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Double Tap, new build for April 9th, 2016

North888 said:
Not really? Ppl go for the gameplay, and models aren't SUPER important. Yes it should look at least decent, but that doesn't mean they have to slave over the models till they're SFV-levels of detail. Honestly I'd think the models would be the last thing after the gameplay and design.

Yeah this is more of the outlook I've had for the whole project. I've basically been using the animations I have just to iterate on the engine and gameplay decisions. I've always figured that if I can get the game looking good and fun with my limited animation budget, that I can be able to execute even more when I'm ready to with more stylized animations.

Game design to me is not about having a good design from the get go, it's about starting with something simple, executing, and iterating, and that's what I've really enjoyed about working on this so far.
 
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That's kinda the same position I've been with my own fighter, Invocation. However, its more on the opposite end than your project XD It's more of a passion project, so school starting has put it to a dead stop, so we've been working on story and characters instead of fleshing the gameplay.

You work with what you got to make some progress. And tbh the engine seems decent. It's obviously not as fleshed out as the Z-Engine, but for a 2.5D engine its fluid and will probably look a lot nicer down the road.
 
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New build up, some more pretty significant performance optimizations, new way of computing hit freeze animation, consolidated hit freeze settings.

http://dt-engine.com/?p=200

 
I feel like I like how this looks. I'm gonna try to play it, later. @willpower, did you make all the sound assets, or are they just public use stuff from the net?
 
Cool man lemme know what you think.

Kai said:
did you make all the sound assets, or are they just public use stuff from the net?

Nah they're from an asset I bought from the unity store, just has a bunch of generic stuff that I used to get stuff functional.

edit: well, sfx are from the above, music is from a guy that just posted his stuff for free use.
 
willpower said:
Cool man lemme know what you think.
Felt pretty ok. I liked that my inputs resulted in the moves I wanted 95% of the time, which is not something I get with all fighters, trust me. So, whatever you're doing on input interpretation is cool, it's working for me. Combo timing also seemed fairly relaxed, so my cr.MK > Fireball and some other 3 or 4 hit combos were landing consistently.

Notes:
  • This game is obviously very Street Fighter-ish, for lots of reasons. DT's normal-canceling mechanic is basically a simpler, truncated FADC, and while I actually like this much better than the clunky FADC input, it's still just too on-the-nose. This game still needs something that sets it apart from its inspiration.
  • The animations are going to hinder the feel of the play until they're made better. I understand there's plenty to do, but the basic disjointedness of some of the normals and specials made it hard to love, when hitboxes sometimes didn't make sense.
  • give me more options in the menu. I need to set my resolution lower for a better framerate, but I couldn't.
I think there's something here, and I'll keep following it.
 
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Yah, after playing it a bit myself, I mostly agree with Kai here. Obviously its still a WIP with the models and such, and the gameplay is being refined, there could be something a bit more unique. However, I feel that unique aspect to the game or whatever you end up using this for will come as you develop actual mechanics as opposed to just an engine.

I would, however, suggest trying to get some gimmicky mechanics to work in-engine as a test, like a stance cancel or something like Makoto's charge up punches in Blazblue. Not to set it apart, but as a stress test to see if you can get some of the more gimmicky characters out there to work. Don't have to use the examples I posted, just trying to throw out suggestions :D
 
Thanks guys, I really appreciate this kind of feedback!

Kai said:
I liked that my inputs resulted in the moves I wanted 95% of the time, which is not something I get with all fighters, trust me. So, whatever you're doing on input interpretation is cool, it's working for me.

Good! I've done quite a bit of work on the input system and I'm pretty happy with where it's at now.

Kai said:
Combo timing also seemed fairly relaxed, so my cr.MK > Fireball and some other 3 or 4 hit combos were landing consistently.

Great! Yeah the game is supposed to be pretty offense based with a lot of move options in neutral and cancelling, so having players fight with the input is something I want to avoid and make as easy as possible. Right now that cancel timing is tied to the freeze frame window, so the higher it is the easier it is to cancel. I don't like how easy it is if the freeze frame window is too high, so I'll probably do some work to decouple that into it's own value (10 frames or something /shrug)

Kai said:
This game is obviously very Street Fighter-ish, for lots of reasons. DT's normal-canceling mechanic is basically a simpler, truncated FADC, and while I actually like this much better than the clunky FADC input, it's still just too on-the-nose. This game still needs something that sets it apart from its inspiration.

Yeah the FADC mechanic was something I set out wanting to expand on, and the DTC is very much based on it (used to be the same input as well). I liked the mix up potential that FADC gave characters but thought it was really limiting only being able to dash out of it. Difference with the DTC is that you can do pretty much anything you want after using it (normals, specials, jumps, short hops, dashes, parry). I'm hoping that this difference, having the input be the way it is, and having the game more balanced around that functionality will give it enough to set it apart from SFIV in that respect. I kind of look at it like SFV is trying to go away from that type of gameplay where a hit could go one of three ways (hits, hits and cancels into special, or hits and cancels in to FADC), and I'm trying to expand on it more.

