/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

looks pretty cool, can you upload some footage?

>>19555

Forgot to comment that it's also nice that the AI is not braindead and it launches forward you, that's fun.

>>19555

Thanks! That's all really good feedback

That animation for when she takes damage is really charming

Nice, I liked it.

I personally think that the stamina mechanic doesn't work well in your game, Dark Souls protag and enemies have some weight, while your player character feels way lighter and faster, the sudden freeze in my attacks feels weird to me, imagine that it would be a huge cockblock in an frenzied combat with multiple enemies. Video related, I think it is a good basis and inspiration for your game.

But, with or without stamina, it would be cool if you developed some combos, since you don't seem to have a problem with your animations.

Those sprites really look like Fez's.

No offense

>>19614

>Nice, I liked it.

Thank you!

>I personally think that the stamina mechanic doesn't work well in your game, Dark Souls protag and enemies have some weight, while your player character feels way lighter and faster, the sudden freeze in my attacks feels weird to me, imagine that it would be a huge cockblock in an frenzied combat with multiple enemies.

I see your point, and I think it is a good one. It is very jarring to just not able to attack any more. Even I feel a little confused when that happens. I will remove the stamina and see how it changes things.

> Video related, I think it is a good basis and inspiration for your game.

Excellent, I only peripherally knew about these games. I will get a copy to see if there are ideas that can contribute.

>Those sprites really look like Fez's.

I've heard this before, but at this point I am kind of blind to it. Do you mind elaborating? I can see similarities in the color scheme, but do the sprites themselves have a similar style? The character in fez looked like a little white blobby guy to me. Or is it the environment?

Thanks for your solid feedback.

>>19618

Maybe attacks should just slow down as the stamina bar depletes? Instead of suddenly going from SMACKSMACKSMACK to nothing, go from SMACKSMACKSMACK to SMACK SMACK SMACK to SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

>>19626

This is a fucking good idea!! Last night I changed it so it depletes much slower, and refills slower, and also modifies the amount of damage you do. So instead of being a binary can/can't attack, it is more of a gradient. This plus what you suggest I think will be really good. Thanks you beautiful bastards :D

>>19634

Remember to refill it a bit faster once it's been refilling for a bit without being emptied more, and if you're not moving.

>>19649

Also a great idea. here are the updates I just made:

- The duration between attacks now increases as your energy falls, and decreases as it rises.

- The speed of the attack animation does likewise

- Less energy is used for attack, and it replenishes slower

- The amount that enemies are knocked back increases with the energy level

- The damage you do increases with the energy level

- over a period of 4 seconds since its last usage, the base rate of energy regeneration doubles

Please, try it out and see what you think. It can definitely still user refinement. Also, use O to artifically raise the "cap" on the energy, so you can see how it feels at high energy levels.

Thanks!

>>19656

The game always freeze when I die.

>maximum stamina defined by the amount of health you have left

That's interesting.

I didn't pay too much attention last time, what defined the maximum stamina in the past version?

>>19663

>The game always freeze when I die.

same here

>>19663

>>19665

>The game always freeze when I die.

Thats not good :( Do you see any errors in the console? How much RAM do you have? And what browser are you using? If you can give me this info it would be reallllly helpful. Thanks.

>I didn't pay too much attention last time, what defined the maximum stamina in the past version?

When I initially posted this I was experimenting with a normal health bar, and the amount of stamina was fixed. Some of the suggestions here helped me collapse a few systems into just the one.

>>19550

What would you estimate the total dev time of this was?

>>19666

8gb RAM and I use Pale Moon as browser.

>>19681

That's hard to say. You can look at the github commit history for some detail (started on June 29 2014). But until recently I have only been working on it after I get off work, for an hour or so a day. I'd say very roughly around 500-750 hours?

>>19685

Thank you. I'll test it out on Firefox and Pale moon specifically.

Been trying it out for some minutes. I have not yet explored the whole map, but I think this game genuinely has potential.

>Spritework is extremely cute. Love when the player character (Frauki?) does the dive attack and her eyes become wide like she was angry. I don't like the up + attack animation as much as the others though, it looks like she is posing fabulously instead of launching her sword up in the air

>Too many square grey brick tiles get boring after a while, but I guess it's just for the demo

>Combat system seems like it allows for some funny combos, like forward attack + backwards flip, but still needs to get better ways to chain special attacks like the dive attack and upwards attack. Overall it feels nice, but it could feel nicer although I can't pinpoint how.

>Upwards attack is extremely difficult to pull off, for some reason it seems like it's not really responsive. It takes a while to detect you are pressing upwards so you have to wait one second with the up arrow pressed before pressing attack, otherwise you just get a regular attack

>Upwards attack acts as a second jump if you have only jumped once, but it doesn't if you have jumped twice already. You could make some sick trick jumps by enabling triple jump with upwards attack

>Judging by how the damned flying jellyfish are dodging my attacks, I think the standard attack doesn't really cover the area the sprite shows

>Talking about these, there is not much you can do to defend against them, just waiting for them to get close to your aggro area and praying your upwards attack damages them before they damage you. Approaching them aggressively is an error due to the not-very-responsive upwards attack (it is specially difficult to pull off mid-air) and the fact that there is no way to dodge while you are on air

>What about air dashes using X to dodge attacks while airborne? It will make your game more cuhrayzee

>I feel like the stamina system is too restrictive. You are just a few attacks away from becoming absolutely vulnerable, and considering your only defense is either attacking before they attack you or dashing behind them, it's like you are almost bound to take hits. You could consider adding some stamina-less blocking system

>The other thing that makes dodging difficult is the abysmal performance of the game. No attacks are telegraphed so you can only rely on crazy reaction times, but it's difficult when the framerate is jumping around this much. It's probably because it's written in JS, but it's constantly dropping from 60 to <30 intermittently. Mind you, my computer is fairly shit so YMMV, and V8 is probably more optimized than the Firefox JS engine I'm using to test this, so you could get around this by packing your game with Blink/V8 or simply by compiling your JS to Java or Python through the many available tools for tasks like this, such as Mozilla Rhino.

>It is weird that gravity under water is reduced, but you still can't swim upwards. You can get trapped in certain zones when this happens, but I guess it is intentional.

>There is a zone where you get carried by the water's force, and in the end there is a door. Walls in that zone work weird (you can jump just below the leftmost enemy's roof and you will access a hidden platform), and I have gone as far as falling to the bottom of the map

>There isn't much sense in the distribution of the map, but I guess it's because it's a test map.

>Your screenshots are different from what I played. Is it normal that there is only a stamina bar on my end instead of a health bar and a stamina bar?

>Those red balls around the map are confusing. They look like they could be something important since they don't look integrated into the scenario, but you can't pick them up. Is it normal?

>After an heroing in front of the red crocodile thing, the game crashed. The debug console says TypeError: this.music[key].stop is not a function1 AudioController.js:90:8. Using latest Firefox.

