Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Control test

There's no gameplay yet, but because I said I'd update the game before it's in a "complete" form, I figure I may as well let you guys test the controls as they progress.

The control test can be downloaded here

I ended up going back to a single swing attack, added blocking, as well as a back and forward dash.
I'm still thinking about what the default controls will be, since there will also be

- Spells
- Picking up and throwing objects.

I could technically do away with the back dash entirely if I feel like it's a waste of a button. Forward dashing could technically fill all the same roles, although double-tap dashing back and then attacking forward would be more difficult than backdashing and attacking.

Alternatively, the back dash could be done by pressing down + a direction, and blocking could ignore facing direction, but if anything I think that might feel off.

Life stuff

Medical procedure went okay so health is better for now.

Will be moving in a few days. Once I've moved in to the new place I'll go back to working on my current main project, with the ongoing one on the side. In the past few days I've been doing stuff here and there for the ongoing game between moving stuff since it's mostly quick and easy stuff, in the beginning.


33 comments:

  1. You can stay airborne infinitely by backdashing. I feel like a fairy princess.

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    1. Untrue.
      Eventually your hand will get tired.

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    2. We'll see about that

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    3. I personally like the feature with single backdash in air, sounds fun to avoid enemies/projectiles or to extend jump.

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    4. Currently I changed it so that it goes back, but also makes you go down quickly. That way you can have unique patters that require you to jump over something, but then get to the ground as quickly as possible.

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  2. Cool, with the backdash I can get over the wall and explore the untextured area with the red-bordered white squares.

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  3. I... really liked the multi hit animation far better than the overhead one.

    Why exactly did you decided on that?

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    1. Single hit would focus more on weak/strong hitboxes. (Think marth tipper in smash bros). Hitbox that connects would affect knockback of the enemy, and hitboxes can be used to differentiate weapons from each other.

      It's less that I preferred one over the other, and more that I realized single hit would be fine. Single hit was also already animated. I may decide to use the double attack instead, if I'm not feeling the single hit as combat progresses.

      I wont be adding different weapons until the base combat and animations are done, so I won't be losing much work either way.

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    2. The things I miss out on when my phone's turned off. "Untrue." "Eventually your hand will get tired", best quote in my opinion.

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    3. Wait, I don't think that's how quotations work...

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  4. this is good so far. movement is good and i like that down key is the dodge and the up is the guard. i guess there will be upgrading/leveling up in the game for more attack swings. so far good keep up the good work.

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    1. If I used this swing animation, there would only be one swing.
      The game would either have multiple swings and no focus on weak/strong hitboxes, or it would have one swing and have weak/strong hitboxes.

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  5. I think down without direction should be used for backdashing (as it's mostly a defensive tool and you'll likely already be facing an enemy), and direction + down for a forward dash, in either direction.

    Alternatively, I feel like down might be a good buttong to put the block on, and instead map the dash to the 'a' key or up key.

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    1. I agree that dash without a direction might work for backdash.

      I initially had down as block. I forget why I changed it. I think it just felt more normal to back-dash with down, whereas up for guard felt okay.

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  6. I like the control scheme as it stands. If you really want there to be a forward-dash, I would put it on Up + Direction, like you had in Kurovadis. I know that game also had Down + Direction, but if you map the back-dash and front-dash to the same button, there's the chance of the game misreading the player's input and leading to frustration. It would also be more obnoxious to program.

    I would kind of like the idea of a guard-cancel mechanic, where you can check your swing by guarding. Of course, this mechanic could potentially be exploited and would require additional coding, but it might be worth a thought if you're looking for suggestions on game mechanics.

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    1. I suppose I could make it so down without a direction back dashes, and with a direction it forward dashes.

      Attacks are already slightly sped up by guarding, but I'm not sure how I want to deal with it yet since I also want perfect guarding/parrying. I'll have to think about it.

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    2. Oh, I didn't notice that. That's fine, too. And I do like a good "Perfect Guard' system.

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  7. I'm your fan.

    Suggestion:
    The attack motion is long and the attack judgment is slow.
    As an action game, it is more fun to have an attack judgment immediately after pressing the button.
    Personally, I like to play more than one quick attack like a double attack.

    I think I do not need to backstep. Because you can respond with a dash in the backward direction.

    The speed of the dash is a bit slow.
    I also want to continue dashing while pressing the arrow key and stop it at the moment you release the arrow key.

    bug:
    If you hold down the left key and press the right key, you will walk to the left with the motion to walk to the right.

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    1. More fun with fast swing: That's definitely not true in all situations. Dark Souls would not be the same game without slow attacks. In the case of this game, different weapons would have different speeds, and the speed seen in the control test would be the medium swing speed.

      Yeah, it's possible backstep may not be needed.