Kai said:
The animations are going to hinder the feel of the play until they're made better. I understand there's plenty to do, but the basic disjointedness of some of the normals and specials made it hard to love, when hitboxes sometimes didn't make sense.

Definitely agreed. These animations were some I contracted out to a guy so that I could get something to work with while building the game, I really don't plan or want to use any of this stuff in an actual product. I'm still looking for a solid animator that I can bring on and give some serious life to it.

Kai said:
give me more options in the menu. I need to set my resolution lower for a better framerate, but I couldn't.

I gotta do some work for that, my UI doesn't scale so well with resolutions that aren't 16 x 9 but I'll put some in today.

North888 said:
I would, however, suggest trying to get some gimmicky mechanics to work in-engine as a test, like a stance cancel or something like Makoto's charge up punches in Blazblue. Not to set it apart, but as a stress test to see if you can get some of the more gimmicky characters out there to work. Don't have to use the examples I posted, just trying to throw out suggestions :D

That's a good idea. I just started switching some of my moves over to charge inputs to test that, but there's still a bunch of types of moves that I haven't tried yet.

Thanks again you guys!
 
I gotta do some work for that, my UI doesn't scale so well with resolutions that aren't 16 x 9 but I'll put some in today.
I'd still be wanting a 16:9 resolution, but maybe being able to kick it down to 1024 x 576 (and maybe even 640 x 360) would be a good option.
 
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New build up for today, mostly resolution and UI work

@Kai, I got the 1024 x 576 option showing up but you need to make sure it's usable in your monitor settings. Couldn't get 640 x 360 to show up but if you change your windows resolution to it before opening the game it should stay.

http://dt-engine.com/?p=212

 
The resolution settings helped me get up to 60fps, so that was nice. Caused the level geometry to get all whacky, though, which doesn't really bother me at this point in development.
 
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Hey I remember you, you've made a lot of progress! I'll try to give you some feedback...
  • You're probably going to need to get an animation guy sooner rather than later, 'cause it's probably better to work in tandem with an animator when making a fighter. If you can find a way to make placeholder animations, whether that be with visible hitboxes or whatever than you should start doing that.
  • You may not need 6 buttons, street fighter has 6 but a bunch of the normals ended up being filler. If you're working on a small budgets having less moves to animate might be good, and it would let you focus on making the remaining moves useful.
  • Not a fan of the combo system. I would much prefer a chain system to the pseudo link system that you have.
  • You gotta differentiate yourself from sf4; you don't have the budget to outdo the AAA fighters, but you can find a niche for yourself if you do stuff that isn't being done currently. I for one would love to see a fast game with tons of movement options and reasonably easy execution, like kof but not as intimidating. There may be other options or niches to explore, and you're going to want to start thinking about them.
  • I don't totally understand how your double tap system works but as it doesn't let you cancel on whiff or block it's fine with me. I hate baiting a dp only to have the opponent make it safe.
  • Speaking of which, I don't like the double tap input, seems prone to input errors. I would much rather have it set to HP+MP.
  • Do you have a game design doc? If not I recommend starting one.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Grangach!

Grangach said:
You're probably going to need to get an animation guy sooner rather than later, 'cause it's probably better to work in tandem with an animator when making a fighter. If you can find a way to make placeholder animations, whether that be with visible hitboxes or whatever than you should start doing that.

Yeah I'm still in search of an animator to join the team. There's so much that I still need to do on my end as far as programming and game design that I'm still kinda holding out on really seeking one out. I could prototype out more characters using hit boxes like you said, but I'm not completely decided on how the gameplay will feel, so it's much easier for me to just maintain a single character while figuring that stuff out.

Grangach said:
You may not need 6 buttons, street fighter has 6 but a bunch of the normals ended up being filler. If you're working on a small budgets having less moves to animate might be good, and it would let you focus on making the remaining moves useful.

I've thought about this quite a bit but one of the main points of the game is going to be variety of moves used in combos by using the 6 button layout in addition to having a lot of command normals. I agree with your sentiment about some normals becoming filler, but I will be making sure that every normal has some type of purpose, whether it be comboability, movement options, frame data, collision boxes, or cancel options. That said it's not gonna be a requirement for every command normal to exist, if I can't get a move behaving fun enough I will axe it no problem.

Grangach said:
Not a fan of the combo system. I would much prefer a chain system to the pseudo link system that you have.

To each their own. I'm digging it these days and I'm not a fan of chain systems.

Grangach said:
You gotta differentiate yourself from sf4; you don't have the budget to outdo the AAA fighters, but you can find a niche for yourself if you do stuff that isn't being done currently.

