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[Pehesse]

....and after a new move, comes said new move integration!



(I had trouble keeping Little Sun on the ground enough to record this. I'll definitely have to tone her AI to be less jumpy...)

[EdFarage]

The animations are looking pretty good, but i miss a few more frames, to be honest.
Maybe using more smear frames?
Other than that, really nice job  
Im also surprised the sexism police haven't stroked this topic yet  

[Pehesse]

The animations are looking pretty good, but i miss a few more frames, to be honest.
Maybe using more smear frames?
Other than that, really nice job  
Im also surprised the sexism police haven't stroked this topic yet  

Thanks a lot for your feedback :-)

This style of animation was actually an aesthetic choice at first, and a practical choice on top of that now. I wanted to veer closer to a key-only 90's beat'm all style rather than completely fluid cartoon animation, like for instance in Skullgirls (which I find gorgeous, but sometimes visually confusing and borderline unreadable, due in no small part to the abundance of inbetweening and the general framerate).

Also, as I'm learning animation by doing it, I'm not yet completely familiar and comfortable with the concept of smear frames, and when they're bad (which happens often in my case), I find they do more damage than good. For consistency's sake with everything so far, I intend to stay in line with what's been done already and focus on improving that process, as reworking everything so far (even just to add a few smear frames in each animation, as there are already several hundred animation frames) and planning for the next several hundred/thousand would push back even further the completion date of the project. There are already several layers of rework planned/needed, and the aim is to have everything done at some point and not get stuck in development/improvement hell where too many iterations eventually kill the momentum (and ultimately existence) of the project! :-D

I'll keep smear frames in mind for any next project that I'll use that style of 2D animation for, however, and focus on integrating it from the start :-D

[kruxus]

My first though was that it looks really fluid! I think it really captures the 90's animation style you're talking about. The screen freeze, blur and cut-outs are really nice touches too.

[Pehesse]

My first though was that it looks really fluid! I think it really captures the 90's animation style you're talking about. The screen freeze, blur and cut-outs are really nice touches too.

Thanks a lot :-D I'm actually working on them right now to make it look better and be more customizable for me, so each hit can have a different effect without having to bang my head against the walls (which is somewhat the current case) :-D

[Pehesse]

What's new: health bars!



I still very much want to use my health portraits idea to convey player health as the default option, but I'll have a lifebar option for players who'd rather have that (and I'll admit, it's pretty fun to have, too).
Right now it's pretty basic, we'll see how it develops, but at least it works, or at least as far as I can tell.

[Scott]

This is beautiful! I can't put my finger on it but something about the art style feels pretty original. Good progress so far!

[Pehesse]

This is beautiful! I can't put my finger on it but something about the art style feels pretty original. Good progress so far!

Many thanks :-D It's my usual style so it ends up looking pretty un-original to me, but I'm glad it speaks to others :-D Right now I'm focusing my efforts again on the fighting segment to polish it visually (right now it's mostly functional, there are many more layers of detail planned, like the audience/the referee), and then going back to the VN segment and applying all of that animation to put some dynamism into the dialog sections :-D

[clockwrk_routine]

this whole project is really great, the art and animations are supa nice

[Pehesse]

this whole project is really great, the art and animations are supa nice

Many thanks :-D

[Pehesse]

I've done the opponent's lifebar now, and I've added another gauge for the player, linked to another system: the style points. During the fights, your actions can increase or decrease the public's enthusiasm towards your showmanship skills (if you vary your hits, or block your opponent's attack, or get the first hit... and so on). Those points are added to Honey's reputation at the end of the match, and reputation being one of the key currencies in determining your ending... it's best if you get as much as you can!

[ink.inc]

yyyyyyyyyyooooo those are hot

[Pehesse]

yyyyyyyyyyooooo those are hot

Hopefully so! Thanks :-D

[LightEnt]

The animations so nice 

[Pehesse]

Thanks :-D It's been a lot of work, to be honest, and there's a lot more ahead, but it's worth it :-D

[Pehesse]

Same .gif and description than in the screenshot saturday thread, along with the separate animations below!

A slightly longer (and larger) GIF showcasing some of the new/redone animation that got done this week, namely the jump and jump attack animations, and the standing three hit combo. Some more animation redoing still to come.

Today, I've managed to get the style system working (the bar below the health bar), adding and substracting points depending on the use of repeated moves, or certain combos, or other special cases. It's very easy to gain points for now, so I'll have to rebalance things later, though.

There are also several other tweaks to stuff I couldn't figure out previously that make the whole thing better to control, like the distance at which the controller boxes for both characters repel each other, or the reaction time and capabilities of Little Sun's AI. The whole damage calculations have been rebalanced as well, and I'm in the middle of testing them with different possible states to see if all matches are possible! (except if you haven't trained at all in hard mode. You're going to get your ass kicked then, and it will be your fault). So all in all: inching forward!