>I tried going behind the start place's door and I found out I am unable to jump through the only vertical tunnel. Is this intended or do I need to git gud?

I am looking forward to this game. Which framework are you using?

>>19708

>Which framework are you using?

Nevermind, I just assumed you were using a framework because of the debugger, but I just looked at the source code and apparently it's just a random plugin, lol.

>>19708

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. It is very encouraging.

>needs to get better ways to chain special attacks

Combos are great, I definitely need to add ways that explicity transition between different moves.

>Upwards attack is extremely difficult to pull off

This is very strange... It might have to do with the lag you are experiencing. I will load this up in Firefox on my old laptop and see if I can reproduce this.

>You could make some sick trick jumps by enabling triple jump with upwards attack

Cool idea. The only problem with that is that a lot of the world right now is built with very specific heights in mind to gate access. So having a third jump possible would change that. I will add it to see how it feels, and then determine if I should modify the level to accommodate this.

>the standard attack doesn't really cover the area the sprite shows

This might be due to the lag. Every frame of the animation has a special geometry defined that covers the space of the sword. Or, perhaps the feel of it is off. I will set the geometry to render, and check the animations frame by frame to see if there is a section of the sword that is not covered.

>there is not much you can do to defend against them

Their behavior currently, is if they see you they will slowly move away from you. But if you get too close, they will charge past you to get away. This unresponsive upwards attack is worrying to me, I need to get to the bottom of that. Because I think as you experienced here, it makes such fights incredibly obnoxious.

>What about air dashes using X to dodge attacks while airborne?

That's a great idea :D. I will do something with that.

>I feel like the stamina system is too restrictive

Part of what I am aiming for (and I'm not there yet), is for the stamina system to force you to think and act carefully. So, balancing your aggression with avoidance to rebuild stamina. Being good at the combat ideally involves a knowledge of the behavior of the enemies, an expertise with your own moves, and a tactical thinking about when to attack and when to avoid. if the stamina system feels restrictive, it definitely means that there is a problem. But as for how to solve it, that will take some thinking and experimentation.

>the abysmal performance of the game

This has been a serious thorn in my side. I am working on a contribution to Phaser (the framework I am using) that should help reduce the amount of memory used, and the severity of the garbage collection. I also plan to eventually package this with node webkit as an executable (which uses V8). I will also look into Rhino, and see if that will be technically capable of compiling the game. I often regret choosing JS to write this game.

>you can't swim upwards

It's Metroid/Mega Man X rules, haha. I will be careful to prevent any scenario where you can get trapped (in ways I don't want)

>There is a zone...

You have reached the end of the known world :D That area is the one I am currently working on, so the collision geometry is broken still.

>There isn't much sense in the distribution of the map

Can you elaborate on this? One thing to note, is that you currently spawn about 2/3 of the way through the first section of the map. This is because I am building out this section. So in your play through you did not see the first 2/3.

>Your screenshots are different from what I played.

Yes, after I posted that I refactored how the health / energy / power system works. So now there is just energy (stamina) and the cap functions as your health.

>Those red balls around the map are confusing.

Sorry! Those are from an enemy I am developing that is segmented. For some reason parts of it are laying around the map.

>the game crashed

Will be fixed promptly.

>I am unable to jump through the only vertical tunnel

You're actually meant to be going the other way, climbing up to that initial door. Then, the house like area is the way forward. But protip, it is possible to get back up there. If you jump while rolling, your jump will actually be faster and higher than normal. So if you roll then jump up, you can get onto the first ledge ;)

>>19718

>One thing to note, is that you currently spawn about 2/3 of the way through the first section of the map. This is because I am building out this section. So in your play through you did not see the first 2/3.

That actually makes sense. I mentioned it because I thought it didn't make much sense having a fully furnished house in the middle of what looks like ancient ruins without an explanation as to what was that doing there, and the passage under it looked very for the sake of it.

However, there are some paths that seem to lead to nowhere or simply lead you to the same place through a different entrance, but they are too short to be considered a Path A or Path B problem. Will you put some collectibles/coins on these? It could make exploration much more rewarding.

By the way, the dive attack is also difficult to pull off in some situations (for example, when inside the water tunnels, where it's important to pull off unless you want to take a hit by the seaweed thingie). It probably has to do with lag making it difficult to get your keys detected, but I don't know.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you have added some new areas today. They are still under construction but I like what I am seeing.

Will you add new weapons/armors/special attacks to the final game or will it have no progression features? Both Dank Souls and Mega Man X featured progression in different ways, but I am not sure if your game will.

Also, who is the girl supposed to be? She dresses like she was some sort of professional athlete.

>>19754

>implement combo system

Fix'd

Game is freezing on me sometimes right before I kill the first flying jellyfish.

The console says TypeError: this.game is null1 phaser.min.js:25:687, and just before that this is the last message "Enemy is taking 1.5675364065456725, now at -0.9483037609286386/1"1 Enemy.js:209:5

>>19753

>Frog girl

Nigga, that's kawaii.

>>19753

>Frauki is a "frog person".

So tongue attack is a go? Pls say yes.

>>19754

>I liked the "souls" system that you added, but... it's too punishing for the beginners players

You're right, this is a problem. My thinking on the problem is twofold. First, I see the player dying a lot as part of the game. Second, to diffuse the monotony of playing the same section again and again, and also to reduce the "stuck" feeling of not being good enough, is to have many branching paths. Each would have a different composition of enemies. There would be some longer paths with more enemies who are weaker, and some paths with fewer, stronger enemies.

Your solution is also very interesting. Perhaps instead of placing enemies explicitly, I could just place spawn points, and then dynamically generate the enemy composition as the player approaches. Let me do some thinking on this.

>when I instinctively press both buttons the attack doesn't work.

Yes ha the same thing still happens to me. Perhaps what I can do is if the player is in the air, and the down button press happens in a very small window after the attack, the front attack will be cancelled and the smash attack will start.

Did you have something explicit in mind for the combo system? I'm interested in how you see it working.

>>19757

Thanks for reporting that, it's really important to find those bugs. What browser are you using?

>>19767

Consider her energy sword her tongue ;)

>>19773

>What browser are you using?

Latest Firefox.

I tried to crash the game again and I found out the "this.game is null" message appeared before the "Enemy is taking..." message.

However, in both situations the particle message didn't appear. Perhaps this is related or not.

I like it, but I noticed everything being very block based and a distinct lack of ramps/slopes. Was that a conscious choice for your level design?

Also, if you don't mind answering, what sort of collision detection method are you using? Some of the hit boxes feel a bit wonky and the jumps are a little finicky.

>>19806

I've considered adding slopes, but they offer very little gameplay value for the amount of effort involves. The collision system is AABB with an invisible layer of collidable tiles. Internally it uses a seperation function to resolve overlaps. I personally dislike this system, and have considered writing something more precise. With a little finagling it seems to work ok.

Can you expand a bit on what feels wonky, and in what way the jumps are finicky? I love detailed feedback on such things, because I have played the game so much while building it that a lot of the quirks have become invisible to me. Thanks.

