Hello!
Melly, I love your mockup art D:
Yay! Why sadface though?
You've been talking a lot about the bosses; what about the 'player' character? What kind of abilities will he (or she; goddamn pronouns) get? Of course, it's a slightly less thrilling (and less difficult) topic since the player's control scheme is the more commonly seen one :3
I'll be elaborating on the hero player's controls sometime in the future. With
pictures.
Though I did mention that he'll get special abilities from downed bosses, because I haven't been watching megaman challenge gameplay videos enough.
On the topic of radial menus and the mockups thus far: What about bosses who can do things to the environment? The best (only) example I can think of is a boss who can move along the screen, forcing a scroll for the player to follow, but will everything step from the boss entity?
I'll decide the best way to control each boss's ability. The one I showed is the simplest one, but it's likely each attack with have a slightly unique control to be issued, all in the spirit of making it both intuitive and fast.
Yeah, I'm not going to constrain myself to bosses that can't do more than move and attack. I have an idea for a boss that can alter the environment significantly around itself. That should be a little unique to design.
Waht do you mean with "but will everything step from the
boss entity"?
And my last interrogation topic: What will the boss player do while his actions are being carried out? Wait, watch, and plan for the next one? Can actions be set up while the previous one is going on? Can they be interrupted?
Like I mentioned previously, after the action has been issued the cursor is freed for the player to queue the next attacks in sequence, the boss entity following through with them as fast as it's able.
Yes, actions can be interrupted. Most by the boss player, but I have ideas for some that the hero player can also stop short with skill (like a healing ability). I'm thinking of implementing soemthing to limit a bit how crazy the boss player can be. Maybe an action bar that's used up by issuing commands, and interrupting an attack to make another surprise one won't be a free action. It's possible that the hero himself will be affected by something similar as well, though without restraining him so much as adding a little strategy, maybe to the use of special attacks.
INQUIRING MINDS MUST KNOW but seriously why do I have to ask so many questions ._.
Because you're interested? Thank you for that by the way.
Finally: I might try throwing some music at you, but don't you dare rely on me for music.
Haha, thanks, though I don't believe I'll have problems with music-getting for this one.
You could add an option for offline play that hides your cursor while selecting an attack, for people that know what the attacks are and don't want to telegraph them as much.
Mmm, possibly. It does feel like this concept would work a lot better online, but I will make sure to work on the offline as well to see how to balance it. That can be an interesting idea to implement.