      While the dash may be faster with level ups, I don't want the default speed to be too fast as it results in jumping over everything. Faster dash means faster enemies or more severe limitations in terms of using it. Will see how it feels making it so you can stop by releasing.

      Bug: Thanks, will fix it.

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    2. Perhaps you could change the speed and power of the swing by holding down the key to give it that variation of attack? Then you could have more enemy variety to deal with that

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    3. Is that really a bug though, or can we just call it Moonwalking?

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  8. Reverse aerial backsteps are the fastest form of locomotion, so people are going to be hop-sliding through your game if they're any good at it. Don't know if you should care personally, but it's nice when the fastest form of transport requires the least technical skill otherwise, out of habit, I grind out movement techniques and blitz the game.

    Another quirk I noticed, it's fun to do reverse fairs, attacking locking facing is neat, this caused me to input ->, attack, jump, <- rapidly to retreat across the stage. Comes out as just rolling your fingers across the inputs.

    The way momentum works in your game is deeply satisfying, good balance of sliding and control creates that satisfying, sticky-yet-pliant movement.

    I was comparing the backstep from maximum height to the backstep from minimum height and I discovered an interesting moment at the very end of the max height backstep. After you land and come to a complete stop, there's a brief pause, then you move one more pixel. This final nudge isn't present in low aerial backsteps.

    You CAN attack somewhat faster by inputting ^(gaurd) after issuing an attack, but as this keeps you immobile and grounded and the speed gained is extremely minimal, this hardly seems worth it. My opinion is that it's safe to ignore. It's just cancelling a few frames of backswing anyway, if you want to fix it anyway you could just forbid some inputs during said backswing but, eh? shrug?

    Visually I really like the parallax and colors. The visual similarity to Eroico isn't a problem for me, though I think your work on sci-fi is more inspired. To aid immersion in this game, might I recommend some kind of foreground layer to break up the monotonous bottom 1/6th of the screen? Any kind of foliage passing by there could provide the illusion that we're looking in on the character's adventures in the grove, or what have you. I think it might make it more exciting, interesting, immersive, and thus sexier. Your taste takes priority though, obviously, I'm just trying to find ways to contribute.

    I really enjoyed this little test, thank you so much for sharing. You're my favorite h-game developer despite all of the years I've spent on titles both foreign and domestic. Please just do whatever you'd like with your game. =D

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    1. Backstep will have a slight delay before it can be used again. That, and backstepping/ dashing may come with a stamina (that you have per day) cost. Not sure yet though.

      The nudge is from sub pixel movement. If you hit F5 a few times (increases the resolution beyond the 1:1 size) you can see what's actually happening during the back step. Basically it's that extra 0.001 speed kicking in before it fizzles out.

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  9. You moonwalk if you hold left, then click right, while still holding left.

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    1. Ugh can edit Anonymous comments sorry. So also if you hold left, then hold right, then release right you will keep running right even with left held down. and sure your aware but you can back dash in air to float, then leave the area and get to some sort of test area.

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  10. Concerning the attacking system...
    Do you think some weapons should just have one form of attack over the other?
    Like... It'd make more sense to constantly be slashing with a dagger than swinging it overhead, and the same with something like an axe being swung overhead instead of being swung back and forth.

    Don't mind me though, I'm just mind-dumping ideas. Thank you for the testing playground~!

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    1. Normally, but not in this game. The goal of this game is quick updates per week, and will include various outfits over time. This means that for every action I add, the amount I have to animate per outfit increases.

      So while normally I would just do as many complex animations as I want, in this game I have to be fairly economic. Ideally the attack animation should work for every weapon, and be differentiated via code or single frames at most.

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  11. There's a lot of comments to read through here so I don't know if this was suggested, but what about making back (and forward?) dash mapped to block+left/right? But probably keep the double-tap for forward dash as well.

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    1. Depends on the mechanics. If blocking takes direction into account then you need to be able to turn while blocking, the way you can now.

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  12. i can still get her to moonwalk if i really mess around with the controls. its hard to tell whats going on but it usually has to do with holding down and a direction and backjumping into a wall and maintans her existing velocity even if shes not moving at full speed. theres also times when she runs straight forwards but in the direction opposite what youre pressing.

    i suspect its holding down the down arrow that confuses it? its really hard to reproduce these issues.

    pretty fun to bounce and dash around i gotta say.

    but if you really wanna get rid of the down arrow for backdash might wanna consider dash cancelling attacks in which case if youre in an animation that has you facing one direction, double tapping another direction will dash cancel your attack and then you do the backdash anim. just my two cents.

    attacks require a lotta windup time and are prolly gonna leave you wide open like this... course maybe thats what your going for, high risk high reward, high chance of sexy times.

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    1. Wind up time will depend on the weapon. Only daggers and weak weapons will be low risk.

      Double tap to back dash is what I tried initially but the problem was that it can trip you up if you intend to dash forward in that direction.

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