>>19843

Shit, Step #4 was supposed to say step to the RIGHT (hence the right arrow). That's what I get for being a chucklefuck.

>>19840

At the top of the map, there are a few pillars that require really fiddly, pixel perfect jumps. I personally find them sort of annoying, even if its one of those "secret jumping puzzle" difficulty things. having a bit of buffer on smaller platforms can go a long way to game-feel. I've also noticed that the bottom of the character controller must be a circle (or at least rounded) since its possible to sort of "roll"/slide off square ledges if you slowly tap your way to the edge/have a bit too much momentum at the end.

I also find that the distances to get over some vertical walls are often just a tad bit short if you don't perfectly time your jump from a standing position thanks to the arc decay of the jump.

Perhaps I have to git gud, but hitting enemies without getting hit back or comboed to death is quite a challenge that feels just a little frustrating. There are times where I completely miss my strike, and the monster just immediately punishes me for it despite it seeming like I was in range. Hell, there were times where I hit the monster, had it fly back, and then it would just rocket right back into me. Unless I'm supposed to roll after each attack like some sort of 2d K-Style simulator, this is sort of silly to me.

It's mostly little, niggling things that just take me out of the game. Other than that, keep it up.

>>19845

>At the top of the map, there are a few pillars that require really fiddly, pixel perfect jumps.

Actually, they are quite easy to get right.

Protip: they are platforms, not blocks. You can jump from right below them and you will come up on top without falling back down.

>Unless I'm supposed to roll after each attack like some sort of 2d K-Style simulator

That's more or less what I did while testing out the game, but certain zones don't seem to be roll-friendly.

>>19853

>platforms, not blocks

Don't I feel stupid. Take this as an example to how terrible your audience is.

Tight areas with large, sweeping actions rarely ended well for me, though dashing around is fun as fuck.

>>19857

Please not that I am not actually the developer, just a fan.

>>19843

Great find, thank you. 95% of collision glitches are due to one reason: Frauki is ~4 blocks high. If there is a place that is 3 blocks high, you can roll (which reduces the height of your collision box), and then stand back up into the geometry. Then everything goes to hell. So every problem area needs to be destroyed with extreme prejudice. I just fixed the one you found.

>>19845

> pillars that require really fiddly, pixel perfect jumps... I personally find them sort of annoying

The shit on the surface right now is pretty much just random stuff I was messing around with. My vision for the surface is a totally optional area that requires full mastery of the movement of the character to fully explore. And there would be little bonuses and weird things in there.

>the distances to get over some vertical walls are often just a tad bit short

I have gotten so proficient at making perfect jumps I forget that it can be annoying for other people. Ideally, being able to make perfect jumps lets you navigate better, but shouldn't be absolutely required. And I definitely don't want to use them randomly. I've gone through and reduced the height of a few jumps, I will lower others as I am working on the map.

> hitting enemies without getting hit back or comboed to death is quite a challenge

I changed the enemies base stun duration from 300 to 600 ms. It feels better to me, let me know what you think. I also added a percentage modifier to the red insect, so there is only a fraction of a chance that he will go from being hit to immediately attacking.

>It's mostly little, niggling things that just take me out of the game.

You're exactly right. Every little detail matters, so thank you for helping me discover and improve them.

>At least I found him, the legendary one.

Once in a century the ancient one will dispense indecipherable profundities. No one yet has been able to decode the ribbits.

>check the gif out

Ahhhh I see what you mean. Yeah that looks really cool, and it could have some nice gameplay too. What I immediately think, is that the basic front attack would have three parts (like Zero does). The first would be as it is, the second would have additional reach, and the third would have additional damage.

>Don't I feel stupid. Take this as an example to how terrible your audience is.

There are very few blocks that work like that, that don't look distinct. Most blocks that you can use in that way are only half a block high, to help message this. As I work the map I will try and convert all blocks to this.

>>19968

what frame rate is this at

it seems a little stuttery

I tried this game on latest Chrome and my audio jack controller started spazzing out like a retard about a new device being plugged.

Is this normal or did my computer shit itself because of reasons?

>>20005

Yeah, the game can get a little jittery right now. It's always a process of building news stuff that affects the framerate, and then optimizing it. Plus, the recording was somewhat lowered in quality for sizing.

>>20027

That might have to do with the library I'm using to play chiptuines with. I haven't seen that happen however. Was the game unplayable?

Op, your game gives me motion sickness and I think it is because of the camera. I guess it follows the player and shake a lot? Idk.

Maybe I'm just a faggot... or this could help:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Scroll_Back_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Cameras_in_SideScrollers.php

Controls are nice and fluid, it would be cool if she had a charge attack. Sfx are shit, but i think they are just a placeholder. Art is really good! Will there be any lighting system?

>>20053

>Was the game unplayable?

At least until I "muted" the message boxes from my driver, which kept appearing at a rate of 5 per second. After that it went smooth again.

>>20060

>your game gives me motion sickness and I think it is because of the camera

I just modified the camera code. Can you clear your cache and let me know if it's any better? I suspect the problem is that depending on the direction you're facing, the camera adjusts a bit towards that side. So when you change direction a lot it can feel hyperactive. If the problem persists, I will try changing other things.

>it would be cool if she had a charge attack

I've thought about this, it's a definite possibility. I will play with some possibilities.

>Sfx are shit, but i think they are just a placeholder

They are definitely a work in progress. Is it the attack ones you dislike? Or do you also dislike the "hurt" sound and the footstep sounds?

>Will there be any lighting system?

No. It would be cool for certain things, but it would also compromise the pixel art look and would be quite taxing for something written in JavaScript. It's already getting pretty bad performance without dynamic lighting haha.

>>20064

>At least until I "muted" the message boxes from my driver, which kept appearing at a rate of 5 per second. After that it went smooth again.

That's really weird... to release the game I plan on packaging it as an executable, so hopefully I can have a bit more control of the environment. When I do, if you're still around it would be great if you could try it out and see if the problem persists. It's really hard to reproduce some of these problems that have been reported. Thanks.

>>20070

footsteps are fine, but you could put more footsteps for other kinds of environments (Like when you walk on grass, dirt, maybe ice and even water).

Atack and hurt really don't sound good, they hurt my ears!

I replayed the game till the boss. The camera feels better!

I played your new version today

>Map looks much more polished, but you still need to fix that water pool that leads you to a dead end.

>New stamina system is VERY forgiving. It almost makes the game easy. If you want to make your game hard again you should up it a little

>It doesn't make much sense that the gooder you are, the easier the game becomes. If anything, it should be the opposite, since players with high stamina will proceed to steamroll through the game with attack spam. To solve this, you could:

>a) Make attacks done while stamina is high (>75%?) cost more, but more damaging. This way you can still feel the advantages of having high stamina while also balancing it around a reasonable point where players can't simply spam Z until everything dies

>b) Make attacks done under 50% of stamina cost less, which could lead to:

>b1) Less damage, less cost

>b2) Just less cost, but only if total stamina is under 50%.