Eh I'm not worried about it. The project is more about trying to make a game that I would enjoy playing (I have high standards) and less about trying to do something new. I think there's plenty of room for improvement and innovation in game systems even if they've been done before.

Grangach said:
I for one would love to see a fast game with tons of movement options and reasonably easy execution, like kof but not as intimidating.

That's kinda what I'm going for right now.

Grangach said:
I don't totally understand how your double tap system works but as it doesn't let you cancel on whiff or block it's fine with me. I hate baiting a dp only to have the opponent make it safe.

It's executed by inputting the same button as the move to be cancelled, during the freeze frames of that move hitting. And yeah you can't do it on block for specials only, normals can be hit or block.

Grangach said:
Speaking of which, I don't like the double tap input, seems prone to input errors. I would much rather have it set to HP+MP.

I'm pretty sold on it to be honest. I think it's prone to input errors when players are double tapping in the traditional sense, but there really shouldn't be a need to use that with the leniency buffer being so high. It's something I've seen and noticed when I first implemented it but it's pretty much execution error and I'm okay with that.

Grangach said:
Do you have a game design doc? If not I recommend starting one.

I do
 
No build up but here's some new footage with an air DTC

 
New build finally up!

@Grangach I decided to take your advice a bit on the chain system and try it out. Some lights can chain into some mediums, and those mediums can chain into some heavies. Heavies chained into cannot be special cancelled but can be DTCed, mediums can be special cancelled. I didn't change framedata too much other than for some of the heavy attacks, so the links I had in place are still there for the most part. I really like it now, opens up a lot more combo options and expression.

In general, the changes are that I implemented proximity blocking, added new move chaining functionality, added an air DTC, added some new music, adjusted hit freeze settings, move animation adjustments as always.

http://dt-engine.com/?p=223

 
Also got some "matches" in the other day as well
 
Quick video up for today, been working on some pretty big performance optimizations. New build will be up tomorrow.

 
willpower said:
been working on some pretty big performance optimizations[/MEDIA]
Will that equal tangible benefits for my FPS, or is it more like, backend stuff that we wouldn't notice?
 
Kai said:
Will that equal tangible benefits for my FPS, or is it more like, backend stuff that we wouldn't notice?

If you run motion blur on, you should definitely see an increase in overall framerate. If you don't, you shouldn't see much increase in resting fps, but when a lot of action is happening it should be much more consistent and smoother.
 
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Heyyyy, this is looking pretty cool!

I haven't played it but looking at the vids, one suggestion I'd recommend is putting less screenshake on hitstop. From just watching, it's kind of distracting that it shakes so much and it'd take away from the impact if you added a bigger screenshake on stronger moves.

Good luck!
 
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Thanks man! Yeah right now the screen shake is just based on the freeze frames, so even short freezes have some shake. Maybe I'll add a minimum cut off so only longer ones apply any shake. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
Hey, willpower. I saw your thread a couple of days ago and decided to give this demo a shot after watching the videos. I am still working on the canceling with Double-Tap and learning the commands. I like the experience so far.
 
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I like this. Cancelling with the Double-Tap is weird, but I guess it adds something new to the table. Can't wait to see how this goes
 
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SkullMan said:
Hey, willpower. I saw your thread a couple of days ago and decided to give this demo a shot after watching the videos. I am still working on the canceling with Double-Tap and learning the commands. I like the experience so far.

Awesome man thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Mc.Rad said:
I like this. Cancelling with the Double-Tap is weird, but I guess it adds something new to the table. Can't wait to see how this goes

Yeah it definitely takes some getting used to, especially if you're used to double tapping already. Thanks for taking a look!
 
No build today but some quick footage. Been working on my logic for cancelling moves, making sure they come out on the first frame they can (instantly, rather than a frame later). Also swapped collision detection from before move logic (beginning of frame) to after move logic (end of frame).

Also added the depth of field back in and adjusted the camera a bit.

 
I'd limit the ammount of fireballs allowed on screen at once. As it stands, I can have one of each strength out at the same time.
 
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Prince of Dragons said:
I'd limit the ammount of fireballs allowed on screen at once. As it stands, I can have one of each strength out at the same time.

It was a mainly a buff I gave them since I removed the DTC cancelling from fireballs (which allowed for multiple but it was pretty derpy), but I still have to see how they work in matches before I decide to do that.
 
New build up, been about 2 weeks since I posted one. Some new gameplay mechanics added to incentivise using different normals and some UX stuff.

http://dt-engine.com/?p=258

 
Some block string footage
 
Been a while since I updated, been busy with the holidays so haven't been doing much lately. I've mostly been working more on the input system, making sure it works properly at framerates that are lower and higher than 60 fps, fixed an issue with plinking causing DTC sometimes, input gets handled a frame sooner than before (big change, feels much better). Build will be up sometime this week, here's a quick video.

 
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Another new video, build up soon.
 
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