FIGHTING TITANS !!! EXTREME GAMEPLAY !!! SICK GRAPHICS !!! RADULAR CHARACTERS !!!

[Lexou Duck]

yeah so it's a game Sketchasaurus was thinking of making and i decided to program it

so here are the updates in order from oldest to newest

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so yeah i got the engine to work

and i even programmed the altitude properties

i'm doing this in Haxe by the way, using the haxeflixel library

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aaand here's some progress, did the hops on the knael character, and fully programmed the HUD
(its choppy because gifcam, dont worry the game runs better irl)

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ok so there's the player/enemy collisions, with altitude in mind yet again
also the arena border collisions those weren't there before
the hurt animation (i can always make it shorter or longer or stuff, it works is all)
i did the name showing on the HUD btw (i lied in the last post i hadn't done that yet)
and probably lots of other small stuff here and there

see them fast updates man ?


ps: yes you can easily choose your character, same goes for the enemy
the reason i keep showing you guys kamekannon is because i love his smug face okay

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okay yeah so ill make a better first post when i got the time for it
for now you get gifs and some update posts that you've already seen

btw im leaving for the whole month of august, ill be working on this but there'll be probably no updates till then


ok so there

Sketchasaurus feel free to post your stuff, i dont wanna be missing any graphics if im gonna be internet-less

[Koh]

Coming along great~
What's your plan to handle how the AI fights?
Are there going to be any props to play with mid-fight, such as random crates or chairs, for example.

Just a little side note, I think the monster sprites could use a bit of shine on them using the white color they have, like say on the monster's beak, or the turtle's head. Even if it's just one to three pixels, it should look a little better.

[Sketchasaurus]

I've been thinking about starting up a topic, but I've been in a weird unmotivated slump of laziness lately.

Graphics

Character master sheet (in grayscale for applying palettes):

There are still more sprites that I need to do for the extra large boss in the bottom, and the other players, but the effects are there, and here, too:

Mock-ups

[Omegajak]

Yo, I see those fast updates. 8-bit Kaiju King has super potential. PC Android iOS release possibly?

[[robo9]]

I mean hey, isn't Haxe's selling point the fact that you ca port your code to just about any platform without hassle?

[puggsoy]

Only checked this out now, looking very cool. And yes, Haxe is awesome because you can target a variety of platforms with more or less the same code. For mobile versions you might need to change a couple of things, for example orientation and touching instead of clicking (although it's good to use utility classes and/or conditional compilation for this), but apart from that it's still the same code.

By the way Lexou, for tests are you compiling to C++ or Neko? I'd recommend the latter as that is much, much quicker with pretty much the same result. C++ should only really be used if you want to use specific libraries that are exclusive to it.

[Lexou Duck]

yeah of course i compile to neko, it was made specifically for haxe so of course its better

okay so i got quite a bit of work done, this includes but is not limited to:
• different game modes (PLY vs CPU, PLY vs PLY, CPU vs CPU)
• functional melee attacks
• functional enemy AI (follows you and moves somewhat randomly, yet stays at a safe distance circling you and attacking randomly)
• health and time system working (i had only done the HUD showing before), so battles can be fought and won/lost (duh)
• the 3 stages sketchasaurus posted working, with the animated crowd (BLUE, GREEN and GRAY)
• a placeholder menu to choose from all this stuff and test shit out
• a camera that does its best to keep both players on screen at all times

ok so you've all been waiting for the traditional update gif, here's an example showing player vs CPU mode
(yeah the titan1 and 2 are switched but i fixed that since then dont worry)

holy shit the gif is glitchy that's gifcam's fault, the game's fine

and yeah as I was programming it allowed me to raise a few questions for sketchasaurus, since its not like we have a design doc or anything

• first of all could you make victory and KO poses for each character ?

• next could you tell me how you feel the game's menu should be so i can start working on it ?

• i programmed it in a way that the stage size is easily modifiable, why not have more varied stages ?
(maybe even some with slopes, or obstacles and shit)

• do you want there to be a cooldown on special moves, or bullet attacks ?

• you made it so there's a little cutscene at the beginning of the battle, and okay this is fine for 1P mode
now i haven't programmed that yet but how i am supposed to do for 2 player mode ?

• i changed the HUD a bit to show enemy HP, would you want that not to be seen when in story/campaign mode ?
On that note, i was thinking of making the game potentially 4 player, in which we'd have 4 life bars on the HUD, with only the time shown and no score
Also you made a big square for the element modifier, how about assist characters ? where do they go on the HUD ?