>c) Apply the rules mentioned before, but with a linear/exponential function instead of at fixed percentages (which would lead to all levels of stamina having the same amount of attacks, which is maybe not what you intend)

>Downwards attack now feels very easy and straightforward to use (a godsend), but jump + upwards attack is still unresponsive.

>Apples feel nice, but if I was you I would also add coins/treasure chests/minor boosts to encourage exploration

>The boss's AI is pretty bullshit thanks to split second reflexes. Since it does near to zero damage it is fairly easy to beat, but hitting it (her?) can only be done by cornering her, using a dash attack and then an upwards attack while she is airborne.

>To describe the fight in some way, we could say it is a cuhrayzee fight where you are not even half as cuhrayzee as the enemy is.

>One of the worst things about the boss fight is the size of the arena. You can get her out of your FoV very easily (considering her dash is almost guaranteed to get from corner to corner of your screen), and since her AI doesn't try to chase you, the fight doesn't feel as fierce as it should be. Hell, I was able to get out of it and eat the two apples you can find before before killing her. You could fix this by closing the arena until she is dead and making her AI much more aggressive, although I would still make the area a bit smaller and maybe with more platforms/obstacles.

>If you want to make her a bit more Dark Souls-y, you should make her hit much harder, but also make her telegraph her attacks. As it stands, you practically have to be lucky to roll through her dash attack (her only attack move).

>Talking about making the game harder, you should consider adding safe zones so you can abuse players in certain places without having to make them run through 7 minutes of easier gameplay they have already done several times before (ie. making a fucking hard boss to kill the player over and over without making it go through the whole level again). I guess the blue bedrooms are supposed to do that, but if you want the game to become much more juicy, you should make them feel actually safe.

>1) Add doors/trapdoors to all of its entrances

>2) Make them "conquerable". The blue room with all the hammocks has an enemy inside, but this enemy should disappear permanently once you enter the room and kill it, when the blue room features should activate.

>3) Add checkpoints

>4) You could make the rest of the map darker as you enter in one of these and the doors close, in addition to locking the camera to the center of the room. It will make it feel much more safe, even though these are just cosmetic improvements.

>5) Beds to save your progress/restore your life to default stamina

>6) Shops/merchants?

>I think >>19847 's idea is very nice. It could open the door for some nice combos if you were able to chain several attacks like that..

>The air vent looks like it was water instead of air.

>I have found one "secret apple area", but there are many more fully enclosed apples around the map. Are you supposed to be able to grab these? Because I haven't been able to find their entrance.

>One of the regular apples is in a zone where >>19843 's bug happens

>Definitely needs some music, nyugguh

Continued from >>20076

>For debugging and testing purposes, a map selector would feel nice. For example, if someone wanted to try out new combat rules, they could simply select the combat arena, a map full of different rooms with monsters you can fight. But of course, this is a very secondary feature you should only have in mind if it's piss easy to implement.

>Noticed you can do a forward attack and use the sliding momentum to go back instead of forwards. Feels pretty nice for sick pr0 plays mechanics, but I am not sure if it's what you intended.

>If you want to make your game feel faster, experiment with making your jump and fall speed higher (higher impulse to counter a higher gravity force) so you spend less time airborne. I think it already feels fairly balanced as it is, but I am unsure of how cuhrayzee you want this to feel.

>Your game would probably look nicer with a lighting engine, but you should translate your engine to something else first unless you want to fry some CPUs.

>>20076

Thanks for the great feedback. It's invaluable.

>need to fix that water pool that leads you to a dead end

Where exactly is this?

>New stamina system is VERY forgiving

Tightened it back up.

>It doesn't make much sense that the gooder you are, the easier the game becomes

My ultimate plan here, which hasn't yet been realized, is that the difficulty of the enemies you fight will increase. If you do bad initially, you won't be set up for wins later. Good players should be able to steamroll the initial part to build up their energy, then use that to try and make progress as it gets harder.

> jump + upwards attack is still unresponsive

Implemented a system similar to what I added for the down attack. Feels better.

>add coins/treasure chests/minor boosts to encourage exploration

I added little energy nuggs (the ones you get from fighting) as little collectible goodies on the map. It definitely feels better, great suggestion. I don't want it to become tedious to collect them though, so I will try and pull back how many there are.

> boss's AI is pretty bullshit

I completely agree. Very little time has been put into that so far. For now, I shrunk the arena as you suggested, and slowed her down a little bit. Eventually I want the fight to be the most complex one. Right now it's pretty simple and artificially hard.

>you should make her hit much harder, but also make her telegraph her attacks... closing the arena until she is dead

This is exactly right. Will do both of these things.

> Make them "conquerable" / make the rest of the map darker / Beds to...restore your life to default stamina

Love these ideas. Will definitely add them.

>I think >>19847 's idea is very nice

Me too! Animation is just a real bottleneck. Might be a good idea to just add quick crappy anims to get a feel for it though. As the other anon said, it will affect the feel of the game and should be done asap.

>Are you supposed to be able to grab these?

Yup :D

>Definitely needs some music, nyugguh

Music added

>a map selector would feel nice

I have a "Ragnarok" mode, where killing an enemy spawns 1-2 more of a random type. It's pretty nutty. At some point I'll make accessible with a switch, if you want to try it out.

<3

>>19550

The game looks quite nice. Animations are fluid, especially the player character. Combat is quite difficult. The forward slash's momentum allows for some interesting movement options.The energy system is cool in theory but it leaves you with the unfortunate side effect of making some encounters [almost] impossible if you have low health. It doesn't help that the double jump and roll use up energy. I understand the rolling for balance reasons but the double jump makes being evasive rather difficult.

Here are a couple of quirks & bugs I noticed while playing:

>Forward slash and downward thrust can be cancelled with a jump or roll

>If you cancel downward thrust; the sound effect will loop until you input another attack

>If you cancel the forward slash with a jump it will be a double jump; even when grounded

>Downward thrust can run out of energy before reaching the ground; canceling the animation

>You can turnaround with forward slash mid-slash

I'm not going to go out and say which ones are bugs and which ones aren't as I have no clue what is and isn't intentional. I will however say that the cancelling stuff was very fun. I might have ran out of energy quickly doing so but it felt really nice. Overall I enjoyed the game. I'll let you know if there is anything else I wanted to mention as I didn't write anything down :P

>>20083

Great feedack, thanks.

>some encounters [almost] impossible if you have low health

Yes this is a problem. I am thinking of a "adrenaline" mode. When the "cap" gets below 10% or so, the game goes into maybe slow motion, and your damage is increased. Giving you a last shot at fighting your way back out of the hole. I'll experiment.

>Forward slash and downward thrust can be cancelled with a jump or roll

Forward slash on the ground will now continue when you jump. Forward slash in the air and the down thrust will still be cancelled.

