Creating and Selling a Fighting Game

[Gwyrgyn_Blood]

I’ve been building mine in XNA. It’s surprisingly easy to use (and hopefully the code may one day be portable to Mono.XNA without much work).

Don’t want to spoil your fun, but XNA is pretty awful. It’s pretty bloated and lacks power, and no serious developer for 360 works with it. If you want to get a job some day making games then you really need to learn the real SDK, or else just learn C++ and you can go from there.

Now if you are just messing with it for fun, don’t worry about it.

If you’re creating a 2D Fighter, I highly recommend using Flash to draw or at least animate then the traditional hand drawn.

It’s what’s standard with small (and soon all) 2D gaming devs.

For example Bit-Blot (a team of 2 developers) created a 2D Masterpiece called Aquaria with over 400+ realized sprites (not counting the animation put into them) and maps bigger then Super Metroid and any Castlevania. All this as well as music and everything else that goes into a game in 2 years. Compare this to other hand-drawn developers who shun to create new sprites and even backgrounds for 2D games a fraction of this ones size with half as much detail.

So if you’re looking towards the realms of sprites that is your best bet.

Erm… for everything Aquaria did right, the animation was god awful and the worst part about the game. Flash animation can be done decently, but definitely not in the style that Aquaria used it. Flash animation is also never, ever, a substitute for real animation.

how to program using C++ and DirectX

Bingo. If you have any interest in game development at all, don’t mess with bullshit like Game Maker programs or whatever. Learn C++, learn DirectX, and make a basic game with them.

Fact of the matter is, people with little or no programming experience (high school or 200 level college classes are not experience) have no idea how much depth there is to it. Trying to put together something simple and functional as a game is the first step towards being able to make something decent.

The good news is that Microsoft has a free version of Visual C++ you can download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/vc/Default.aspx
And the DirectX SDK is also free to download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4B78A58A-E672-4B83-A28E-72B5E93BD60A&displaylang=en

[Statistics]

I’m attending DeVry University right now, and despite the “gamer overhaul” on their commercials the game degree is, in essence, a computer programming degree + a few game and simulation history courses.

I do have a few ideas written down like possible characters, visual style, etc., but the fact is to sell a game like this you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO market it towards the casual gamers.

I’m talking big combos, flashy (and hopefully simple) moves, sexy women, you know the drill.

Interestingly enough, GGXX:AC was on PS2, and is now on the Wii. I went to my gamestop looking for a PS2 copy, and he said he had none used and that they wouldn’t receive any more.

Wasn’t it released about a year ago? I got my used copy at another store, but the fact that they’ve halted production on the PS2 version tells me that they’re focusing on what they believe is the casual crowd, the Wii owners.

So here’s the rundown:
0) makes money!! (the first thing you learn about game development)

1. plays smooth.
2. looks smooth.
3. easy moves.
4. rated T or less (I believe blood is acceptable in T, so not a big loss)
   X) good balance.

[Rioting_Soul]

the announcer’s voice and speech is hilarious:rofl:

interesting nonetheless.

the animation really suffers though. is there a limited amount of frames aloud per move/action on fighter maker?

I’m not sure if Fighter Maker has limited frames or if Axel City’s creator was just cutting back.

[GosBroDansFan]

Don’t want to spoil your fun, but XNA is pretty awful. It’s pretty bloated and lacks power, and no serious developer for 360 works with it. If you want to get a job some day making games then you really need to learn the real SDK, or else just learn C++ and you can go from there.

Now if you are just messing with it for fun, don’t worry about it.

Yeah, like I said originally (way back when I posted that, lol) it’s not something professional or something I’d even try to sell. I’m just doing it for fun to see what the result is.

I’m actually not aiming to make this for the 360. I like how simple it is to create a game in XNA for the PC

I haven’t really hit any performance issues with XNA. And I definately wouldn’t call it awful. It’s aimed squarely at enthusiasts and it delivers a solid experience. Performance on my value PCs is quite good, even animated 3D character models with light effects and bump mapping. And I am not sure what bloat you are talking about. It requires the .net platform, that’s all I can think of. My engine as it stands right now loads 25 megs worth of graphics into RAM right off the bat and RAM usage goes up about 27 megs when the program runs. And 60 fps with 2 characters, 2 other sprites (e.g. 2D projectiles) and a 3D modeled level with basic lighting only pushes the CPU to about 25% CPU usage. That’s on a Pentium M 1.6ghz computer.

