Does the push move give you a free hit?
from what I saw, not really, but it can throw the opponent off a bit. just not by much and it’s not as effective/useful as Buck’s headbutt.
I got most of my hits after a push off with medium kick, and I think once with dash kick.
punch is too slow, and his low kick is just as slow. I would use the push off with HC.
New build seems nice so far but I won’t be able to do much with it until tonight. Two small things with it though:
-You might want to update the build date at the bottom of the screen. I thought that I had the wrong version at first since it still said 8/6/08
-“FIGHT!” splash screen is misplaced. It shouldn’t be right after loading ends but instead right after the characters bow/muscle flex/etc at the start of a match. The FIGHT! splash is an indicator of when the player has obtained control of thier character and is now capable of attacking (or being attacked). The splash could stand to be a little smaller, too.
Every Spirito of Nin game has **great **graphics and animation… But *awful *menus, GUI, HUD and so on (the fonts, the boxes, the degrade!). What’s up with that? Hire a professional designer! And one that knows typography, for God’s sake!
Don’t worry about the rude comments Maionese, your work is great and you show what cool guy you are by making this topic and allowing the pros on this board to help your game have superior balance.
Guys stop with the hating or be a little more tactful, it takes a lot to make a fighting game on your own, nevermind having a team of devs and still failing.
No worries, I know my menus are the least inspiring aspect of my games (I care mostly about gameplay and animation), but on the plus side, these menus are still in the process 
I’d like to help beta.
Holy shit!
10/10 for trying to do something original, visually this game is incredible!
Keep up the hard work, and all the best in getting the project finished.
i played for like 3 hours today and i have to say that this game is very addictive when set to at least an 8 on the speed. when i set it to 10 however, the game seemed to have problems. like some of the pre-hit flashes would show but i would get hit by a different move instead. anyways, so far i’m really impressed because i’ve never played a fighting game like this before.
some notes on the tutorial. i found it difficult to read because there is text all over the screen. it’s a bit chaotic at first but i got used to it after several steps. i think you should script the instructions for each step in order of appearance so my eye isn’t looking all over the place and can focus on what should be read first. other than that, the explanations were good and overall i liked the way the tutorial was played into the story
notes on game play. i played mostly as joshua and buck so i can only give you my opinions on them so far. joshua’s game is completely centered on stealing stars and dealing damage through his hyper combos. outside of that he’s really good, especially his push and his dash attack which seems to go right over low attacks. it didn’t always connect though so i don’t really understand it’s priorities too well but it has mad range and it’s easy to punish helmut when he tries to do his unblockable.
as for buck, i only played with him for about 45 minutes so i can’t say much. his head butt is fast and it has no pre-flash so i’m sure it’s quite useful on human opponents. i got punished all the time by zhong when i’d rope her in and then head-butt, by her weird knee stomp thing so i would mix it up with other moves or even just wait for her knee stomp to come out first but the computer would guess correctly almost every time.
that’s all for now. i’m going to play some more tomorrow with the other characters and then give you my impressions. good stuff so far
Kara Cancel!
imma try to get some games in tonite.
I think the animations could use to be a little more expressive at times, but the visual style and the drama in the supers and stuff are excellent.
Have you considered adding “fake out” attacks? Perhaps a way to cancel the “preview” attack into another attack without the opponent knowing about it in order to trick them. Doing this could use a star or something.
There’s a lot that you could do with this concept, but it wouldn’t be good if it ended up like Smash Bros X, where people complained about the focus on defensive gameplay and the removal of comboes.
True comboes in any fighting game are very satisfying to have. Have you considered implimenting some kind of burst or way to stun the opponent as a means of giving the players the illusion of comboes?
Good job trying to make an original fighting game, but I can’t help but feel that you could fine-tune certain aspects of it to make it more exciting to play and watch.
defensive gameplay
Interesting comments points about the defense and combos.
We did try allowing fakes in the early testing phase, but it was just too hard for most people to understand what was going on.