• okay now here's a biggie : so i told you already the hearts you made aren't in multiples of 8x8 tiles but that's not much of a problem except heres the deal
i think it'd be nice for each titan to have its own specific stats so i kind of started to do that already,
like knael is really quick in movespeed but has only 4 hearts, whereas its the other way around for tropicaur, etc
i think in the end you could have this info when you select your character, like there are different categories of stats, each out of 5 stars
heres an example
TROPICAUR
Health : *****
Speed : *
Melee : ****
Bullet : **
Jump : * (this stat im not sure about, maybe you wouldnt want them all to be able to jump; but i think it makes for an interesting game mechanic)
so heres my question : wouldnt it be better to have life bars instead of hearts ?
that way the titans can vary in attack power without having that huge difference a half-heart makes (or even a quarter-heart for that matter)

• could you tell me exactly how element modifiers work ?
i was thinking they could appropriately modify not only your bullet attacks, but also your special moves
and that there would be 5 elements, the advantages of which are spread like a pentagram (think rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock)

• also if you could tell me how the various bullets behave ?
im pretty sure some of them spread, or are AoE explosions and if not there should be different behaviors
and which characters have which bullets on the spritesheet etc

• this one can wait, but how are the bosses' AI supposed to work, what are their attacks, how much health etc ?

okay i think that's pretty much it for now, so sketchasaurus please try and give a reply as quick as possible seeing as i have very limited internet access
y'all others can chip in ideas too i guess, if you have good ones

my biggest concern for the game is to make it have an interesting metagame within the battle system so that 2-player (or 4-player) mode would be as fun as possible
btw i was thinking of making different battle types, for instance one where the point is to push your opponent to his edge of the stage and stuff like that

[puggsoy]

yeah of course i compile to neko, it was made specifically for haxe so of course its better

Cool, just checking. Neko wasn't actually made for Haxe though, it is its own programming language, but it was designed to be generated by higher-level languages (e.g. I could make a Python-to-Neko generator), Haxe is just the most popular and best one that does it. http://nekovm.org/index

Anyway looks good! AI doesn't look easy (I haven't had much chance to try it out myself actually) but you seem to be doing a good job

[Sketchasaurus]

I'm definitely going to address all of these questions and ideas after I finish doing some concept sketches and some more sprite assets.

first sprites that are on my list are win/KO poses. I'm super excited by the questions and ideas that you've presented, Lexou. thanks again for being so interested in helping make this idea a reality!

[Deathbringer]

I did a mockup for a 4-player HUD (with alternate ideas for health bars), to accommodate the idea of all 4 players having assists.


With the exception of the top-left example (which sounded like a good idea in my head, but leaves a lot of unusable space and expanding that to 6 digit numbers looks uglier), the other 3 can be expanded to be higher amounts without the need to worry about numbers. It leaves a gap in the bottom if you wanted to incorporate another idea (like a scorecard or random event to affect the arena) but without disorganizing the HUD.

The idea for the big heart is to show that player is still active, so once they're defeated, it would change to either a skull and crossbones or an empty heart.

It's okay if you have other ideas, I'm just spit-balling here.

[Sketchasaurus]

I did some sketching (which I need to act on) and took some time to meditate on some of these questions and get my imagination going again. I like what I see on the 4Player HUD idea here, and the Skull/Heart idea is also really rad to me.

• first of all could you make victory and KO poses for each character ?

Yep, I'll get started on that right away.

EDIT: Here we go, I've gotten at least Tropicaur, Kamekannon, Hawkindle, and Rhinozar's Win/KO poses done:

• next could you tell me how you feel the game's menu should be so i can start working on it ?

I was thinking of the menu being like the interior of a gym, with "inspirational posters" as the options for game-modes. That's at least what I imagine the mode select screen to be like. As for pausing while in-battle, that screen would take place at the bench, much like in sports, where your team would be seated; Titans with lower health would have sweat drops coming off of their heads. I'd have to find out how to accomplish this with 4-Player mode (if this somehow had online capabilities, then each player would have their own view of their own bench and nobody else's)

EDIT:
Here's what I have for the mode select screen so far. as you scroll left/right, one of the pieces of gym equipment from the previous screen would remain on screen.

So if we were to move to the left, the bench press would be on the right side of the new poster.

• i programmed it in a way that the stage size is easily modifiable, why not have more varied stages ?
(maybe even some with slopes, or obstacles and shit)

I definitely agree that there should be variance in the stages with obstacles, different events like birds flying on-screen and dropping items, swarms attacking, maybe geysers, and all sorts of other fun things.

• do you want there to be a cooldown on special moves, or bullet attacks ?

