I can agree. I’m most every fighting game I’ve played, story hasn’t been a huge factor, if it was a factor at all. I also think that investing in an artist to create characters would be your best bet, even if it’s just a small cast of 12 or 15. The character creation is indeed a unique idea, but the majority of people would likely make one or two characters, not a whole cast. Ultimately, it’s your decision, just throwing my two cents in.
12 or 15 is a small cast? 
It’d be tough to pump out that many fully unique characters in a reasonable time, honestly I’d be aiming for 4-10. Recent indie “fighters” like Nidhogg, Gang Beasts, and Samurai Gunn do very little with character personality but have all been received very well by players.
Character designs will be addressed but for now and for the Greenlight/Kickstarter I’m really hoping I can sell people on the combat mechanics and gameplay over everything else.
So to get some early feedback from you guys and possibly save me from national embarrassment, I think I’m going to release my alpha demo here at SRK earlier than the Kickstarter. Should be up sometime tomorrow/today!
I’d avoid following their mantra if I were you. While it is true they did very little with character personality, that’s not a point in their favor. Their games are designed to be minimalist.
Please, seriously consider hiring a character designer. The game will be better for it, I’m telling you now.
I’m not disagreeing with you. Like I said, the current characters are just basic templates! I’ll have more creative, fun designs when I start focusing on art content (which will be soon since I am starting to feel comfortable w/ the gameplay)
I’ve made this game with $0 funding, just running on savings and frugal living for the past year. If I get funded I’ll engage w/ the community to develop character designs. If the people who are interested in my game feel my character designs are lacking then I will look into getting some help on that end. I can’t just “hire” people without actually having money.
Part of this is to see if the style and choices I’ve made to this point are appealing enough to gain an audience. If I fall on my face then I’ll have to find a way to fix the problems.
Sounds great! If the core gameplay is good and people like it, then people here are bound to pick it up.
Also sounds good.
One thing to take note of…
In the gameplay videos there are parts where two characters get into duels with each other. However it seems to usually result in a button-mashing fest with no clear victor, then one of the characters falls on his back, stands back up, and gets into another mashfest; this cycle theoretically could repeat endlessly.
If you look at Smash and Power Stone, those typically feature characters getting knocked away clear, either after a really powerful hit (in Smash’s case) or after a full combo/grab (in Power Stone’s case). I think there should be something like that so that players can avoid the mashfest > knockdown > get-up > mashfest that seems to occur.
Alright folks, spent the day cleaning up some stuff to get the demo out here. DOWNLOAD HERE!
Will be glad to hear your brutally honest impressions. If you find anything weird or feel something is off let me know, I know there are some bugs but I’ve tried to eliminate the game breaking ones. No kind of NDA here - Youtube videos, screenshots or whatever are A-OK with me! I need as much exposure as I can get, haha.
I think if you play the demo you’ll find this isn’t really the case. I imagine a good player will be using their shield, energy, and spacing effectively to punish people who are mindlessly attacking or disregard defense. Typically an opponent should be less aggressive when your energy level is high.
This looks dope as heck man, I’ll be supporting this all the way! Good job!
Just downloaded the demo. How do you start the match? I’ve selected my character and a bot, but I can’t seem to start the match.
Thanks in advance.
Are you using the keyboard? Just go to “Fight” and press ENTER or SPACEBAR. Mouse clicking doesn’t work, but maybe I should make it work as it seems to confuse people. Also, make sure you have at least 2 players on different teams.
Just updated the file w/ support for mouseclicks on “Fight” (still requires at least 2 characters on different teams), and some other small UI fixes. Link is the same.
Downloading the demo. Be back with my thoughts.
Hmm. Mouse click and spacebar arent working for me either, neither is my 360 controller. I cant start…
ENTER doesn’t work either? 360 controller needs to be plugged in/turned on BEFORE running the .exe or it won’t work (that’s just how Unity works, I can’t fix this)
Alright, I tried playing as Goran on a 360 controller.
I don’t understand how exactly to hit the opponent (Psycho Surfer). Every time I try to attack he blocks (there seems to be no hitstun or blockstun) and he punishes me immediately. Also whenever I tried to attack with the X button and there was a sword item right next to me my character would always go for the item first? Actually landing a hit on the opponent seems super difficult, especially since there’s no option to grab them.
Tried it again with the mouse and keyboard, seemed to work a little better. I think that when an opponent is blocking attacks there should be some sort of knockback with a metallic clank noise or something; that would prevent opponents from just staying in your face until you drop the guard button. And there should be grabs in addition to a guard timer to counteract people from just guarding all day long.
I’m considering adding throws but I’m having trouble thinking of a way to implement them while sticking to the current 4-button format. It may have to be character specific and replace one of your X/Y quick attacks.
There is no blockstun or pushback, but there is definitely hitstun. However most combos aren’t guaranteed and if your opponent is fast enough they can interrupt with a fast attack in between. I gave the AI godly reaction time for blocking and counter-attacking because I found myself beating it too easily, but I’ve played the game for probably hundreds of hours by now so I’m sure my views are a bit skewed. A human player would likely be much more readable for openings. There’s still some bugs with the AI because it’s capable of blocking for 1 frame and then stopping, so it may look like he never even blocked. This is impossible for a player because that would cause them to roll.
I could implement some knockback for blocks so you will eventually spread yourself out of reach, but it’s already possible to roll out of an aggressive opponent’s reach after you’ve blocked something. Divekicking is especially good for counter attacking (Jump, Y attack) Guarding constantly doesn’t really work because your guard can break when you run out of energy, or you don’t have energy to do core attacks.
Goran’s Y attack is very slow with a longer stun (maybe not long enough), the X attack is fast but it’s his only option if your trying to interrupt someone who is pounding on you. And Psychosurfer has really fast attacks and and pretty high energy, so he’s probably the worst matchup for him
On the weapon pickup problem: I’ve set it to not go for the pickup unless the opponent is a certain distance away, or if they are ragdolled. I’ll increase “safe distance” more to prevent this.
I may tone down the reaction time for this demo before I officially release it, but I’m working on a 1v1 gameplay video now to show how the AI really isn’t so tough. I’m hoping people will actually play with friends, I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have any AI at all right so people can see how fun it is with actual people, haha.
Right. Well, I firmly believe the game needs both blockstun and knockback. Trying to interrupt a combo (or do you mean a blockstring?) with a fast attack goes against my fighting game intuition. I’ve never seen that in any other game.
As far as throwing is concerned you could simply have it be a two-button input like most concurrent fighters. Street Fighter 4’s throw input is LP+LK, and Soulcalibur’s throw input is “A” or “B” + Guard button. On a controller they can just be macro’d to a single button.
A blockstring would be a more accurate description. Punishing someone during the recovery end of an animation is pretty common in any fighter, I would think? Most of the time you wouldn’t be attempting this anyway, but likely rolling away to get space and then striking the opponent while they are recovering from the attack animation.
Been avoiding two-button inputs because I felt it may be awkward with mouse/keyboard controls, and I also want the game to be simple enough for touch-screen inputs too (virtual joystick setup) if/when I port to tablets. It sucks to limit game design around a platform that this kind of game isn’t typically on, but I want to make it as accessible as possible regardless of platform. That said, I think “X” + “Y” may be worth trying.