>If you cancel downward thrust; the sound effect will loop until you input another attack

Fixed.

>If you cancel the forward slash with a jump it will be a double jump; even when grounded

Fixed.

>Downward thrust can run out of energy before reaching the ground; canceling the animation

This is intentional. It rewards getting as close to the enemy before doing the attack because it will use less energy total, and you get damage bonuses for having high energy. Plus, the explosive landing does more damage than the downward part, so you want to hit them with that part of the attack.

>You can turnaround with forward slash mid-slash

Undecided on bug or feature... I kinda like it! I'll keep it around for now.

> I'll let you know if there is anything else I wanted to mention

You're doing gods work.

>>20081

>Where exactly is this?

Right after getting to the second blue room (the smallest one), in the first tunnel fall you find, getting through that 1x1 tunnel to the left.

>Tightened it back up.

Now it feels much harder (specially that skull enemy). However, regen now takes some delay to start filling up the bar after getting to 0, and I think it is because stamina is going into negative levels. I would tweak it so stamina never gets below 0 so it can start regenerating again.

Also, have you considered reducing roll distance and cost while low on stamina? Dodging would be harder, but still possible while stamina is low.

>Implemented a system similar to what I added for the down attack. Feels better.

Now it is responsive. Thank you very much.

>I added little energy nuggs (the ones you get from fighting) as little collectible goodies on the map.

Considering I think the stamina system is even harder than before, they are a godsend. Now all those small areas that seemed to lead you to nowhere have a purpose.

>Yup :D

Talking about the secret apples, I just found one that makes you fall through the map and into the void.

Just after the first blue room, there is an apple in a small cave in a corner. I rolled to get into it, then fell through the floor into the bottom of the map.

>Music added

I'm not getting any. Firefox's developer console says ReferenceError: webkitAudioContext is not defined Core.js:28:87.

>I have a "Ragnarok" mode, where killing an enemy spawns 1-2 more of a random type. It's pretty nutty. At some point I'll make accessible with a switch, if you want to try it out.

Now that has to be fun. You could put it in the overworld, in that hill that leads to the edge of the map, if you want it for testing purposes.

Tested today again

>New sprites for the city are cute

>Found small bug in new camera code: if you press down for one second, the camera will stay down. If you press up for a split second, the camera will also stay up. This could be solved by repositioning the camera at Frauki's center after releasing up and down.

>It may be my imagination, but I think physics feel a bit more floaty/sluggier. Have you changed them?

>After going through the first door (entering the cave, then right instead of left), the following door you find (the only one) renders over Frauki instead.

>Dive attack consumes so much stamina it can leave you vulnerable pretty easily, and it also cancels itself much easier than before. Is it normal?

>Air roll has been enabled. It feels pretty good, but if you try to make an airborne side dash attack while also pressing the direction key, the sound plays but the movement isn't executed.

>Third jump has been enabled and some zones seem to be adjusted for it. Nice!

>Boss seems easier in a smaller zone, but it doesn't feel as "ominous". What abut making the zone a bit wider and opening it to the "outside", like that big zone with the rose, the crocodile and the flying bug?

>Crashing on death again. Console outputs '''19:40:06.953 TypeError: this.music[key].stop is not a function1 AudioController.js:90:8

'''

>>20262

>New sprites for the city are cute

:3

>Found small bug in new camera code

Great catch. There was some rounding errors in the camera new lerping function. Fixed.

>physics feel a bit more floaty

The only thing I changed is that the top speed (and thus duration) of the roll is slightly shorter. You might be having some lag?

>door... renders over Frauki

Fixed.

>Dive attack consumes so much stamina it can leave you vulnerable pretty easily, and it also cancels itself much easier than before. Is it normal?

I've been tooling around with the energy system a lot. I've increased the energy regeneration rate, and will continue to tune it. The move cancels if you run out of energy before hitting the ground.

>airborne side dash attack... isn't executed.

Fixed, I'm pretty sure. Couldn't reproduce this reliably but I fixed one condition in which the sound would play and not do the attack.

>Third jump has been enabled and some zones seem to be adjusted for it. Nice!

Because you can roll in the air, you can now do roll jumps in the air until you run out of energy. I think it's fun, but I want to play with it more.

>Boss seems easier in a smaller zone, but it doesn't feel as "ominous". What abut making the zone a bit wider and opening it to the "outside", like that big zone with the rose, the crocodile and the flying bug?

I'm going to sit down the the boss and really put some effort into the AI. It's pretty boneheaded right now. I will definitely increase the size of the area a bit.

>Crashing on death again. Console outputs '''19:40:06.953 TypeError: this.music[key].stop is not a function1 AudioController.js:90:8

Fixed the crash, but there should be music playing. Will try and figure that one out in the future.

Thanks again for this great feedback. You're picking up a lot of details that I miss, and contributing some great ideas.

>>20270

>You might be having some lag?

That might be it. I remember having some severe lag, probably due to having a YouTube tab and many other tabs open.

>Fixed, I'm pretty sure. Couldn't reproduce this reliably but I fixed one condition in which the sound would play and not do the attack.

Confirmed fixed, thank you.

>I've increased the energy regeneration rate, and will continue to tune it.

Makes the stamina system feel a little less oppressive while at the same time keeping the game hard.

However, it sucks that in certain situations you are pretty much forced to take a hit or run away (ie. fighting in small areas will make you run out of stamina and leave you vulnerable since you cant roll/double jump away from the enemy). Could there be some way to avoid this without having to run away to a safe zone to rest?

I have tried crouching in front of a wall with a crocodile nearby and it seems to do the trick half of the time, when the enemy jumps too high and hits the wall behind me instead. Looks cool, but I don't think this could be used without some major tweaking since crocodiles sometimes don't jump that high and when they do they are able to change their momentum mid air and perform a dive attack. Same for jumping over them, it seems they can also extend their jump to hit you if they aren't in your trajectory.

>Because you can roll in the air, you can now do roll jumps in the air until you run out of energy. I think it's fun, but I want to play with it more.

Didn't notice this, but flying feels pretty cool. Still, it sounds like it could be used more often to cheat than to implement areas where this is required, not to mention low-stamina players couldn't be able to get through these zones (maybe used for secrets?).

I think making rolls in the air quicker but unable to infinite jump (as in, dashing while locked in the X axis) would also be pretty fun and could be used for some mad dodges.

In other words, frog flying is a cool feature that makes the game feel more cuhrayzee, but it's difficult to find legitimate use cases. By making it sidedashing-only/frog hover you could make it a combat technique or something that would allow high stamina players to get through platform obstacle zones.

>Fixed the crash

Confirmed. As a fun fact, I think I can see Anti-Frauki attacking for a single frame before being respawned. Feels spooky.

>there should be music playing

Probably something to do with Webkit/Gecko function disparity fuckery. All other sounds play well, though.

This will be fixed as soon as you pack it with V8 anyway, so while it would be nice to get it fixed it shouldn't be a priority.