Cooldown would definitely aid in balancing combat so that you can't stun-lock your opponent and win cheaply. I imagine that basic bullet attacks would be able to be somewhat rapid-fired, but I imagine that fighters would have a short period of time after hit where they're invulnerable and flickering, so they have a chance to get out of the way.

• you made it so there's a little cutscene at the beginning of the battle, and okay this is fine for 1P mode
now i haven't programmed that yet but how i am supposed to do for 2 player mode ?

I might come up with a different cutscene for 2P/4P battlemodes. If not, I imagine that each player would be focussed on at the beginning with their entrance to the stage, one at a time, but that would lengthen the intro cutscene, so I might instead have the camera focussed on the center of the screen and each player leaps into position from their respective corners. P1-top/left, P2-top/right, P3-bottom/left, P4-bottom/right.

• i changed the HUD a bit to show enemy HP, would you want that not to be seen when in story/campaign mode ?
On that note, i was thinking of making the game potentially 4 player, in which we'd have 4 life bars on the HUD, with only the time shown and no score
Also you made a big square for the element modifier, how about assist characters ? where do they go on the HUD ?

During story/campaign mode, I imagine that enemy health would be hidden, but it could also be revealed by calling upon an assist character (not yet sprited)

4-player play would indeed be interesting, though the camera may have issues tracking all 4 players at once.
Assist characters and element modifiers are shown in the same slot on the HUD, as calling an assist would replace one of the attack functions (non-melee)

• okay now here's a biggie : so i told you already the hearts you made aren't in multiples of 8x8 tiles but that's not much of a problem except heres the deal
i think it'd be nice for each titan to have its own specific stats so i kind of started to do that already,
like knael is really quick in movespeed but has only 4 hearts, whereas its the other way around for tropicaur, etc
i think in the end you could have this info when you select your character, like there are different categories of stats, each out of 5 stars
heres an example
TROPICAUR
Health : *****
Speed : *
Melee : ****
Bullet : **
Jump : * (this stat im not sure about, maybe you wouldnt want them all to be able to jump; but i think it makes for an interesting game mechanic)
so heres my question : wouldnt it be better to have life bars instead of hearts ?
that way the titans can vary in attack power without having that huge difference a half-heart makes (or even a quarter-heart for that matter)

Life bars would probably be better than a heart meter, especially because I think stats would definitely come into play. I would include "Charge" and "Range" into the stats mainly because of how I imagine the attacks system would work.


• could you tell me exactly how element modifiers work ?
i was thinking they could appropriately modify not only your bullet attacks, but also your special moves
and that there would be 5 elements, the advantages of which are spread like a pentagram (think rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock)

One thing about elements that I'd been thinking about when beginning thoughts on Titans was that they wouldn't be a core concept in the design of the monsters, however, there are different gameplay mechanics that could be played with to make battles more varied with them. When I've thought of elemental power-ups, type advantage was something that I avoided, typically.

I think of the elements as more of equipment that changes/augments how a titan's inherent abilities work. It could also be a way to allow the player to set up traps around the arena, which could be a fun mechanic to explore further.

Some of these, I'm coming up with on the spot:
Fire: projectiles ignite the opponent, obstacles, or leave a trail of flames behind it temporarily.
Ice: freezes or slows the opponent, allowing a chance for more melee attacks. may also leave icy patches on the ground, causing titans to slip.
Water: pushes the opponent, does very little damage but is useful in pushing opponents into traps. also could create slippery surfaces.
Bomb: High amounts of damage. may be able to be used as landmine traps. can be immediately detonated by fire, and maybe extinguished by water.
Metal: higher defense, slower movement, attacks also deal more damage. projectiles are metallic and may also bounce off of walls and obstacles.
Spikes: all projectiles are spikes, physical attacks are "sharper" but have less knockback and less heavy damage. sets up spike traps.
Seed/Sprout: seeds and vines become your weapon. seeds become sprout traps when they hit the ground, but can be destroyed with fire, bombs, and ice; water makes them stronger/bigger.
Bones: your titan throws bones as a projectile. This modifier may also come with its own helper, which is triggered as a trap: Zombie/Skeleton. it's slow, but it follows the one who sprung the trap and latches on, slowing them down and doing small amounts of damage over time. this equipment may be quite rare.

• also if you could tell me how the various bullets behave ?
im pretty sure some of them spread, or are AoE explosions and if not there should be different behaviors
and which characters have which bullets on the spritesheet etc

I'm thinking about shared characteristics such as the way that a titan's projectile fuctions, which I've boiled down to "Spread" "Direct" and "Catapult" types. Though, I might add a fourth which would be called "Stream" due to its function as a flamethrower of sorts (but it could also be water or maybe an arc of lightning due to different elemental effects)

Spread: 3(or so) bullets that separate vertically as they travel horizontally. Hawkindle uses this bullet type by default and the smoke cloud is the primary effect.

