite and see where you get. This is not only good for practise and a chance to learn from a master but also keeps the style together.

I hope I didn't demotivate you with my feedback - it's really mostly practise and experience. So keep 'em coming - I hope that we'll get to see a couple of real nice Naked Ninja sprites! 

Oh, and also I got avatared! What an honor! 

[Soulliard]

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.

[undertech]

Hey thanks much Kovski - far from demotivating, that's exactly what I needed to hear!
I never intended the submissions above to be final! They were just mock-ups since I was expecting them to be inevitably modified. But I can see how it's hard to judge them if they are so rough in comparison to the original style. I'll try out what you suggested as I'm sure it'll be more useful for critiquing.
Chutup - I wouldn't worry about being imposing. Since you're putting the work behind the character I'd think you'd deserve the most influence on how he should move and act. Even if you were specific with what you wanted (which I think is actually beneficial to the spriters too) there would still be room for individual creativity.

[Lucaz]

Finally, another version of the slash!



And thanks tou you, Undertech, and your bmp edit. It was useful to get well the positions.

[moi]

I like it, but why does he look on the side when he slashes? It makes it look like his target  is on his side or sthg. Maybe he should keep looking ahead?

[cyber95]

I like it, but why does he look on the side when he slashes? It makes it look like his target  is on his side or sthg. Maybe he should keep looking ahead?

It's a 2d platformer. His target is on the side.

[neon]

not to bitch about this, but to be quite honest if you're swinging something whether it be a katana or a dead cat, you are going to WIND UP before you swing it.  you don't just start from a stopped position and then immediately slash.

[Lucaz]

The move is too short and too fast to give it a wind up. It would end up having too much frames. Also this way it's similar to the original.

[Zaphos]

The move is too short and too fast to give it a wind up. It would end up having too much frames. Also this way it's similar to the original.

Still, I think it would look a lot better if it had one more frame showing the sword right before the swing starts.