>Thanks again for this great feedback

Ay, don't worry m8. This game seems promising and the demo is pretty fun, so betatesting is my way to contribute to it. I would like to see it fully fleshed some day.

If I wasn't such a lazy fuck I would probably help you rewrite the engine in Java or C++, but that would require an effort and I don't even know which languages are you comfortable with.

Finished a very important update today. The camera now works on a sub-pixel level, giving the game an incredibly smoother feel. Some technical details on the implementation for those interested:

The game itself is scaled in integer increments (1x, 2x, 3x, 4x) in a 16:9 resolution, depending on the screen size. To achieve this, everything was rendered at 1x on an invisible canvas, and then the result was re-rendered to a larger canvas. The problem with this, was that the camera was controlled at the 1x level. So the smallest increment it could move was 1 pixel at 1x, which was 2, 3, or 4 pixels once it got scaled up. This gave a choppy feel at higher scales, because the camera could only move in increments of 2, 3, or 4 pixels.

The solve this, I made the initial hidden 1x canvas the same size as the final scaled canvas would be. If you look at it, you can see an enormous amount of the map. Then I changed the camera in the 1x to simply follow the player directly. Next, the camera sized section of canvas around the player is scaled up and rendered to the visible canvas. The offset of the rendered section then has the camera lerp code applied to it (instead of the actual camera).

The result is that the section being rendered can appear to lerp less than 1 scaled pixel, and you get much smoother movement out of it. Try it out yourself, let me know what you think.

I have also continued to work on the world and enemy design, and began animating a "combo" attack as suggested by an anon. The combo has three attacks, each one has a unique value in it. The first attack is the default front attack you already know, the second one will do additional damage, and the third will have additional reach and knockback.

Thanks for reading

Also, I added a little system where if you "roll" in the air, an energy bubble will come out around you and push back anything near you. It's currently kind of hard to use, but I will keep tweaking it until it feels cool.

>>20060

Also, I'd love some feedback on if the camera feels better to you now that it is smoother. If not I will look into ways to reduce the amount of total motion.

would be cool if she looked up when up is pressed

>>20679

>Those new enemies are fun to kill.

Sweet

>my problem with motion sickness is the falling motion in this camera

Yeah I see what you mean. It is based on velocity, and when you land the velocity goes from terminal to zero. The camera slows down then springs back up, maybe that's the problem.

I've personally never gotten motion sickness from a game so I have trouble identifying the problem. But the fact that others do means I would like to try and mitigate it.

Also, are you experiencing lag? Or does the camera move smoothly.

Thanks

>>20691

No lag at all. Frame rate is pretty good here.

>>19767

Too bad that is a registered trademark for Frogatto.

Nah, seriously, I think I have might seen that even earlier.

>>20939

That sword clash seems really cool. Was it intended?

>>20957

Yeah! There is an attack priority system in the game. If your attack does not have higher priority than the enemies attack, you will clash swords with them and bounce off one another. Enemies can block with this system by sitting in a 0 damage attack frame state.

>>19550

what's it made with?

>>20967

PhaserJS. I reccommend it, but it is better suited to smaller projects. I've had to wrestle with a number of things because the world is so large and there's so much going on. I've contributed to the source already, and will have to do more to get the performance better.

>>20969

Thanks, I'll track this down. Pretty sure I know the cause.

Hey, do you have a dev blog or something I can follow progress on? TIGSource, Tumblr, etc?

>>20998

Yeah fo sho:

precedev.tumblr.com

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=49318.0

>>20999

>precedev.tumblr.com

Not found.

>>21005

Shit sorry:

http://preecedev.tumblr.com/

>>19554

Cool, the base gameplay looks nearly complete.

>>21249

Ha ha ha oh man, thank you for the sanity check. I play the game so much that I can pretty much obliterate it, and it feels so damn easy. So I tend to make it way too hard. The new system is meant to only give you health when you kill the enemy, to encourage combat.

I've modified it based on your feedback. Now in combat, hitting the enemy gives you orange energy nuggs that fill your special meter. The green nuggs floating around fill up your energy (and increase the cap). Also, your max energy will increase when you kill an enemy (by half their max energy).

So things should be more forgiving now. I'm going to continue to play with it, let me know if it is any better. I'm going to play with having you knocked back farther, but that will take a little more time to tweak.

Thanks again for the awesome feedback :D

>>21252

The game feels much more forgiving now while still retaining a lot of difficulty, thank you! However, sword enemies seem to give a lot of stamina when killed (not a bad thing, since killing them is a bit risky). What about tweaking the 50% value to 40%, or even some function like f(stamina)=log(-stamina) capped to a range of x?

I also found a small bug and a really big bug. The small bug is that barrels are drawn over the life bar, which only happens in certain situations but looks very weird; the big bug is that getting hit while falling (or moving, I am unsure about what triggers it) makes the camera "scroll" to the right, so the tiles and enemies on the right now appear on the left side of the screen for a few seconds. I got killed during the first "pointy bush" area because I couldn't understand what the hell was going on.

I specially like how the green balls increase your cap negligibly while still giving a lot more of temporary stamina, but I think you could still exploit the overflowing stamina mechanic a bit more. Maybe they could act as overshields (as long as you have a bit of extra stamina, it can "absorb" a single attack), give multi-jump abilities, or even only being consumed while attacking (as in, jumping consumes only your regular stamina, but attacking will consume your extra stamina first).

I am also excited to see what can be done with the orange bar. Maybe you could add some visual effects for when the bar has filled up, like energy rays around Frauki, so it looks much more visual and flashy.

Also, what are barrels supposed to do? I haven't broken them all, but they all seem to be empty. Will they be filled with powerups or other collectibles in the future?

I also noticed I keep getting hit while rolling in front of sword enemies. Have you reduced the number of i-frames or does rolling no longer give you invencibility?

>>21257

>sword enemies seem to give a lot of stamina

A log is an interesting idea, I will keep tweaking it and try some different things out.

>barrels are drawn over the life bar

Fixed

>the camera "scroll" to the right

Fixed

>Maybe they could act as overshields

Excellent idea! I changed it so if you get hit with an overcharged bar, the damage is first taken out of the excess energy. I also want to try adding a little more damage if you use excess energy, but that's a little tricky to message. Perhaps the extra energy could be a slightly different color, and the sparks from your sword match that color? I'll experiment.

>I am also excited to see what can be done with the orange bar.

Thanks! I've got some cool special abilities planned. We'll see which ones pan out.

>add some visual effects for when the bar has filled up

Yeah that would be cool. I want a sort of particle effect that has orange bits appearing around and then being drawn towards Frauki. The amount and intensity would reflect the state of the charge. Perhaps I could get rid of the bar entirely and just message it with the effect. We'll see if its clear enough.

>what are barrels supposed to do?

Changed it so that when you break them, 0-3 green nuggs will come out, and 0-3 orange nuggs. Skinner boxes all up in this bitch.

