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Two rivals face off, swords at the ready, glaring like the other was their worst enemy. Suddenly the match starts and there is a flashing of blades. Only one can be left standing on this day. En Garde, the exciting game of fencing, fully playable now on your Windows PC.

Nice! This should be good.

This is going to be very interesting, I can just feel it.

Here's the skinny; with the stick/pad all "upper" directions will cause you to hold your sword in position for a "high" attack, both horizontal directions and neutral handle attacks at "medium" height and the lower directions will do the "low" attacks. The action button is for attacking and you'll have to hold it until the animation is finished otherwise you'll just cancel, which has it's own use. Defense will be just matching sword heights.

Basically, it's a cross between Great Swordsman and the last game I did which had dudes and swords in it.

Could you implement a keyboard version of this? Say, arrow keys (up, left, down) to indicate height of the motion, and maybe an arc of four keys (4, E, D, C for instance) to indicate different heights of attack? It wouldn't have the same elegance as a pad but it'd let losers like me play. :P

(Just re-read that and it's not very clear. What I mean is, if I hold UP and 4 that's a really high attack, if I hold UP and C that's the lowest 'high' attack possible. No?)

Wow, The Games Factory. You've got all my love now (and all my pity, too, especially when you try to do anything more complicated)!  :-* I wish luck.

Sounds good. I used to fence so I'm always excited to see games which take swordfighting seriously. Will cancels let you do feints and one-two attacks?

Will

The Games Factory? That was actually the first program I used to create a game, I haven't touched it in nearly seven years...

Anyways, the idea sounds fun. I will certainly be keeping an eye out on it.

Oh yeah, The Games Factory, the tool that cavemen used in ancient times. I'm too used to it now it's a struggle to move on to anything more advanced. I've been using it since it came out so I'm used to all it's foibles which is putting it nicely. I'll tell you one thing, it's a damn sight better than using Klik & Play.

If I can get my arse in gear there's a chance that I might have a movement and animation test to share in the next two days. It's about time that I started to release builds.

Did I say two days, I meant right now (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build01.zip). It would have been ten minutes earlier but I only just stopped laughing.

Left and right arrow keys to move, after he's got into position.

I've never seen better dance moves!
(http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2681/hehehen.gif)

Holy crap look at those shapes he's throwing!

I've thought a bit more about it and I'm going to change the controls. You'll now use two buttons for movement and whatever you configure for up, down, left and right to attack at different heights. I don't know why I didn't think of this before.

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build02.zip), animations still WIP but getting there. I'll be tweaking that animation if it's too fast for people (I'll retain the speed in a later version if game speed is set to Turbo).

New controls , advances . retreats and Left arrow thrusts. You can reconfigure input under the associated menu option.

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build03.zip), now you can go for the eyes and knees. I just love this guy's expression when he stabs at the air. Oxygen, have at you!

So the next build will have a second player active. I said active, there won't be any fancies like hit detection.

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build04.zip), the "now you can stab another rogue in his face" build.

This looks good. Are you implementing more moves?

I'm keeping the amount of moves at three because it's easier. It'll be one hit kills so I want to keep it as simple as possible.

So, this is essentially like a smaller, nonscrolling version of NIDHOGG?

I won't deny that I had that on my mind when I started but it's more Great Swordsman than NIDHOGG. You won't be able to throw your sword for one thing.

Hello.

Now there is actual scoring (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build05.zip). Well, most of the time, it still needs work. But now it's an actual versus game and in line with the rest of the games in compo.

Build 6, the "You got Bulletstormed!" build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build06.zip). The title screen is shocking and the shadows could look better but it's a start.

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build07.zip). I am aware that swords are difficult to see on this unfinished background and am currently thinking about how to rectify that.

Works well here - I didn't have a problem with seeing the swords but maybe adding a "ting" or shimmer animation to the blades would help?

I think it might be worth adding a faster step, either as an option or replacing the existing step - fencers move pretty fast (think biding time vs. explosive movment) and while the sidling animation is really funny, it seems at odd with the speed of the lunges.

My 2p.

Cheers,

Will

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build08.zip). Oh look, background animation! I haven't done a thing with the swords but I think the shadows will work as a good indication of where they are but I still might be able to add an effect onto them if I can stop slacking. It still needs sound but I guess you can just make up your own with your voice. *swish* *ting* *step step step* "You fight like a cow!"

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build09.zip). Games speeds are the focus in this version. I've also sent out a call for voice work in the collaboration thread but it can't hurt to repeat myself here.

New build (http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/image/lj/2011/engarde/build10.zip). We're getting close to the end now. The next build will be the final version regardless of the condition it's in. There's now voices which explains the jump in file size if you were looking at that and wondering.

And that's a wrap.

I like the idea of parrying opponent's thrusts, the duel has very noble feeling in it and requires quite a tactical thinking. Great job! :)

Awesome graphics, animations and sfx (and awesome reference to monkey island)!
I didn't get that 'tactics' feel that goshki was talking about, for us it was more button mashing, and we really didn't get what was going on with the fight itself, but still it was kinda fun.

One thing that I think has to improve is the transition from when a point is given, to when another match begins. It cuts abruptly and then shows some weird black arrows, and kinda ruins all the polish that the rest of the game has...

Oh there is some sort of tactics there though it kinda falls apart due to my game making tools not doing exactly what I tell them to do. But that's the thing with The Games Factory, it decides what it wants to do and then you spend an hour yelling at it before you bend to its whims if you're trying to do something more complex than the shitty built-in game types. It's a great app for making trainwrecks but not for winning competitions.

The black arrows are supposed to be daggers, because both players are fierce rivals who glare death at each other. They just look like black arrows because that's the only colour which would stick out on the background. I probably could have made them bigger so I could colour them more or maybe put an outline around them but I felt that they would have been too big.

I could have done a few things better. Oh well.

Ah, that would have been my second guess...

Increpare, Terry Cavanagh, Sophie H and I tried this game for a while. Here's what we thought.

- hard to figure out what was going on
- great graphics
- amazing voice acting
- point system seemed bizarre
- fun despite confusion
- played for a while

I had a lot of fun playing this yesterday with my roommate.

We didn't quite understand how the scoring system works, but I assume it was tracking win-streaks?

Great voice acting and graphics too!

Yeah, it's streaks. The idea is that when you lose another player comes in to take over. Methinks I should have written that text file better.

Granted we didn't actually read the text file...

In the game's defense it was extremely easy to pick up and figure out how to play!

Damn it I knew I shoulda put in extra keys to control every bone in your character's arm. Back to the drawing board!

:D