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Spotlight How to Make Fighting Games: Mike Z explains the dos and don'ts

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The final Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament not only brought us excellent Skullgirls matches and plenty of hype, but an informative and indepth look into what every decent fighting game needs. In a panel hosted by Skullgirls Encore lead developer Mike Zaimont, a near-comprehensive amount of information was discussed; topics ranged from subjects as innocent as optimal menu and button layout prompts to heavy-hitters such as eliminating unblockables and broken setups that have plagued past fighting games. Whether you are interested in the thought processes behind Skullgirls' development, are considering making your own fighting game, or just want to know what goes on inside the head of a bitter old man, this panel should help shed some light on your questions.[prebreak]Continue reading...[/prebreak]


A special thanks to Keits for hosting UFGTX, Old Abbot for the recording and upload, and @Mike_Z for speaking.
 
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The Tap to Select button config part really shocked me. I totally forgot so many SNES fighters had that.
It's really sad to see that backslide :/
 
Can't believe how similar the palette effects for Dark Phoenix are especially with X-Factor active. Unfortunate oversight because that nonsense looks unnecessarily confusing.
 
How does MikeZ know about PornHub? Hmm.
 
EdibleGlass said:
How does MikeZ know about PornHub? Hmm.
Oh come on now, everyone knows about Pornhub.

If I had said xhamster or nudevista or beeg or Ashley Madison, you could have questioned it.
(Before you ask, I know some people who do shady internet marketing stuff, and porn sites are especially lucrative. Also everyone masturbates, get over it.)
 
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Number 13 said:
Can't believe how similar the palette effects for Dark Phoenix are especially with X-Factor active. Unfortunate oversight because that nonsense looks unnecessarily confusing.
That section of the presentation reminded me of how much I like individual character effects that change depending on color palette. It really can add a lot to a character's look while in motion.

Now I'm just hoping that SG (or Skullgirls 2 or whatever happens in the future) will one day get the latest in character coloring technology: Named Palettes like from UNIB. So many more opportunities for puns!
:PUN:
 
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I now know why I like SG, it's all of these little things that Mike put into the game to make it as friendly to the player as possible, from button mapping, to the palates, and even all of the tiny little details that other games overlook. So Thanks Mike for looking out for us and making a great fighting game.


I also feel asleep 20 minutes in the video, sorry Mike.
 
I watched the whole video. Interesting stuff, although for pretty much the entirety of the presentation I was reminded constantly of how spoiled we are to have a fighting game made by people who care about the user experience and tournament organization.

I played UMvC3 recently with a friend and he went to repick his team and I stood there like an idiot for two minutes before I realized that yes, I too had to repick my team even though I picked Retry and had no intention of doing so.
 
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Mike_Z said:
Oh come on now, everyone knows about Pornhub.

If I had said xhamster or nudevista or beeg or Ashley Madison, you could have questioned it.
(Before you ask, I know some people who do shady internet marketing stuff, and porn sites are especially lucrative. Also everyone masturbates, get over it.)
Yeah, it is a fact everyone knows about that site. And wow.
 
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There's a lot about this presentation that applies to game development in general, not just fighting games. Especially with regards to UI and user experience design. Thanks for taking the time to put together this presentation, Mike!

Mike_Z said:
Oh come on now, everyone knows about Pornhub.

Also, yes. This is 100% true.
 
This was very informative on a lot of fighting games of today. Some I had no clue about that games had but this happen to be very eye opening and interesting. Worth the 1hour and 45minutes for the most part.
 
Never knew there were panels at UFGTX, so this is a pleasant surprise (holy crap 1 hr and 45min!)
 
You should be proud, actually.
 
"Allow people to unpick untill the start of the match"

Ironicly enough Skullgirls locks your choice after you pick the assist of your last character and confirm. :P Which screwed me over once or twice ever since there is a confirmation and A LOT more when it wasn't there yet. :P Damn you muscle memory and hastiness.
 
Kawalorn said:
"Allow people to unpick untill the start of the match"

Ironicly enough Skullgirls locks your choice after you pick the assist of your last character and confirm. :P
Actually dawg that's only online, because otherwise Ranked would be kinda stupid, and it's the reason we HAVE a confirm online.
Offline you can unpick anytime before the start of the match. Zing.
We do it in Unranked because the guy who initially wrote it did that and I'm too busy to go back and fix it by having an extra state you both need to be in before it can go to loading the match. :^)
 
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Mike_Z said:
Actually dawg that's only online, because otherwise Ranked would be kinda stupid, and it's the reason we HAVE a confirm online.
Offline you can unpick anytime before the start of the match. Zing.
We do it in Unranked because the guy who initially wrote it did that and I'm too busy to go back and fix it by having an extra state you both need to be in before it can go to loading the match. :^)

I see, but why exactly would that make Ranked stupid? :o I know it would if you could see what the opponent picked before the start of a match, but you can't.
 