On the 360 it’s a different story because there are a lot of precautions you have to take in XNA for the 360 to get it working well. If you just program it like a normal windows app it’ll tank the 360 even before it starts doing anything interesting. But, that can mostly be avoided and high performance apps for the 360 are entirely possible with the proper care taken.

The important thing to remember for 360 development is that the mini .net framework on the 360 doesn’t have the same multiple levels of garbage collection the full version has and the creation and destruction of objects kills performance very very fast. Also, you have to work pretty hard to take full advantage of the multiple hardware based processor threads that are available on the 360 (I think it has 6 hardware threads). But if you keep that stuff in mind, you can make something with surprisingly good results. But, even if you do all that, you can’t sell it. The license for XNA as far as 360 games is extremely limiting. For Windows though it’s open and what you make you can do with as you please.

I have actually gotten 2D fighter engines working to the point of loading 2 characters, animating them and letting them be controlled by keyboard 3 times now. The first was C with Allegro. But I quickly grew to dislike Allegro. The second was a port of that to C++ with SDL. And then finally I did it with XNA. I’m sticking with it since the performance is good even on older computers (slowest I tested on was P3 733 with 256 MB RAM), and it’s just easier (edit: for a hobbyist, XNA is nowhere near a professional development app, that is definately true).

[Zinac]

Keep up all the good work everyone. We’re working steadily on SkullGirls. Can’t really show anything yet, but I can say its fully playable and has completely redrawn sprites since the original demos. Have I mentioned this already?

[Optimus_Prime]

For complete newbies, you don’t download C++ as some kind of SDK, etc.; it’s already built into the C++ compiler you code with, whichever one you choose examples of such are: Microsoft Visual C++, Bloodshed Software’s Dev-C++, Borland C++ Builder, Intel C++ compiler, GCC, CodeWarrior, Digital Mars C++, LCC-Win32, DJGPP, etc. Also, Apple distributes a C++ compiler on the Developer CD that comes with every Mac; I think it’s called Xcode.

Now, there are other programming things you would need in order to do graphics and other stuff. Most of them you’ll have to D/L (from somewhere) and install on your computer with your chosen compiler. Here’s a list of some of them:

OpenGL – mostly does 3-D graphics for MS Windows, Linux, or Mac OS games & apps but can do 2-D if you want it to (i.e., a 2D sprite-based video game) (Your computer should already come with an implementation of OpenGL in it. So, there is no need to download anything (like some SDK or whatever) in order to create a game using OpenGL. If you want the latest OpenGL (for coding with or for playing OpenGL-based computer games), simply update your video drivers. That’s all there is to it.)
DirectX Direct3D – mostly does 3-D graphics for MS Windows games & apps but can do 2-D if you want it to (i.e., a 2D sprite-based video game) (See Gwyrgyn Blood’s post for the 9.0 Nov-'07 SDK download link <-- the SDK is about 428+ MB, BTW.)

Addendum: Yes, I know that the latest DirectX is version 10, but if you code using any DirectX 10 SDK, your program wont run in Windows XP (or even on much earlier 32-bit Windows O.S.es, for that matter)! :sad:

Allegro – good for making 2-D games (Get that here.)
SDL – also good for creating 2-D computer games (Get it from here.)
*the above two can be used to create 2-D games for Microsoft WIN, Mac OS, or Linux operating systems

Note: Even though both Allegro and SDL were written for coding in the C language, you can mix C code in with your C++ code with no problem, if you were using a C++ compiler to compile with.

OpenAL (not related to OpenGL, BTW) – good for putting sounds in your games (WIN/Linux/Mac) (Get that from here.)
FMOD Ex – another way of getting sounds in your WIN/Linux/Mac/console game (Get that at this place.)

[the_dannobot]

Keep up all the good work everyone. We’re working steadily on SkullGirls. Can’t really show anything yet, but I can say its fully playable and has completely redrawn sprites since the original demos. Have I mentioned this already?

Cool! I wasn’t sure if anyone was still working on that game, the page hasn’t been updated in a while.

[pootnannies]

Cool! I wasn’t sure if anyone was still working on that game, the page hasn’t been updated in a while.

yeah i’ve been waiting to see what’s happened to this project since the last demo came out. hope to see something soon!

[Zinac]

yeah i’ve been waiting to see what’s happened to this project since the last demo came out. hope to see something soon!

We’ll be showing something soon enough. Though we’re not sure how to best present updates, whether it be in the form of blogging (ex. SFIIHD) or not.

[Henaki]

haha id ont think skullgirls is really complete enough to be shown.

but its making clear progress, every update besides ZINAC DELETING EVERY SPECIAL MOVE has been greatly improving everything.