>I keep getting hit while rolling in front of sword enemies

That's really weird... the entire roll is an invincibility state. I haven't noticed this but I'll keep an eye out.

>>21259

I tried the game again today and it seems to be much easier, as I can keep full stamina during pretty much the whole walkthrough. Have you tweaked the stamina gains system or did I just got gud?

Except the fucking scythe enemies. I decided it was probably better to run from that fucking monster instead of letting my lifebar go down.

>Perhaps the extra energy could be a slightly different color, and the sparks from your sword match that color?

That would look pretty rad, and it would give a small advantages when your lifebar isn't complete. I like the idea!

>Changed it so that when you break them, 0-3 green nuggs will come out, and 0-3 orange nuggs.

Thanks, now I made sure I broke all of them. Feels much more rewarding.

>That's really weird... the entire roll is an invincibility state.

Perhaps I just keep getting caught during the last frame of the animation and it seems I got caught during the roll because of that.

I also found a few small bugs

>Doing a double jump while holding upwards, then attacking performs a sideattack instead of an upwards attack, but only in certain situations. I am unsure about what does exactly trigger it.

>After passing that "sick jumps" zone (the one with the breaking bridge covered in green balls), I managed to get out of the map jumping over the dirt zone.

>While the running animation is playing, there is a frame where a single pixel of Frauki's hand of the next frame is seen. It's barely noticeable but it tickles my OCD.

>When in the edge of the map, moving causes the lifebar to tremble. It is also barely noticeable, but I thought I should let you know.

>>21269

Oh, and I am also unable to access the final boss room. There seems to be an invisible wall blocking the entrance. Is that intended?

>>21475

I love what you are doing with the tileset as of lately. It makes the game feel much more lively than just using smooth grey bricks. They also had charm, but this fits the area much better.

>>21359

Firefox. I tried again just now. The camera position is a little further up and I can actually see the character now, but still can't move or really do anything.

>>21558

I think I might have figured the problem out! If the game doesn't have focus in the browser, it won't run. So when you load it, try clicking the mouse on it and see if it starts up then. If this is the problem, it is the kind of thing that will be resolved once the game is packaged into it's final exe file.

Thanks for trying it out again.

>>21751

Not the same person that replied before. I'm having the same issue on firefox on Ubuntu. It seems to load everything but the camera just floats around a little bit and focuses on the tunnel below where the game usually starts. The energy bar also doesn't get the red health line and just sits in one place not following the camera. The character doesn't show up at all.

I tried l clicking a few times to see if anything happened with no luck. The game works fine in chrome and opera though.

Ay yo, >>21269 here again.

I am not experiencing the camera errors other people have, even though I am using latest Firefox. However, I noticed the game has become much laggier, to the point it's unbearably slow. I am not sure if it was the lag or that you reduced the enemy attack cooldown, but I got stunlocked for 5 or 6 attacks by the first sword guy without me being able to counterattack or do anything at all.

Not only that, but all audio has stopped working. In addition to the "webkitAudioContext is not defined" error, I am also getting "EncodingError: the given encoding is not supported", and something else about the content of the intermediary memory passed to decodeAudioData has an unknown type of context.

>>22001

Disregard that last bit about the audio, I just didn't have my speakers turned on, lol.

However, I think those errors refer to the .xm audio files. Firefox probably doesn't know how to read them.

>>21952

>>22001

>>22002

Thanks for the feedback. It runs horribly on Firefox for pretty much everyone... I might just disable it for FF. Ultimately it will be packed with V8 as an executable, so I can't invest much time in trying to get it to run well on FF.

If you have a moment, can you try it out on Chrome? Thanks :)

>>21952

Here again, I just tried it on Firefox 40 on windows 10 and it seems to be working fine, I don't even notice the lag >>22001 mentioned.

>>22122 (Palindromic dubs checked)

Damn man, that seems dank. How do you activate it?

>>22137

On the keyboard, C. On the gamepad, the top button in the tetrad.

But you need orange juice first, which you get from fighting.

>>22171

I had a similar problem except she got stuck in jump animation while continuously falling into the ball.

>>22171

That's a prob... but it's also very satisfying how well it fits right in there. A down slam should dislodge it. Anyway, I'll change the terrain so it can't do that.

>>22172

:( dat ain't fun

Small update: I made it so that when your max energy gets below 20%, you go into hyper-cool mode, where you functionally have infinite energy. Should help people dig themselves out of the hole. Also, checkpoints!

I've been playing around with phaser recently thanks to your game OP. Thanks for introducing me to an interesting new engine!

>>22430

No problem my man! It's a great framework, and the guy making it is very active and responsive

Hey OP, will you make it downloadable? I have a smaller sister that would like this game but she doesn't have internet.

>>22441

Thanks! Yeah, ultimately I plan to release it as an executable.

>>22447

What method will you use to release it as an executable?

>>22493

Probably Electron, but I may also use NW.js. It depends on how good the steam integration is for each when I'm preparing to release. I currently have it working well with Electron.

>>22642

That's cool, always adds more character to the game. I wonder if the sparkly effect is too wide though, it's a little hard to tell what is supposed to be sparkling.

Also I hope that chat window is not finished. The green background looks unfinished and cheap, and black text usually doesn't look good in any other background than white, unless it's some kind of special type of text.

>>22656

Thanks. Yeah, the sparkly effect just occurs in the entirety of the interesting area. Sometimes small, sometimes big.

The UI part is definitely a WIP. Mostly trying to get everything in place first :D

>>22642

I-is that an infinity hairpin?

>>22642

Glowing interactivity markers are usually annoying and break immersion, but those sparkles seem pretty unobtrusive

colors need to be worked on, way too much distracting shit going on at any given time, too hard to immediately see what's actually important. Really there needs to be a consistent color scheme as a general thing. Everyone has their own, but it's not universal.

roll distance is too much for the map size

double jumping as a mechanic offers next to nothing in the context of combat

platforming is made mostly obsolete as a concept by the movement mechanics introduced for combat, making the double jump ability even more unnecessary

purely for map design, there are way too many deadspots where you simply run into an enemy you couldn't really see without prior knowledge and take free damage

and ofc, everything is too simple, both your attack possibilities and the enemies

take a look at nidhogg, it's got a good combat system while being austere. Doesn't retain interest beyond ~10 minutes, but otherwise its a solid reference.

Prince of Persia would also be a good reference to keep in mind.

There's also Rain World, which while unreleased appears to have a very interesting model for quick movement.

>>23032

also keep in mind that combat tends not to revolve around the benefits of your action, but their risk. The souls titles build entirely on the fact that a mistaken action is heavily punished (which is why roll abuse is so problematic for its combat). The same is true of the combat systems in the other games I noted.

In particular, I'm referring to the stamina system being an insufficient structure of establishing risk. In fact, there is no risk to any given action. There is only a limit before a "recharge" is necessary. The actions themselves are undergone without any immediate repercussion, any given attack either penetrating or blocked, the outcome (besides inflicted damage) being the same regardless, generally a roll away..

