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DylanTubularK

Help making a fighting game

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If this is in the wrong forum, please move it, I'm rather new to Dustloop and I wasn't sure if this was the place to put it.

Hiya. I'm DylanTubularK, or Dylan, if you prefer. I don't care.

I'm a grade 10 student who is interested in competitive fighting games, and recently had an interest to make my own.

I've documented a majority of what I'd like in the game, but I realized I have no talent or kknowledge on how to make my own fighting game.

I have a friend who agreed to make music, but I have nobody to draw art assets or even MAKE the game.

This is rather depressing, if you couldn't guess.

If you want to help, you can add me on Skype at DylanTubularK, or PM me, or whatever.

I guess you might want to hear about the game too, right? Well, https://drive.google.com/?usp=chrome_app#folders/0BwhGJDWnbTAzZF9yRlNpdlc3YzA here is the documentation.

The games title is A Brave New World, and is based on the conflicts in Feudal Japan, people who like Sengoku Basara or Samurai Warriors will see the resemblance.

The main characters are Eiji Takaya (Written as Takaya Eiji, due to last names coming first), a traveling samurai who is afraid of magic, due to being unable to use it. Lei Chan (Written as Chan Lei), a young girl given the gift of magic, who turns out to be of the Nobility. Hiro Sanada (Written as Sanada Hiro), a man unable to live up to his cousin, Sanada Yukimura, and constantly doubts his self due to being inferior to Yukimura in every way. Edo Momoji (Written as Momoji Edo), a large man affected by the missionaries, having converted to Christianity, he seeks to prove that not all Christians are terrible people like the rest of the Japanese think, but due to not knowing how to go about showing that not all Christians are terrible people, he does it by beating the idea into people. Lastly of our main characters, we have Alexander (currently missing a last name) the Third, a missionary who is tricked into believing his God is somewhere in Japan, however, will end up unsealing a great evil, believing it to be his God, and the great evil will possess him.

There are many more characters you will meet, but not all have story yet, however, many characters are based off of real people, for example Oda Rin is A Brave New Worlds female counterpart to Oda Nobunaga.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that someone may help me in some way.

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Just saying, a story about a traveling samurai, a magic girl, someone in the shadow of better family, a religious fanatic, and someone unwittingly unleashing a demon/evil god and becoming possessed is not "A Brave New World" in the slightest. Nor is a feudal-period fighting game.

Also, you have someone doing music. Great, but what are you doing? You mention not doing art assets, and not "making the game" (which probably includes the technical aspects like coding, testing, debugging, etc), but where does that leave you? Are you a supervisor then? But, how can you supervise with little-to-no idea about how the inner workings function? And who is handling casting for characters? Or will there be no voices? Is the music guy in charge of that, and likely the sound effects too?

I wish you the best of luck on what you want to do, don't mistake that, but you need to sit back, analyze what you want, and organize things better.

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Can you give more info on the story? Things like setting, plot, etc.

I think that for now you should try Mugen for your little project. Best of luck to you though.

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Just saying, a story about a traveling samurai, a magic girl, someone in the shadow of better family, a religious fanatic, and someone unwittingly unleashing a demon/evil god and becoming possessed is not "A Brave New World" in the slightest. Nor is a feudal-period fighting game.

Also, you have someone doing music. Great, but what are you doing? You mention not doing art assets, and not "making the game" (which probably includes the technical aspects like coding, testing, debugging, etc), but where does that leave you? Are you a supervisor then? But, how can you supervise with little-to-no idea about how the inner workings function? And who is handling casting for characters? Or will there be no voices? Is the music guy in charge of that, and likely the sound effects too?

I wish you the best of luck on what you want to do, don't mistake that, but you need to sit back, analyze what you want, and organize things better.

I'll be a supervisor-y thing I guess. I can't do a lot on my own, but I understand a lot about fighting games. And the title will make sense with the story.

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Can you give more info on the story? Things like setting, plot, etc.

I think that for now you should try Mugen for your little project. Best of luck to you though.

Using Mugen is a no. I don't like Mugen very much in the slightest.

Setting, like I said, is Feudal Japan. I haven't come up with much of a plot yet, but if you want to know what I have so far I'll make another post in a bit, I'm just playing some games with the musician atm.

