Combat Core is a 3D arena fighting game that borrows elements from games like Power Stone, Custom Robo, and Super Smash Bros. It focuses on multiplayer combat using customized fighters, weapon pickups, powerups, and environmental hazards.
Players can battle from 1v1 up to 4-player battle royale or team modes. Using the character editor, players can create their own combatants with varying stats, attack, skills, unique appearance, and a custom core augmentation to their abilities. There will be various stages to battle in with unique hazards and weapon availability. I also have an online multiplayer build already (mostly) working!
The game is in development on PC, and possibly major consoles with Kickstarter funding
Is something wrong with the video, or just because of your device? The Youtube video is unlisted but should still be viewable.
Haha, I’ll be putting out a limited demo very soon (I want to leave some incentive for people to back the project and get full access). Although the mechanics are intentionally simplistic, it will be interesting to see skilled players putting it to the test.
Basic controls are 2 attack buttons, jump, and block/roll. Tapping the attack buttons will execute quicker strikes and combo strings, hold/charge attack buttons will execute your heavy attack and “core ability”. The core ability changes depending on which core you select before the match.
Blocking will negate all attack damage but will take the equivalent of damage blocked as player energy, and your shield will break if you run out of energy.
Different characters will have different stat distributions:
Size - Hitbox and attack box scales with your player
Speed - Player movement speed, has a boost/penalty for being larger/smaller size
Health - Max player health per life (Players has 3 Lives per match), also has a boost/penalty depending on size
Energy - Max energy for character. Used for core attacks/abilties and blocking/shield, also a few normal attacks may use energy too
Damage - Damage multiplier for all attacks, can boost up to +50% damage
Recover - The rate that energy is replenished passively (you can also jump in that pool area in the middle to regen faster)
Is the ragdoll a required part of the game or is it possible for you to add canned knockdown animations? I think you should go with canned knockdown. The character slump over the barrel was funny but overall fights may be easier to follow with well defined knockdown/-back animations.
Can you elaborate on the Core Ability system? Is it a super move thing or an ascended state deal?
How is hitstun handled in this game?
Going from that, how do combos work?
Simplified controls are good. The metagame will get hardcore that much faster. No need for people to fight the controls while fighting three other people.
If size affects hitbox and speed, I assume it affects your jump height/distance as well?
Tying your guard gauge to meter is an approach I’m very interested in seeing play out. How has this relationship affected gameplay so far?
I built most of the systems around the ragdolling so it’s not really feasible to include canned falling animations. It’s adds a small element of unpredictability to the fight, but the game isn’t totally physics-accurate. Every hit has a preset direction and force it applies so you can expect where your players will fall/land. There are no juggles and ragdolled players are completely invulnerable until they stand back up. There are 2 “get up” animations that can be identified (facing up/down), the player is not invulnerable while getting up (they can roll/block but cannot attack until they have completed standing). In addition to this, every attack has a stun time associated with it, and the player will only stay ragdolled as long as the stun time.
Core abilities vary in their use. Some are super attacks and some are ascended states. Here are the 6 I have so far:
Beam Uppercut | Very powerful, slow release, short range attack that send opponent flying across the stage
Diving Drill | Launch yourself forward very quickly, sending opponents flying up, fairly quick release
Area Blast | Blast all opponents in a large sphere radius around you, fairly slow release
Energy Blast Wave | Long range beam projectile, does damage in ticks and has very high energy cost, high damage if the player receives the entire blast
Hyper Armor | Active for 6.5 seconds, very small speed boost + reduces all attack damage by 35% and removes all hitstun, cannot be launched/ragdolled
Blazing Aura | Speed boost and +25% base damage to all attacks, also has small AOE damage to nearby opponents. Active indefinitly but drains your energy in ticks slowly and will expire if you run out of energy
On hitstun/combos:
Every attack has a manually set stun time, and some have knockback property. As stated, any ragdolled player will only stay ragdolled as long as the stun time. There are very few guaranteed combo strings. Most strings can be blocked in mid combo, but will leave very little time inbetween strings to interrupt with another attack at close range, so the player will usually block/roll to create space and then punish with whatever they have available. At the same time, players are encouraged to stay aggressive for the potential of lowering their guard/energy meter. The current moveset is fairly limited but combos can be mixed up between your 2 light attack strings, and each weapon pickup will also have their own unique attacks/combos.
Size tradeoff is Small=more speed, less health and Large =less speed, more health. I actually originally had varying jump height and stun time reduction but it made the character movement feel too inconsistent without actually giving a distinct advantage.