[GStick]

v2.2 of the Showdown Academy demo is out. I decided to release it a bit early, so that I can get feedback on where to continue and for help with bugs, since I can’t seem to solve a few at the moment (I have NO idea where they are coming from).

But the game really has improved a lot, and if its any indication, I think the game can go a long way.

Go Here for v2.2 and the basic system guide…

Still no Vista support. Help me out guys, trying to actually make a decent fighter.

[Zinac]

Oh nice, tried out your demo. The sprites are nice.
The only weird thing I noticed was that the jump momentum was a bit awkward.

[GStick]

Oh nice, tried out your demo. The sprites are nice.
The only weird thing I noticed was that the jump momentum was a bit awkward.

Thanks… we’re in need of someone who can sprite that style though, original artist left.

Been slowly improving the jumping, it probably needs a major rewrite. A majority of that code has been around for a long time.

[System_1]

^^^How long have you been working on this?

For complete newbies, you don’t download C++ ? as some kind of SDK, etc.; it’s already built into the C++ compiler you code with, whichever one you choose ? examples of such are: Microsoft Visual C++, Bloodshed Software’s Dev-C++, Borland C++ Builder, Intel C++ compiler, GCC, CodeWarrior, Digital Mars C++, LCC-Win32, DJGPP, etc. Also, Apple distributes a C++ compiler on the Developer CD that comes with every Mac; I think it’s called Xcode.

Now, there are other programming things you would need in order to do graphics and other stuff. Most of them you’ll have to D/L (from somewhere) and install on your computer with your chosen compiler. Here’s a list of some of them:

OpenGL – mostly does 3-D graphics for MS Windows, Linux, or Mac OS games & apps but can do 2-D if you want it to (i.e., a 2D sprite-based video game) (Your computer should already come with an implementation of OpenGL in it. So, there is no need to download anything (like some SDK or whatever) in order to create a game using OpenGL. If you want the latest OpenGL (for coding with or for playing OpenGL-based computer games), simply update your video drivers. That’s all there is to it.)
DirectX Direct3D – mostly does 3-D graphics for MS Windows games & apps but can do 2-D if you want it to (i.e., a 2D sprite-based video game) (See Gwyrgyn Blood’s post for the 9.0 Nov-'07 SDK download link <-- the SDK is about 428+ MB, BTW.)

Addendum: Yes, I know that the latest DirectX is version 10, but if you code using any DirectX 10 SDK, your program wont run in Windows XP (or even on much earlier 32-bit Windows O.S.es, for that matter)! :sad:

Allegro – good for making 2-D games (Get that here.)
SDL – also good for creating 2-D computer games (Get it from here.)
*the above two can be used to create 2-D games for Microsoft WIN, Mac OS, or Linux operating systems

Note: Even though both Allegro and SDL were written for coding in the C language, you can mix C code in with your C++ code with no problem, if you were using a C++ compiler to compile with.

OpenAL (not related to OpenGL, BTW) – good for putting sounds in your games (WIN/Linux/Mac) (Get that from here.)
FMOD Ex – another way of getting sounds in your WIN/Linux/Mac/console game (Get that at this place.)

Thanks alot dude, maybe I can create my revolutionary beat-em-up game now.

[GStick]

I’ve been working on the game since April.

[Masamuna]

Making a fighting game is in my future, however I’m not going to worry about it right now. My main plan is that once the graphic novel I’m working on is released within the next year, I will start gaining a little revenue as well as some form of fanbase. Hopefully this will lead to the book being released internationally leading to possible endeavors in other media.

The best case scenario? I’ll get a deal with a major in house developer to make a 3D fighter and possibly another genre to balance out profit. The worst case? I’ll still have a purdy picture book and hopefully some loot to fund a doujin fighter or something.

[Nokato]

I want to actually make sprites but I really don’t know–so I’m going to actually check out these links to see what may happen.

[woof]

I want to actually make sprites but I really don’t know–so I’m going to actually check out these links to see what may happen.

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/
http://www.pixeljoint.com/default.asp

[GStick]

Something new to show, v2.3a of Showdown Academy.

v2.3a

A much improved update over v2.2… mostly bug fixes and character tweaks, but certainly not small ones.

And remember to check out the system mechanics page, even though you guys could just look at the names of everything in the game and assume what its all going to be. :wonder:

Here

You can finally crossup if that makes it any better, lol.

[pootnannies]

it’s a lot better than the last one but the jumps are really weird. can’t wait to see the next demo