Thanks for the reply :)

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I think you need to learn how to code. Nobody's going to want to code your game if they're just doing everything you tell them to, it's like being a translator. I can't say I know what the best environment is for creating a fighting game, but if you learn C++, you'll be able to learn anything else.

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Using Mugen is a no. I don't like Mugen very much in the slightest.

I wouldn't knock off Mugen so easily. People make custom characters all the time for it, sprite work, animation, all of the things that you seem not to be well-versed in. It may not be the most ideal thing but it could help to get your mind around the amount of work that would have to go into a project like that. One of the things I've constantly heard from the guys making Skullgirls and Fearless Night in regards to fighting games is "what kind of engine is it using?" It's one thing to have characters and stories, but what's going to make it run?

Celerity makes a good point as well.

I think it's great you have an idea and want to bring it to life. Just need to know what you're trying to do and be able to convince others you actually have the pieces or the knowledge to build and not just an idea.

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I wouldn't knock off Mugen so easily. People make custom characters all the time for it, sprite work, animation, all of the things that you seem not to be well-versed in. It may not be the most ideal thing but it could help to get your mind around the amount of work that would have to go into a project like that. One of the things I've constantly heard from the guys making Skullgirls and Fearless Night in regards to fighting games is "what kind of engine is it using?" It's one thing to have characters and stories, but what's going to make it run?

Celerity makes a good point as well.

I think it's great you have an idea and want to bring it to life. Just need to know what you're trying to do and be able to convince others you actually have the pieces or the knowledge to build and not just an idea.

I said no Mugen because of the fact I don't know if you can add new mechanics into Mugen.

And I'd more than willing to program if somebody would teach me, or even give me a template, or something.

Thanks for the replies though, means a lot.

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I think this is honestly in the wrong website altogether, but I'll give you some things to think about:

Do you think you're the only one like yourself? You know, having an idea for a fighting game? There's at least 1,000 other people like you (including myself). You should be glad that the idea came to you while you're still in high school, but just consider that you still have a long ways before even the idea of your game is complete (there's a word for what you're doing, too: design document. Mark Cerny talks about it in an interview with EA's Rich Hilleman).

What else can you contribute? It's nice that you have this idea, but it's hard to convince others with talents that you need if you just appoint yourself creative director and do nothing else. I would take Celerity's advice and learn some programming. You should also at least consider being some kind of writer for your game if you have a clear idea of what you want the story, setting, characters, etc to be.

Where do you plan to find talent? This is a hard one, I know, but just think about the elements you need to complete the game and what you want them to look, feel, and sound like. For example if you find an artist on some website and you really like their art style, maybe you could commission them to do some character designs.

This thread is probably going to be closed because it's essentially blogging. I wish you good luck on your ventures.

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I think this is honestly in the wrong website altogether, but I'll give you some things to think about:

Do you think you're the only one like yourself? You know, having an idea for a fighting game? There's at least 1,000 other people like you (including myself). You should be glad that the idea came to you while you're still in high school, but just consider that you still have a long ways before even the idea of your game is complete (there's a word for what you're doing, too: design document. Mark Cerny talks about it in an interview with EA's Rich Hilleman).

What else can you contribute? It's nice that you have this idea, but it's hard to convince others with talents that you need if you just appoint yourself creative director and do nothing else. I would take Celerity's advice and learn some programming. You should also at least consider being some kind of writer for your game if you have a clear idea of what you want the story, setting, characters, etc to be.

Where do you plan to find talent? This is a hard one, I know, but just think about the elements you need to complete the game and what you want them to look, feel, and sound like. For example if you find an artist on some website and you really like their art style, maybe you could commission them to do some character designs.

This thread is probably going to be closed because it's essentially blogging. I wish you good luck on your ventures.

I know I'm not the only one like myself.

And I can contribute to balance and design, as I said earlier. I don't have a lot of skills but I can play fighting games well, thus I know how they should work.

I would learn programming but I have no where to find out how.

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I would learn programming but I have no where to find out how.

I don't know where you live, nor do I want to know, but some universities (especially places like community college's) offer the ability to take individual courses without having to apply to the institution itself. Many such schools will have basic computer science courses, which will teach you how to use stuff like C++ or java.

If you're planning to go to college anyways, you could just wait two years and then make sure you take those computer science courses. Use the intermediate time to get a good grasp on your concepts for the game.

If none of that works, you could teach yourself via a published guide, the likes of which can probably be found in a library, or even online.