Direct: 1 bullet that travels horizontally (until it hits or runs out of range, in which case it collides with the ground) This bullet type moves faster and has the most horizontal range, but has to be more accurately fired. Kamekannon and Knael use this by default. Kamekannon uses the rock sprite by default, Knael uses the Knife.

Catapult: Launches the projectile in an arc on the Z-axis, and drops on top of the target. this one may behave differently based on how long the button is held and depends more on timing. projectiles of this type have a larger radius of effect when they hit the ground, spawning at least 4 debris projectiles that deal damage. Tropicaur and Rhinozar use this by default. Tropicaur uses the Pineapple by default (if it's on that sheet), and Rhinozar also uses the rock.

Here's a (dated) example of the attack types.

• this one can wait, but how are the bosses' AI supposed to work, what are their attacks, how much health etc ?

I have a few ai sets in mind for at least the dragon boss, which will have different color palettes for the different attack pattern sets. I also want to come up with a few more bosses to add a bit more variety to the roster and gameplay. Likely, there will be at least 1 more super-huge boss like the gorilla.

[Deathbringer]

More spitballin'.

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Your idea for the mode select is good, really good. If Lex can do a wraparound effect, then you could have 2 more unique pieces of equipment and give the illusion of a room with a door to exit to the title screen or whatever.

[Sketchasaurus]

Yeah, I plan on making at least 2 more pieces of equipment, and adding more tiles to the background to enhance the gym feeling.

also did this little thing for fun:

it might be kind of fun to have your team from the 1P campaign using the gym equipment, but that's just a little idea that isn't totally necessary to the engine at this point.

[Deathbringer]

Wanted to try something out.

[Sketchasaurus]

Looking rad! it actually gave me an idea to include some of the features I've been saving for later installations of Fighting Titans!!
Also, it could be something to explore in the equipment/status menu GUI.

One of which is the concept of equipment slots. within the scope of this game, there would be three slots, possibly differing in use for the different species:
Helmets, Gauntlets, and shoes are the slots that I was thinking of initially, but this could change into 3 generic slots where you can put any type of equipment in. Some of these equipment sets would have the element modifiers (which is how I imagined them being in the first place, but with only one slot)
other items would augment a titan's stats, like increase speed, reduce knockback from enemy attacks, reduce charge rate, and maybe give special movement like persistent flight in the case of Hawkindle (he can't slip on ice patches or trigger floor traps, but he is knocked back significantly by attacks) these would provide a lot more depth to the meta-game as it were, and would allow for players to tailor their team to suit their play style, which is a huge design theme that I try to keep in mind. I also imagine that equipment would change how physical attacks would function as well, like a certain item would make one's punch work as a fake-out followed by a double-hit kind of move.

which leads me to the concept of special physical moves, which I've given special names for fun:
The sprites that are used for these moves are those in the third row of each sprite-set.

Tropicaur's "Conifer Crash"
Tropicaur rushes forwards, sprinting and bashing into anything that stands in its path.

Kamekannon's "Balistic Carapace"
Kamekannon withdraws in its shell and skids around the field in a wave pattern, bouncing off of walls and obstacles.

Hawkindle's "Phoenix rise"
Hawkindle flies up into the air and swoops down, knocking into opponents.

Rhinozar's "Eruption" (not yet sprited)
Rhinozar lowers its head and charges straight towards its foes. Similar to Tropicaur's Conifer Crash.

Knael's "Clawtana" (not yet sprited)
Knael slices and dices its foes by spinning with its claws out, moving in a similar fashion to Kamekannon's Ballistic Carapace.

Draqueen's "Royal Slam" (no sprite yet)
Charges at foes, hopping and stunning enemies in a radius of each jump. (those who are jumped on or collided with take damage)

Draking's "Royal Slam" (no sprite yet)
Like Draqueen's, but Draking flies up and swoops like Hawkindle for each jump.

I shall leave you with what I have for the player spritesheet as of today:


EDIT:
I'll also use this as a way to refer to frames now.
so I can say stuff like:
Idle animations: fr. 0 (.5 sec) fr. 1 (.5 sec) [Loop]
or if I add to a sheet, I can say stuff like: "I updated sprite C for *insert name*"

Also, I'm looking through some of my concept art to see what other players and helpers I could toss in. But for now, I want to iron out how the current roster works and the core gameplay before piling stuff on, because I'm getting rather excited at what this is becoming.