Kawalorn said:
I see, but why exactly would that make Ranked stupid? :o I know it would if you could see what the opponent picked before the start of a match, but you can't.
Yeah but we'd like to let you do that someday. :^P
And it'd let you be more annoying to random people by unpicking all your characters from stage select, repicking, etc. In Ranked you only want to let people move forward, pretty much, to prevent as much trolling as possible. (It would also necessitate an overall timer rather than two separate ones, which is another thing to go back in and redo.)
 
Really nice video, I just wish the camera work wasn't so awful in certain parts
 
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I also must say that you are totally right about the 3-button combinations, macros for them and overlapping.

I don't know how they did it, but it often screwed me over in SFIV when I was playing with Seth. DP+PPP is his forward teleport but even thought I was using a macro for that I was receiving Ex-Shoryuken every once in a while... Not only unsafe situation but also a waste of meter.
 
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Kawalorn said:
I don't know how they did it, but it often screwed me over in SFIV when I was playing with Seth. DP+PPP is his forward teleport but even thought I was using a macro for that I was receiving Ex-Shoryuken every once in a while... Not only unsafe situation but also a waste of meter.
QCB, QCB+PPP is Rose's U2. The issue with it regularly randomly giving EX Reflect (QCB+PP) had to be fixed by changing U2's input to QCB,QCB+KKK. From what I gather it's not down to bad inputs either :/
 
Spread the word people, every fighting game dev needs to see this.
 
Every time I hear Mike Z talk about fighting game stuff, I more and more want to see him on a Fighting Game episode of Extra Credits. They even have a new "Design Club" where they specifically talk about this stuff.


Pls, Mike Z! I would also like to see you animated as a little dude. And of course, some extra Skullgirls publicity.
 
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Zidiane said:
Every time I hear Mike Z talk about fighting game stuff, I more and more want to see him on a Fighting Game episode of Extra Credits. They even have a new "Design Club" where they specifically talk about this stuff.


Pls, Mike Z! I would also like to see you animated as a little dude. And of course, some extra Skullgirls publicity.
I feel like a ton of stuff would go over everyone's heads if there was an episode on FGs as you need to understand how they work to appreciate them.
 
ashxu said:
I feel like a ton of stuff would go over everyone's heads if there was an episode on FGs as you need to understand how they work to appreciate them.
That's totally not true. Sure, if Mike spat out FG jargon to explain every thing no one would get it. But, like, the Phoenix palette thing, the tap to set instead of scrolling, button settings on Char select, allowing people to back out of their character select, the retry+character select not forcing retry to repick their characters, win count, and hitstop so you can see who did what are all things that everyone could get with slight alterations to wording.
 
chickenwithtie said:
So many people making kickstarters need to watch this
Nah. Just show a mock demo and/or make characters based on YouTubers and you're set to go.
RqCKmuJ.png


ashxu said:
I feel like a ton of stuff would go over everyone's heads if there was an episode on FGs as you need to understand how they work to appreciate them.
Gotta agree with Zidiane and I say this both as someone with a very superficial knowledge of fighting games and a non-native English speaker (I get lost whenever wording starts to get technical). It's pretty accessible stuff and anyone with a legitimate interest in implementing these, can make a very straightforward bullet point list of Dos & Don'ts while watching.


Side note, a shame Training Mode Fight Request seems so complicated/costly to implement in Skullgirls. Would be a great boon for my impatient self.
 
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Balder said:
Nah. Just show a mock demo and/or make characters based on YouTubers and you're set to go.
RqCKmuJ.png

To be fair the particular title you are referencing is NOT doing very well right now. :P
 
Great panel @Mike_Z !

I'd also like to point out, after 5 years and and the fifth iteration of the game FINALLY getting this feature, the on character screen button mapping for USF4 still doesn't work 100% accurately, as you cannot unmap buttons using this button mapping. I use 3P as a dead button, meaning I have to go into the game and button check STILL. Every other game that does button checks on character select that I know of lets you unmap buttons. Finding this out in USF4 after watching a panel about this nonsense was pretty funny, and depressing.
 
The "no HCB" argument doesn't really work with games that have limited attack buttons, and those buttons are just the same but with varying strengths (Light, Medium, Heavy), with characters that have more than two specials. Sure you can use reverse DP but that's just as complex, and 360 usually applies to grapplers.
 