I second you learning some programming if you're going to do this. Since you'll be working in a small group, it's best if you have some idea what the programmers need to do in their part. That way you'll be less likely to make demands that seem reasonable to you, but not to them. Even better, it'll let you lend them a hand, keeping you a proactive team member long after most of the game's design aspects have been set in stone.

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Skimming over the google docs, jesus christ. It seems you're trying to splice mechanics from games you've played (Skullgirls/KoF/3S/and a whole hell of a lot of Guilty Gear). I won't dissuade you from using other games as 'inspiration,' but for fuck sake, at least try to call them something different and cite the inspiration (you did this for the assists, but not for Black/Gold characters and Roman Cancels and FRC's?)

Another thing that almost made me tear my hair out was reading one of the character descriptions (which there are some cool/nifty ideas in there): no anti-airs. Why would you do this? In the crazy-ass, airdasher, assist-based game, you decided to not give a character an anti-air. At least give him some kind of special to control air space. Otherwise you have a character that can just be jumped in on all the time and won't be able to do anything about it.

The 8 button thing also irks me, just because you could probably accomplish the same thing with just six (one button throw, burst and OD are same command [just like the game you borrowed it from], taunt is an entirely separate button altogether, making certain normals that would have otherwise needed a different button into command normals, etc.).

And then 3 OTG's sounds crazy (unless only certain moves can OTG like in Melty Blood/Guilty Gear) and then you're thinking of making the cap 15? Do you just want people to make combo movies with this game?

I don't mean to discourage you too much. It's probably a good thing that you came here to get some input rather than just make a totally broken game. You should maybe look into finding some kind of buddy that is better than you at fighting games so he can look over this stuff.

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I know I'm not the only one like myself.

And I can contribute to balance and design, as I said earlier. I don't have a lot of skills but I can play fighting games well, thus I know how they should work.

I would learn programming but I have no where to find out how.

I'd recommend taking some classes. If you're a quick learner, then you should try getting some books and work towards certifications. Ideas are indeed a good thing, but that was my point earlier, you're not really contributing, you're just saying "here's my idea, make it for me".

As for balance and design contributions, how would you contribute if you don't know their inner workings? There's a lot of things that go into balance, even from the "naked eye" perspective of someone just looking at it with no knowledge. Not even immediately concerning programming, you'd need to decide on how long a move takes to start up, how long it is active, how much recovery it has, how much priority it has, hitboxes/hurtboxes, and properties of moves. To properly focus on balance, you'd need to not only consider how this works for the current character for each of their moves, but also how this stacks up against any other characters and their own moves. And, again, this is just visual things to consider, you haven't even gotten into the programming behind it with this consideration yet.

Designs would be easier I suppose, but you also need to keep in mind any memory consumptions these designs you have might be, how hard it is for the people doing the work on it, how big the size is, how natural these designs work together. Things like that.

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I see this is going nowhere, so could you show me a place to LEARN how to program the game itself?

I'm more than willing to learn, but I don't know where to start.

And if anybody wants to do the art, that'd be great.

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I see this is going nowhere, so could you show me a place to LEARN how to program the game itself?

I'm more than willing to learn, but I don't know where to start.

And if anybody wants to do the art, that'd be great.

http://www.randygaul.net/category/beginner/

And the book: C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata

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Rough draft everything before the actual programming. Get character biographies, artworks, plotlines, features, and other unique traits to the game done on paper first. Be nitpicky with your own work, and improve on it from there on, and keep adding to it. Once you have it all practically blueprinted, you will be ready for the actual programming, and there are tons of useful programs on Google to learn off of. It's still going to be hard work regardless, no matter how much experience you have with this kind of project.

But once you have a firm grip on what you are doing, your only limitation is how far you want to take it.

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Rough draft everything before the actual programming. Get character biographies, artworks, plotlines, features, and other unique traits to the game done on paper first. Be nitpicky with your own work, and improve on it from there on, and keep adding to it. Once you have it all practically blueprinted, you will be ready for the actual programming, and there are tons of useful programs on Google to learn off of. It's still going to be hard work regardless, no matter how much experience you have with this kind of project.

But once you have a firm grip on what you are doing, your only limitation is how far you want to take it.

I've done a lot of that, I've written all about all the characters I want and all the characters I will be adding post release, if there is a release.

