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Tips and advices on making a fighting game

Solaris

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Greetings, guys and gals from the Skullheart Forum. I'm Jaden DiamondKnight (that's how I want to be reffer to from now on) and I'm coming here to ask for a quick advice.
Right now, I'm making a fighting game as an university thesis, but I need to understand the basics of a fighting game.

1.- Besides of the controls being smooth as they could possibly be, what should I take in consideration about frame data? Block Stun, Hit Stun, Movement, etcetera.
2.- Any way to keep characters as balanced as possible? Because I have my own balance system on the making.

Right now, that's all I have. I hope you guys and girls can help me with your advices, and if you need to move out my thread to other section, go right ahead.
Thanks for your attention~.
 
Above all else, I'd say make sure you understand the underlying rock-paper-scissors "reading" based gameplay of fighters.

Spending some time with Super Turbo couldn't hurt either.
 
Best advice MikeZ gave me on desgins characters for a fighting game is this:

When you make a character make sure their gameplay fits around their design (self explaintory.) But in order to make them competent fighters you need to make sure their basics are all the same.

What I mean by this, in short and using Skullgirls as an example, make them all be able to apply to the bases of the far (all can do combos, jumps, blocks, etc.) when making a grappler don't remove combos for grabs only use their grabs as combo potential.

Make sure the character have all their bases covered on a design document (can they do this, that, counter this thing, counter air, etc.) then once that's all done see what you can remove to make sure their not broken



EDIT: I should also add this by saying you shouldn't problably make a fighting game for a project. If your just writing it for a paper sure but a full fighting game? I'll be honest that might be a bit more than a university student can handle for a project espically since your asking for tips.

My advice if your making a game for a project try something you know and rather simple to grasp like a visual novel, a platformer, etc.
 
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The "Alpha version" will only have 4 characters. If I see that people are interested on playing it, I'll be releasing more characters and other stuff.

Just for the record~.
 
Make sure the character have all their bases covered on a design document (can they do this, that, counter this thing, counter air, etc.) then once that's all done see what you can remove to make sure their not broken

@Solaris, the above is good, but don't forget about Iterative Design as well. Some things you just can't plan for and have to craft organically.

If you're doing something game development/design related, you probably already know about that concept.

You also probably want a close friend to help you test it. etc.
 
Make it 2 characters. Not 4. Just for an alpha version, trust me for a college project I'm saving you a headache. But here's the big question:

What's your team?

Like do you have an animator? A programmer? A designer? You can't really make characters unless someone knows how to animate.
 
Actually, im really curious too, how do they actually end up mapping out combos? Like, do they know every combo in the game or does it just sorta "happen"..? i'm actually really curious about that, sorry if its a weird question <3
 
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I imagine they have a general plan for what the character can and can't do in terms of combos, and stuff gets added/removed to generally fit that plan (or adapt the plan itself as necessary) during play testing.
 
Potential strenghts of a normal move in a 2D classical fighting game like street or Kof :

- Damage potential (is it a standalone powerful hit, or a combo starter leading to 999 dmg etc)
- Good range
- Good hitbox (covering the biggest angle is better)
- Good startup (hitbox appears quickly)
- Does it require to be blocked specifically ? Like a low attack or overhead
- Whiff animation is quick, means it's hard to punish if you whiff it
- A lot of active frames, means it's easier to hit, you can meaty, or reverse a frame disadvantage
- Gives frame advantage on block or hit, means you can do another normal move after it (positive, maybe link another thing)
- Cancelability rules, if you can cancel into special move/super move or unique attacks, you add some guessing for the opponent, are you going to cancel or not etc.
- Making your character move when using it instead of just staying still
- Making your character in air when using it (usually means if you get hit while doing this move, you won't eat a combo but a single "air-reset" hit)

As opposed to potential weaknesses :

- Low damage potential
- Short range
- Bad hitbox (very precise to hit with the move)
- Slow startup (you can easily get interrupted if you use the move so you have to use it when opponent doesn't want to use quick moves)
- Being able to block it from any block type, high or low
- Whiff animation is slow, meaning if you don't touch the opponent you are open to get owned
- Only one active frame
- Gives frame disadvantage on block, either making the move negative (your next attack will be coming slower) or unsafe (the opponent can punish you with a combo after blocking the attack)
- Cancelability rules are not good, extreme aspect of this is that the move is just not cancelable at all
- Making your character move can also be a weakness if you are very disadvantaged when the opponent blocks. If you're too negative it makes you get close and open to a punish which is easier than requiring your opponent to walk towards you a bit to punish
- Making your character float in air forever which leads to easy punish for your opponent


Usually you balance your moves choosing from these things, like, you can have a very powerful, combo starter and quick close attack, which is positive but has a crappy hitbox, or a very slow special move which hits overhead, is unsafe it opponent guards it correctly but lets you make big damage if you hit and is hard to punish. An attack like this would have a weakness against quick moves and against opponent guarding correctly.

Those things are for very basic fighting engines, when you make your game you add some spice in the mix with some mechanics which can nullify or empower a precise aspect of the game. (For example, the "counterhit" mechanic is often used in sf kof or tekken and rewards opponent for hitting in the startup of your attack)