EA575 said:
The "no HCB" argument doesn't really work with games that have limited attack buttons, and those buttons are just the same but with varying strengths (Light, Medium, Heavy), with characters that have more than two specials. Sure you can use reverse DP but that's just as complex, and 360 usually applies to grapplers.
Well how many moves do you want them to have? Because...

qcf
qcb
dp
rdp
b,f
d,u
d,d
360

There are a lot of simple options.
 
The overlong nature of the panel made it feel like I was being served a delicious steak, but only one bite at a time, and five minutes apart. It's cool that people were there to ask questions and what not, but this would've been about 1000000000% (give or take 10000%) better as a pre-recorded and edited youtube video. It would be, like, the end-all-be-all of FG discussion videos. People would love that shit. I would love that shit.
 
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guitalex2007 said:
Well how many moves do you want them to have? Because...

qcf
qcb
dp
rdp
b,f
d,u
d,d
360

There are a lot of simple options.
If you want a character with three or more specials you'll have to borrow inputs from characters with different input styles (motion with charge, charge with 360, etc.) unless you don't mind that at all. It's a little confusing when, for example, a character with a dominate motion input style has a charge special(s) because the player learning that character will sometimes forget they have that/those specials since most of their specials are motion-based.

Heh, I forgot about QCB, but my statement still stands. Of course if a fighting game has more than one punch and kick button then running out of inputs shouldn't be an issue.
 
EA575 said:
If you want a character with three or more specials you'll have to borrow inputs from characters with different input styles (motion with charge, charge with 360, etc.) unless you don't mind that at all. It's a little confusing when, for example, a character with a dominate motion input style has a charge special(s) because the player learning that character will sometimes forget they have that/those specials since most of their specials are motion-based.

Heh, I forgot about QCB, but my statement still stands. Of course if a fighting game has more than one punch and kick button then running out of inputs shouldn't be an issue.
Cerebella has qcf, qcb, dp, 360, charge, and follow up moves. If you have limited buttons, you probably should just not have strength variants of moves and instead give different moves (like Cerebella's dp).
 
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@Mike_Z , could you please describe the "not randomized hitsound" thing that you skipped over in the presentation?

EDIT: Also, I don't understand, why is it better to have normals vacuum instead of push back on crossup? Since that normal wouldn't have vacuumed on non-crossup, wouldn't it make more sense to not vacuum on crossup, instead of doubly rewarding the attacker with better positioning on the harder-to-block option?
 
Cynical said:
@Mike_Z , could you please describe the "not randomized hitsound" thing that you skipped over in the presentation?

EDIT: Also, I don't understand, why is it better to have normals vacuum instead of push back on crossup? Since that normal wouldn't have vacuumed on non-crossup, wouldn't it make more sense to not vacuum on crossup, instead of doubly rewarding the attacker with better positioning on the harder-to-block option?
Not sure if that refers to "POWER OF THE-- POWER OF THE-- POWER OF THE-- POWER OF THE--" / "YA LIKE TH-- YA LIKE TH-- YA LIKE TH--" or maybe the grunts when getting hit all sounding the same.
 
Zidiane said:
Cerebella has qcf, qcb, dp, 360, charge, and follow up moves. If you have limited buttons, you probably should just not have strength variants of moves and instead give different moves (like Cerebella's dp).
That makes sense. I guess this is another reason why Marvel 3 isn't so good (and even ASB).
 
Night Phyre said:
The overlong nature of the panel made it feel like I was being served a delicious steak, but only one bite at a time, and five minutes apart. It's cool that people were there to ask questions and what not, but this would've been about 1000000000% (give or take 10000%) better as a pre-recorded and edited youtube video. It would be, like, the end-all-be-all of FG discussion videos. People would love that shit. I would love that shit.
Sure, you want to do that work? Go ahead.
I said it, I don't really care if people want to complain it was boring since I've never been given the opportunity to say it before and will probably never be given it again.
If companies or developers want consultation, they can ask. I'm not spending days and days putting together a video series for a genre that has thus far completely shat on me when I try to give advice. :^P

Non-randomized hitsounds is not at all related to "Ya like-ya like-ya like that?" I guess I could upload the example videos for that part to YouTube today. Lemme remind myself.

[edit]Actually, if someone wants to tell me which things on the TV didn't get shown, I can probably re-record them and put them up...? I already recorded the MAME thing again.
 
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Mike_Z said:
Sure, you want to do that work? Go ahead.
You give me the outline to your panel (and the video links), and I can do it, sure. Like I said, the info was good, I think people would like it even more in a brisker format.
 
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