I will learn how to program, but just to ask you all, looking at the documents I presented, would you be interested in playing such a fighting game? If not, what's wrong with the ideas? Thanks in advance.

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I've done a lot of that, I've written all about all the characters I want and all the characters I will be adding post release, if there is a release.

I will learn how to program, but just to ask you all, looking at the documents I presented, would you be interested in playing such a fighting game? If not, what's wrong with the ideas? Thanks in advance.

1. It sounds overly complicated, too many systems.

2. Get rid of FRCs ("blue" roman cancels).

3. I hate the idea of random crits.

4. Overall, I would suggest sticking to more of a SNK style of fighter, because what you're doing sounds a little too broken. Focus less on allowing huge combos, and more on good ground movement and defensive options.

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1. It sounds overly complicated, too many systems.

2. Get rid of FRCs ("blue" roman cancels).

3. I hate the idea of random crits.

4. Overall, I would suggest sticking to more of a SNK style of fighter, because what you're doing sounds a little too broken. Focus less on allowing huge combos, and more on good ground movement and defensive options.

1. It's kind of meant to be a complicated fighting game

2. Why?

3. I... I don't see how that's relevant. It's meant to make the game hype.

4. Uh. Why? What's wrong with long combos? I'd say the longest possible combo without crits, theoretically, would be 30-ish hits.

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1. It's kind of meant to be a complicated fighting game

2. Why?

3. I... I don't see how that's relevant. It's meant to make the game hype.

4. Uh. Why? What's wrong with long combos? I'd say the longest possible combo without crits, theoretically, would be 30-ish hits.

Crits aren't hype, they're annoying. You don't want an important match to come down to luck. And 1f timings (which you described all of your FRC being) are just an arbitrary execution barrier. Overall, it just seems you don't know what you want from the game engine. You say you want the game to be complex, but complex fighting games are not derived purely from the system, or from having lots of ways to create broken combos. It's the dynamics of the characters and especially their defensive options that make for a deep fighter.

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Crits aren't hype, they're annoying. You don't want an important match to come down to luck. And 1f timings (which you described all of your FRC being) are just an arbitrary execution barrier. Overall, it just seems you don't know what you want from the game engine. You say you want the game to be complex, but complex fighting games are not derived purely from the system, or from having lots of ways to create broken combos. It's the dynamics of the characters and especially their defensive options that make for a deep fighter.

Important matches come down to luck A LOT. And SSF4AE has taught me 1f links are okay. Also, I plan on making hit scaling a lot, so a 30 hit combo would do like 20% of your health, AND would be execution heavy. And there are A LOT of deep fighters with neither of those things.

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If I may add to what Celerity is saying, look at UNIB (Under Night In-Birth). That game had silly long combos, and a lot of systems that enabled long combos (ways to gain lots of meter, odd gravity, etc.) to the point that most combos lasted 20 or so seconds. It suffered because of it. The game got vastly improved after all that got scaled back, with the makers specifically citing SNK's fighters as an inspiration for some of the changes.

SNK's games are a really good template to use. They're a good middle ground between Street Fighter and Arc System Work's fighting games. They keep a focus on fundamentals while allowing some level of flash in combos and creative systems added onto the base gameplay.

Important matches come down to luck A LOT.

I cannot disagree with this more. Fighting games, at a sufficiently high level, remove quite a bit of luck from the equation. Someone dropping a kill combo or making a bad hitconfirm isn't luck, it was poor execution. What about playing footsies, proper spacing, or baiting reversals is luck?

If nothing else, purposely putting MORE luck based elements in does nothing for the game. Look at how bad adding random luck was for Halo: Reach with the bloom mechanic. Or how even in CCG's, where random draws are a built in factor, part of the game is building a good deck that minimizes the luck factor because it can hold its own no matter what you draw.

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Important matches come down to luck A LOT. And SSF4AE has taught me 1f links are okay. Also, I plan on making hit scaling a lot, so a 30 hit combo would do like 20% of your health, AND would be execution heavy. And there are A LOT of deep fighters with neither of those things.

SF4 1f links are actually 2f. There's a large difference.

And well...you asked for constructive criticism, in a fighting game forum where people know a lot more about fighting games than you do. If you choose to argue and ignore advice, that's up to you. Just remember, as an independent developer, you're marketing to the Dustloop player more than the Marvel player.

Edit: And yes, Rifle is saying good things.

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