We did have a bug that sometimes allowed you to do a hyper attack without the cinematic and without a flash. It felt really fun to do it, but very frustrating to defend. Maybe we could work that back in somehow, sacrifice stars to do an instant star attack? Or maybe you get one extra hit at the end of your hyper combo so the defender knows it’s coming but has to guess since it has no flash? I’ll play with it…
With this game I am really trying to punctuate each hit, making each one feel very important.
I appreciate combos (see my Capoeira FIghter 3 game http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/capfighter3.jsp, or Guardians of Altarris http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/guardians.jsp), but I really wanted to try something different in making defense equal in complexity to the offense and I felt like I needed to sacrifice the force combos to get the balance I was looking for.
While there are no forced combos, in a regular match people get combos all the time because of the 3 level blocking, it just depends on opponent error which you influence by your choice of attacks.
I posted another build this morning with a few changes.
-when stars are awarded they are now visually represented moving from block or hit sparks to the star meter. Hopefully this will help players better understand how they are getting and losing stars. Losing stars is also represented by a particle effect on the star meter.
-Stars are awarded differently during hyper combos: for every 3 blocks in a row 1 star is awarded + 1 star if you block the entire combo perfectly.
-made the fight intro graphic smaller (still placeholder)
I’ll probably leave this build up through the weekend, then close the beta early next week, so have fun whlie it lasts!
I’d say burning two stars so that you get a non-previewed attack might be best. This way, they have to at least hit their opponent before they get that option. Then again, an extra hit at the end of a hyper could add more use to doing a hyper with fewer stars. If you burn a single star for a hyper you actually get two hits–one is pure mixup–and can repeatedly attempt for multiple mixups with single stars. At the same time, max hyper allows you to attempt to gain that half star and helps you win hyper clashes.
Been thinking about it, and this is what I am going to try:
If you block an entire Hyper perfectly, you get a free star (already put this in).
If the Hyper is not blocked perfectly, as soon as a hit is scored in the hyper, the player doing the hyper will get a colored glow signifying that their first attack after the hyper combo will be a fast attack using the same one of the three attacks available in the hyper duel (rather than a regular attack).
I think it will add excitement and amp up the risk reward during the hyper combos.
I’ll post it tonight or tomorrow…
-Scott
Can I get a link to the beta? Looks interesting, wouldn’t mind checking it out…
So is it pronounced We Stone, Wes Tone, or West One?
Sounds pretty good. I got a chance to try out this morning’s build and the small changes to the visuals and engine add a lot. I still say that you should shift the default speed to at least 4. Also, you should really implement WASD/arrow key support for navigating the menus in addition to the current mouse input to make things smoother for pad/stick users. You might want to shorten the time on the hyper activation phase since the current length gives you a huge window for starting a hyper duel.
I think that you should add the ability to cancel a block into a backdash for the cost of a star. Since some characters have options outside of point blank range, having a way to gain space would be useful. It would be limited since the lack of a jump wouldn’t give them all that much space to run.
It still occasionally glitches when the player dies. Also, Westone’s low counter doesn’t seem to detect Zhong’s low quick hit (Special 2).
As far as sound, the music isn’t bad (I actually like it) but it could stand to have a bit more material added to each loop since it gets really repetitive. Each character could use two or more voice clips overall so they have more variety in thier sound effects. Zhong’s voice actress is okay but she could use a little more…enthusiasm. Westone’s voice seems odd for how deep it is, though that could just be me.
And dare I be nosey about the unreleased characters?
I think it looks great. As with most online fighting games, my first comment is “Speed it up” but I think what you are going for looks great.
Just from watching the video, I have one comment that I feel very strongly about. When the two characters specials/supers collided, it looked like it switched to a Naruto style button mash competition to determine who won the battle.
That kind of play completely changes the game from something interesting and fun into a mini-game that is not a test of skill or stragety. To construct a beautiful, unique, challenging and complex game, and then reduce it down to a matter of mashing buttons, even for a small second, completely undoes all the work you put into it.
I played the new Naruto game at PAX for a long time, and it is very fun and intricate game (at least at beginning level) but it suffers hugely from the button mashing mechanic. Reducing fighting games to button mashing to decide the outcome of anything is a terrible idea. It becomes a fighting game, where all your strategy and timing culiminate into nothing but a crappy minigame competition.
So get rid of it would be a my strongest suggestion.