[Pehesse]

Just got done implementing all of the latest new moves, and I've started on the referee/commentator!

Here are some examples:



An example of the new uppercut in action, and the referee commenting on the action


The new dash/avoid move (I didn't realize how sorely it was missed until it was in)


The other new dash escape move


...and a nice demonstration that all those new moves don't make Honey invincible

Next, I think I'll try adding a bit of audience, see how it looks, and once all is set I'll work on refining the animations (referee, for instance) and effects (speed lines, hit effects and the likes). Along with bug fixes, as always!

Also, wasn't this devlog 4 pages long before? I'm fairly sure I didn't modify my forum settings, so why is it back to 3 now? Did something change somewhere?

[Low_Chance]

This game is looking really promising. The effect you've used to emphasize strong hits is really working for me - that screenshake, slowdown, and distortion effect when Honey Rose landed the front kick on Little Sun really evoked the feeling of a huge impact for me.

On the topic of healthbars and character portraits:

I think there's nothing wrong with using a portrait to track your current health state. It's enough in most matches to have a rough idea of whether you're unscathed, middling, or close to death. However, I think you should absolutely include a healthbar as "on" by default, because in my experience the reason you need healthbars is not to track your total health, it's to be able to gauge the damage done by individual moves.

Playing a fighting game intelligently requires understanding when a given trade is or isn't in your favor, or knowing the potential damage payoff and risk of a given course of action. The damage of a particular move is very hard to figure out just from watching character health portraits, even if those portraits work well as a way of giving you an idea of where your health state is moment-to-moment. My recommendation to you is either to have those health bars on by default so that players can learn the damage of their and their opponent's moves, or else convey that information in some way that is very hard to miss. In other words, remember that the health bar has a role beyond just letting you know who has more health - it's a scientific instrument players use to measure the result of each exchange during a match. Just my 2 bits.

P.S: Honey Rose's headbutt is looking hella good.

[Pehesse]

This game is looking really promising. The effect you've used to emphasize strong hits is really working for me - that screenshake, slowdown, and distortion effect when Honey Rose landed the front kick on Little Sun really evoked the feeling of a huge impact for me.

On the topic of healthbars and character portraits:

I think there's nothing wrong with using a portrait to track your current health state. It's enough in most matches to have a rough idea of whether you're unscathed, middling, or close to death. However, I think you should absolutely include a healthbar as "on" by default, because in my experience the reason you need healthbars is not to track your total health, it's to be able to gauge the damage done by individual moves.

Playing a fighting game intelligently requires understanding when a given trade is or isn't in your favor, or knowing the potential damage payoff and risk of a given course of action. The damage of a particular move is very hard to figure out just from watching character health portraits, even if those portraits work well as a way of giving you an idea of where your health state is moment-to-moment. My recommendation to you is either to have those health bars on by default so that players can learn the damage of their and their opponent's moves, or else convey that information in some way that is very hard to miss. In other words, remember that the health bar has a role beyond just letting you know who has more health - it's a scientific instrument players use to measure the result of each exchange during a match. Just my 2 bits.

P.S: Honey Rose's headbutt is looking hella good.

Thanks a lot!! I have no idea why I wasn't notified of your reply when it's a very interesting one. You're actually mirroring my thought process of those last few days of testing - as you said, at first I was considering having the health bars as a toggle option only with off being the default, but now... I think they really add to the whole scene, first as you very aptly described, and also as an added hit feedback -> player satisfaction loop. So now, I'm considering removing the health portraits altogether, as they'd add nothing to the health bars, and would actually save me a bit of memory usage if they're out of the picture... So, really, many thanks, you're helping a lot in this decision :-D

As for what's new today: I'm still working on the background, and here's the current WIP.



I've added a parallax effect between the ring and the background for a bit of added depth, and I've begun adding the audience. There's about half of what I intend there - the audience's role being to liven the background by reacting to the flow of the match, cheering when you gain style and booing when you lose some. I might even add some onomatopeia in there, if it doesn't clutter things. It's taking longer than I thought!

[Pehesse]

The low-density version of the audience is done! There are higher density versions to do for later matches still, but everything in due time. The fan banners change depending on your reputation when entering the match, too!

Also, I've fixed one of the issues that was pointed out here of the lingering speech bubble by the referee!

Next step is going to animate him, and then to fix every animation that does displacement effects (mainly, the grapple moves) since the speed of both characters has changed greatly since the first iterations of those, and it now create some cloning issues that are amusing to see but painful to play against :-D