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Hello there, dear reader!
My first blog post about my game in progress got some good reception so I'm putting up an update. If you're interested and haven't read the first post, please click the link above and do so first! Here's the TLDR: I'm a Computer Science student and I work on designing, programming, drawing and animating a game in my free time. It's called "The Art of Dying" and it's a fast, challenging retro platformer.
Here's the new video. It focuses on how attacking works in the game. Please take a look:
I want to expand a little more on what I say near the end of the video:
I'm a huge fan of the EL-HM (easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master design) philosophy. Unsurprising, considering that I love Starcraft and, in my opinion, that's the game that implements this idea the best. Naturally, I want The Art of Dying to work in a similar fashion. Once again, we have a decision to make when we design a platformer and talk about attacking. There are platformers in which you can't attack at all. It's only about dodging or not falling to your death (this is a genre border in the direction of runner games)! And there are stealth platformers in which you either can't attack or you are punished for attacking/killing. Then there's the Mario-style: no weapons by default but jumping on enemies. And then I would separate the remaining jump'n'run games into melee- and range-attack games. Range-attacks can be strictly horizontal/vertical or mouse-aimed etc.
What does all this have to do with EL-HM? Well, I went for melee. To me, melee attacks are, on the one hand, simply the most fun and cool looking, but, on the other hand, they also require players to think more strategically. You can't snipe enemies from a distance for example. Also, I wanted the game to be gamepad-compatible from the beginning - and it's not easy to implement mouse-aimed shooting to work equally well with mouse and analog stick. My major influence when it comes to the whole attack decision is definitely the original Ninja Gaiden on NES. I loved the spin jump power up in that game - so that's what I recreated!
Also, melee attacks give you the unique option of actually implementing certain combos - fighting game style. That doesn't work in range-combat games (instead you got aiming as the skill factor). I enjoy fighting games (Tekken 3 on PS1 mostly) so let's cram this into the game as well, why not! This is how I tend to design games! I simply think of cool elements from various different games and how to put these together in one title - in a smooth fashion. The elements have to fit. In this case, I think they do.
Let me know what you think, feel free to comment on anything you see in the video or in my write-up, ask any questions you might have about the game etc.
Cheers,
NihiL
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Cool looking game! I'm interested to see where you take it.
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On October 27 2013 04:59 NihiLStarcraft wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the EL-HM (easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master design) philosophy. Unsurprising, considering that I love Starcraft and, in my opinion, that's the game that implements this idea the best.
Uhh...rts games are like the antithesis of this idea. They are not newb friendly at all.
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Canada1873 Posts
On October 27 2013 06:59 seequeue wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2013 04:59 NihiLStarcraft wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the EL-HM (easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master design) philosophy. Unsurprising, considering that I love Starcraft and, in my opinion, that's the game that implements this idea the best.
Uhh...rts games are like the antithesis of this idea. They are not newb friendly at all.
Sure they are. How hard was the campaign? How much did you play Brood War as a kid without having any concept whatever on what "good" play was? It's only multiplayer that isn't newb friendly; the game itself in its basic concepts is easy to grasp and simple to play. It isn't until you come to realize what optimized play looks like that the game even seems truly challenging.
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On October 27 2013 07:31 Staboteur wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2013 06:59 seequeue wrote:On October 27 2013 04:59 NihiLStarcraft wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the EL-HM (easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master design) philosophy. Unsurprising, considering that I love Starcraft and, in my opinion, that's the game that implements this idea the best.
Uhh...rts games are like the antithesis of this idea. They are not newb friendly at all. Sure they are. How hard was the campaign? How much did you play Brood War as a kid without having any concept whatever on what "good" play was? It's only multiplayer that isn't newb friendly; the game itself in its basic concepts is easy to grasp and simple to play. It isn't until you come to realize what optimized play looks like that the game even seems truly challenging.
no, you're wrong. rts by their nature involve an immense amount of complexity and mechanical skill simply not present in other games. And starcraft certainly isn't the game that implements this idea the best, by any stretch of the imagination.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
I've been able to play RTS games since I can remember playing games, I don't know how much RA2, AoE 2 and WC3 I played and I enjoyed them despite not being good at them at all, I have to agree that RTS games are incredibly simple to learn.
Saboteur's point about the multiplayer being complex due to the optimisation of builds still stands.
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On October 27 2013 08:13 seequeue wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2013 07:31 Staboteur wrote:On October 27 2013 06:59 seequeue wrote:On October 27 2013 04:59 NihiLStarcraft wrote:
I'm a huge fan of the EL-HM (easy-to-learn-yet-hard-to-master design) philosophy. Unsurprising, considering that I love Starcraft and, in my opinion, that's the game that implements this idea the best.
Uhh...rts games are like the antithesis of this idea. They are not newb friendly at all. Sure they are. How hard was the campaign? How much did you play Brood War as a kid without having any concept whatever on what "good" play was? It's only multiplayer that isn't newb friendly; the game itself in its basic concepts is easy to grasp and simple to play. It isn't until you come to realize what optimized play looks like that the game even seems truly challenging. no, you're wrong. rts by their nature involve an immense amount of complexity and mechanical skill simply not present in other games. And starcraft certainly isn't the game that implements this idea the best, by any stretch of the imagination.
No one cares about your opinion
Thankyou for ruining a really good OP.
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It's ruined now. Ruined for all time.
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I don't get why it's ruined.
This game looks really cool, do you have a map editor in the works?
Looks close to an alpha release pretty soon!
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I'm pretty certain they're kidding, don't worry! 
Thanks for the comments and interest! There is a map editor that is build right into the game. So, like in the good old days, you can get to it from the main menu. There will be a video that explains the map editor and how it works in the near future! I really want people to make their own maps and challenges with it and have a bit of sharing going on!
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looks really fun. when do you intend to release the game?
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Thanks gosubay! I want to release the game very soon, ie. in a couple of weeks rather than months! The idea is to keep this a small game with maybe an hour of gameplay in the form of premade levels, then me and others can make new levels or level packs with the ingame level editor. I'm pretty far along, I really only need to add a couple more things to spice up the game (some enemies, destructible platforms, secrets, a better looking main menu) and then actually go ahead and design the levels themselves.
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EPT
