Because cohost's inbox thing requires a whole-ass new article to respond to "DMs" (& I don't even know if the person gets notified), I think it's better to just do an inbox thread instead. So if you wanna ask me something, post it here!
- he/him
- boghog.itch.io/
Hi, I'm a game dev interested in all sorts of action games but primarily shmups and beat 'em ups right now.
Working on Armed Decobot, beat 'em up/shmup hybrid atm. Was the game designer on Gunvein & Mechanical Star Astra (on hold).
This is my blog, a low-stakes space where I can sort out messy thoughts without worrying too much about verifying anything. You shouldn't trust me about statistical claims or even specific examples, in fact don't trust me about anything, take it in and think for yourself 😎
Most posts are general but if I'm posting about something, it probably relates to my own gamedev in one way or another.
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in reply to @boghog's post:
What do you think is the purpose of slopes in side-scrolling games like run 'n guns, platformers and whatever Ghosts 'n Goblins is?
Honestly they're mostly just there to look cool in the vast majority of games. That said, Ghosts N Goblins is a unique case, particularly Resurrection cause the game actually uses slopes really effectively in gameplay.
Because you only have decent vertical & horizontal coverage, diagonals become your blind spot and slopes are really good at exploiting this when paired with specific enemy types, especially since your projectiles tend to come from the upper part of your sprite. So in GnGR having the high ground is a death sentence because it's a position where enemies can clip you diagonally, but you can't hit them at all, while being lower than the enemies lets you start hitting them earlier and get an advantage. It really starts integrating the most microscoping positioning differences into combat - every minor bump and dip matters. Then you throw small enemies into the mix like the little white grim reapers and slopes get even more meaning since slight elevation differences can be the difference between hitting or missing enemies.
You can maybe recreate this with platforms but it's going to be hard creating smooth diagonal movement, and because there's hard borders beween them they'll be a lot more awkawrd to navigate for the player. Whereas slopes are continous, every tiny adjustment can matter.
I rarely see them being used that well though, sometimes you get really interesting stuff like Cave Story's bouncing snake weapon interacting with slopes (can go up/down slopes but gets blocked by platforms, and IF I REMEMBER RIGHT has physics when going up a slope and slows down over time or something), but for the most part they are cosmetic and make very little difference gameplay wise
Hi, I am liking your posts about bmups design a lot, they are very informative. I have some questions about a specific problem of this genre.
How do you address (if you do) the problem of depth perception? I mean, how do you reduce the possibility of having the player punching the air in front of/behind an enemy just because they thaught they were aligned enough on the Z axis with their target, but they actually weren't? Do you have some metrics to look at or some rule of thumbs that you found reliable? And finally, do you take magnet movement into account? Like, slightly warping the player towards the target during the attack animation to reduce the probability of missing?
Again, thanks for sharing all your knowledge. Bmups are a surprisingly poorly documented genre and it's nice to have some knowledge sharing!
Bad news : I think it basically just comes down to trial & error style tuning, same as trying to get an attack's hitboxes or framedata feeling "just right".
Double bad news : prototypes aside, I haven't made a belt scroller so I don't have that much tuning experience.
Triple bad news : I have an extremely high tolerance for strict Z axis checks so even if I did the tuning our standards for "feels good" would probably be very different.
The main source is just gonna be little quirks like how your sprite looks vs the enemy's sprite, how each attack looks, the size/location of your shadows, sprite drawing depth, the arc/animation of the attack you're doing. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution there, so just treat it like any other hitbox - tune the shit out of it.
Keep in mind that you can not only increase Z axis range but you can shift it around. It could potentially be offset slightly above or below an enemy. Furthermore, each attack could have its own Z axis range, which could let you tune it even more. Though that might end up feeling inconsistent. The range can also differ based on character and enemy - for example Punisher's normal mooks feel great to me but Guarddroid could have used a bigger Z check range.
It's also a skill players can get better at so at the end of the day you can't worry TOO much about slight mistakes. As long as it feels good overall. I'd definitely avoid any snapping or suck to target mechanics since they end up feeling weird and undermining the precise spacing element which is key to the genre. And if you are gonna suck something, atleast have enemies getting sucked to you instead of vice versa
Also happy youre enjoying my bmup stuff! The documentation or lack of it is completely dire, hopefully I can help change that. If other devs pick up where I'll leave off