Note that with the souls titles, penetrating attacks suffer from a long "pickup" delay, and blocked attacks are punished with that kickback effect. In Nidhogg and Rain World, your unpunished (ranged) attacks (in terms of recoil) come at an immediate resource hit, with both losing their only weapons. Melee attacks in both games are unblockable, but players are killed in one hit so any melee combat is inherently high risk.

>>23032

>>23034

Thanks for the excellent feedback. This definitely helps clarify the way forward for the combat in the game.

The system works with attack priority. So each frame of each (yours and the enemies) attack has a priority. The higher priority will break through the other attack to inflict damage, equal priorities will clash swords, bouncing both parties back.

So with respect to this point in particular:

>combat tends not to revolve around the benefits of your action, but their risk

I need to think more carefully about the specifics of each move. Priority is correlated with speed of the action. Essentially, how large are the vulnerable periods before and after the attack. The risk then would come in two forms, trading off in severity as you think about each successively more powerful attack. The possibility of being hit while in a vulnerable period before or after an attack, and attacking into a higher priority attack with a lower one. Both result in getting hit.

Adding attacks is one part. Then there will be finer gradations in the priorities, hopefully giving the system some more meaning. Another part is the enemy behavior. Increasing their possible attacks, as well as their tendency to punish the player for a low priority attack, or for leaving themselves vulnerable.

>the stamina system being an insufficient structure of establishing risk

I may remove it entirely. I'm still trying to figure out why it works so well for Dark Souls, or more appropriately Bloodborne. Perhaps it needs to be changed somehow to address the roll problem you mentioned:

>the outcome (besides inflicted damage) being the same regardless, generally a roll away..

Too much aggression leaves you vulnerable because you can't roll away or block.

Anyway, I'm going to start on these ideas. Any additional thoughts you have are welcome. Thanks again.

>>23057

I think in the souls its primary purpose is actually a preliminary defensive game design tool. It doesn't serve a distinct purpose on its own, but rather attempts to resolve "spamming" of any given action that the player might feel like abusing. Thus, it solves problems before the designers are aware the problem exists, and allows the designer greater freedom. In the same way that blazblue has "get out of jail free" cards, which means that even if the player finds a way to do an infinite combo.. his opponent has an escape. So for the most part, the designers don't have to be worried that infinite combos exist, unless they can be done very easily at which point a patch in necessary.

But so I think stamina's main purpose is to limit the potential for spamming some attack or some defense. The other is that it controls the pace of battle, in that any given weapon's "assault pattern", in full, tends to eat up the entire bar. The heavy weapons give 2 strikes at most, and the lights give a flurry of strikes, but there's a forced limit that stops you from continuing. At which point, being low on stamina, your defense can be broken, and retaliation by the opponent can be great. So making full pattern is similar to a finisher, intended as "I take a large chunk out of you...or you take it out of me".

But outside of these finishers, the defense/attack patterns work a tradeable cost, and you can switch between them.

iirc, your game currently lacks that kind of rate of consumption. Your "big moves" like down+attack, you can use it like 4 times or something before it actually depletes your stamina. Combined with all the benefits it confers, both defensively and offensively, and it's hard to find reason not to spam it, wait, spam it some more. (and you can still follow it with a roll, despite it being a roll in itself, granting huge distance)

I think the main reason combat isn't working in your game (in instilling the same 'feeling' as the souls) is because there isn't really a continuance between state. Your options following an attack don't really depend on what attack you just did. Rolling is always available, immediately. and iirc, enemies can attack -through- your standard attack pattern, meaning the enemy also acts entirely independent of your actions.

In other words, if I took a snapshot of the game state just before an attack, and just after it finishes the strike, the game would look exactly the same, with some stamina missing.

Now of course, you don't -actually- have to action-dependent-reactions, it's hardly necessary for combat to function.. almost any 8-bit real-time game will tell you that much.. I'm just comparing the souls to your game

Take a look at this guy as well, he's a 2d fighter developer but.. abstract a bit further and it has relevance to your system as well

http://www.sirlin.net/

>>24252

I really like that from a game design point of view.

Have you considered doing the same for all actions? Like add green effects when you attack, and red effects when you take damage?

>>24256

I tried out the green effects for attacks, but I think its overkill. People seem to pick up that attacking uses energy pretty naturally. The red effect for being hit could be cool, I'll implement it and see how it feels.

>>19550

What engine did you use?

>>19753

The falling animation when running seems off. maybe you should try assigning certain frames of the falling animations to different movementspeeds on the y axis and start with frame one on the smallest unit.

(I used to have the same issue and that's how I fixed it)

>>19550

It looks great to be honest. I browsed through the entire thread and it keeps looking better. Good job!

An Idea I instantly had when you talked about darksouls - because it always reminds me of it.

How about, if large boss battles are planned, destructable bodypartsparts of the bosses like in monster hunter? It offers an "easy" (not really) form of instant-reward for the player.

If you want to drop the stamina system, you should definitely create end-lag after attacks, where you can't input a new move, to prevent spamming. End lag doesn't have to be stupidly long but something like 15-30 frames (if 60fps) should cover it neatly.

>>24317

Almost forgot.

I read some ideas for dodge possibilities,

And I got some of my own to share: how about a dodge/parry system:

If you are airbound, you could simply have the character get invulnerbility frames without having to move much, giving you the option to combo aerial attacks after the monster attack is done.

If you are on the ground, the same button could perform a parry, a short timewindow (maybe half a second) in which the opponents attack gets blocked and the monster gets ministunned for a very short time (.10 to .25 seconds proofed nice for me)

noticed a bug that allows you to attack even after you have died

i've got a bug where the game freezes after using all your energy to attack.

>firefox

>>24333

>i've got a bug where the game freezes after using all your energy to attack.

found out it happens every time when the energy is depleted. doesn't matter if it's by attacking or rolling.

>>24334

>i've got a bug where the game freezes after using all your energy to attack.

>found out it happens every time when the energy is depleted. doesn't matter if it's by attacking or rolling.

not OP.

but this might be due to the energy bar generating negative values:

when you have less energy than the attack or roll needs, after a threshhold it let's you still perform them while spending normal amounts of energy which results in negative values

>>24312

Phaser.io, its a javascript framework

>>24316

Do you mean with the hair going straight up? An intermediary animation could be a good idea :)

>>24317

>>24318

Thanks! Destructible body parts is a great idea, I'll definitely keep it in mind as I make new enemies. Could be very fun.

>>24332

Thanks, that happens sometimes. I'll get it resolved.

>>24333

>>24334

>>24335

Thanks guys. The negative value of the energy is intentional. If you have just a little bit, you can go negative to do a move. But then it still has to recharge from below zero, so you have a period where you can't do anything. I think the crash is in Firefox, when you try and render the scale as negative or something.

>>19554

Looks pretty nice. I like the EarthWorm Jim feel of the character movement and animation.

Hope you get to finish this game, I'd like to play it,