I think tying the guard to energy meter brings the potential for more playstyles, especially combined with the varied character stats. Players can choose to be more conservative and try to save energy for the big blows (core abilities) or they rely more on close-quarters, aggressive play and use the energy more for defense. The mechanic of the regeneration pool in the middle also brings some interesting scenarios as well
Honestly most of my playtesting has been against my AI and 5-year old nephew so it will be interesting to see what happens, haha
Alright, I see you have a vision for the game. Hopefully you can playtest it with people of higher technical level to see the limits or hidden gifts of your play mechanics. When I seen the pool being used I figured it was some kind of fountain decoration, had no idea it was a pivotal area.
Yes I’m using Unity. I already have a build running on Ouya/Android (with some reduced graphics) and I recently applied to the indie programs on Wii U and Xbox One so hopefully I g et accepted and it should in theory be a painless porting process. (Only reason I haven’t applied to PS4 yet is because it requires me to register a company, which I have not done yet)
So far I’ve only done live public testing at a handful of local events/shows and they were very helpful in tuning my combat mechanics even with the brief play sessions I got w/ players.
Cool. My team has more traditional fighters planned but we do have one arena fighter passion project from our head artist (closer to Smash, though). Smash has so dominated the sub-genre it’s interesting to see other takes on the concept, especially from the indy space - which really will save the industry in terms of gameplay quality.
I’ll have a demo available when I launch my Kickstarter, should be at the end of the month!
Question: Do you think having the demo run in a browser is a turnoff, or would you rather have the standalone .exe so you can run at fullscreen/different resolutions
Personally, I’d prefer a standalone executable (more convenient, easier to show off to others at a whim, etc.). Some people might prefer the browser demo since they can play with the game without downloading anything, though. If possible I’d go with both.
I would prefer a standalone, just so I would have offline access to the game. The resolution settings would be cool too, but being able to save multiple versions of the game, as I did with the flash game Super Smash Flash 2, so I could see how drastically the game changes.
If a Web version was made, It would be nice to see concurrent updates, without one version favoring another.
Lol this also looks a lot like Poy Poy as well. The stage layout and camera specifically, but this looks like it has more in-depth gameplay which I like. Can you pick up the stage items too? This looks fun as hell. Can’t wait to play it!
Thanks! Have never played Poy Poy, but it looks like it involves a lot of chucking objects at opponents, haha. So I guess it does fit!
By “stage items” I’m assuming you mean like actual parts of the environment, like the poles/pillars in Power Stone. I’m actually still thinking of new ideas for stage assets, so it’s possible!
By the way, COMBAT CORE IS NOW ON STEAM GREENLIGHT!, so swing by on Steam and please upvote! Going there in your browser can be annoying if you haven’t logged into the website before, but you can get to Greenlight in the steam client by choosing “Community”, then choose “Greenlight”, and search for Combat Core, or look for the animated GIF of my character punching someone infinitely.
I get that you’re trying to go for customizable characters but you should also have a cast of real and memorable characters designed by a professional 3D artist (preferably done in a cute anime style like Power Stone). The character customization should be a side-feature from the main game. People will get bored of the characters rather quickly if every single one of them ends up being "ORIGINAL DEVIANTART CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL"s. They need real characters with their own strengths and weaknesses to attach themselves to.
Psycho I agree with you, character design is definitely important. But I’ve really observed that it’s difficult to get people to get attached to characters from new, unknown games with a scope as small as mine. Maybe I’m underselling the potential, but I feel players would be much more interested in creating/using their own characters if the option is available, especially if the game is not story-driven.
Even still if I were to get a great artist for character concepts, I would still want it to be within a sci-fi/anime style that I’ve kinda built the look around.
There will be much more customization options and a handful of original characters for the full release. Unless you really just hate the way my characters are drawn/modeled then hopefully it will make the game more appealing to you!
Sci-fi/anime style is fine, the characters just need to look appealing. Storyline is irrelevant, it’s all about giving the characters distinct personalities that they show off in battle. Capcom’s fighting games have scraped by for years having barebones stories where you just fight through the arcade mode and get a short character-specific cutscene for an ending, and yet people still love their characters. The story isn’t what matters, the personalities matter. It’s harder to get that sort of unique identity from customized characters who are made using templates and stock voices.
I just think the game would have way more appeal if you had a cast of recognizable characters. Making custom characters is fun but in the end it’ll be the main cast that makes fans stay. People want characters they can relate to. I certainly do.
