Re: [Audyssey] walk along beat em ups with tactics?
Hi Tom. Obviously the batman game on the nes is not as similar to the Mega drive game as I thought, sinse that's deffinately more a platformer, though you stil can punch, use batterangs, and indeed do lots of swinging with the bat rope. the thing i find most surprising about audio games and beat em ups, is that nobody has thought of this before. While I can understand why the 2D dimention has been missed from platformers, sinse afterall it's a bit of a stretch of thinking to imagine a character jumping that high unless you've seen the graphical games, sidestepping, moving in and out of range and the like are very well known tactics in boxing, wrestling and martial arts normally. you don't just advance and retreat, you try to flank your opponent, come at them from a weaker side etc. I also think this would be one of the easiest things to show in audio, sinse while for 2D platformers the vertical elements needs to be pretty major, for beat em ups there really doesn't need to be too much. Indeed, the old game dragon ninjas really did! have very litle vertical movement at all, literally only about three levels worth. Applications like Klango have already shown some great ways of doing vertical spacing with volume, look at mole no more, and in a beat em up you wouldn't even need as many volume layers sinse everything would be from the characters' perspective anyway. Yet, this is something we've not seen in audio thus far, which is a real shame. i'd love to see a tactical beat em up, sinse I'm a big fan of that style of game. i first played double dragon at the age of about 5, and stil! enjoy it ;D. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] walk along beat em ups with tactics?
Hi Dark, The Batman game for the original NES was definitely a walk along beat-m-up. You could punch, kick, throw batarangs, and as i recall pick up missile launchers to take out flying enemies. I would class it more like TMNT and Double Dragon than with Megaman or Castlevania. In either case your point that we lack a vertical dimention is definitely correct. In Legend of Kage for example you could climb certain trees run up/down staircases in the castle level, and enemies could attack from above, below, behind, or straight ahead. We simply do not have that style of game as a walk along beat-m-up or anything else yet. Cheers! On 7/2/11, dark wrote: > Hi Tom. > > here I was specifically thinking of games like tmnt, double dragon, golden > axe etc. If batman is similar to batman on the mega drive (the only batman > game I've played), then I'd class that more as a 2D platformer ala mega man, > castlevania etc rather than a beat em up despite the fact you could punch. > > We've already had discussions on list about the 2D vertical plane, which is > why I'm hopeful mota, and probably perilous hearts, will change people's > perceptions in this idea. > > however, here I was just making the point after playing walk along beat em > ups, that even in a game like final fight or streets of rage where you are > always just walking left to right, there is an additional, vertical > dimention to the gameplay which has been totally missing in audio games thus > far, just as much as full 2D vertical jumping has been missing too. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] walk along beat em ups with tactics?
Hi Tom. here I was specifically thinking of games like tmnt, double dragon, golden axe etc. If batman is similar to batman on the mega drive (the only batman game I've played), then I'd class that more as a 2D platformer ala mega man, castlevania etc rather than a beat em up despite the fact you could punch. We've already had discussions on list about the 2D vertical plane, which is why I'm hopeful mota, and probably perilous hearts, will change people's perceptions in this idea. however, here I was just making the point after playing walk along beat em ups, that even in a game like final fight or streets of rage where you are always just walking left to right, there is an additional, vertical dimention to the gameplay which has been totally missing in audio games thus far, just as much as full 2D vertical jumping has been missing too. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] walk along beat em ups with tactics?
Hi Dark, I'm with you there. When developing Mysteries of the Ancients I've put a lot of these things in place already, and I think if I ever do another side-scroller I want to add more strategy and tactics into it. As you probably know I have played many beat-m-up games including Legend of Kage, Bad Dudes, Double Dragon, Batman, Ninja Turtles, and so on and am aware of what you are talking about. I'm also quite aware of what games like super Liam and Q9 lack, and want to change that in my own games. You are absolutely right that even an old beat-m-up like TMNT had way more tactics and strategy than any of the accessible games. With TMNT in particular it required different tactics and skills depending on which turtle you were playing with at the time. Leonardo had a lot more range and could fight at a distance where Rafaelwas definitely a close in fighter. Each turtle was unique and definitely lent his own particular style to the game. In Batman, one of my all time favorite beat-m-ups, there were enemies that would drop down out of the ceiling, traps to jumpover, as well as enemies closing in from the left or right. You really had to pay attention that an enemy didn't land on top of you, or a flying enemy with a jet pack didn't hit you with a flamethrower before you could take him out with a batarang. Which, of course, required different weapons for different types of enemies. Standard thugs you could just knock out with fists. Flying enemies or those standing on walls needed a long range weapon like a batarang or rocket. You really had to think about what you were doing or were going to get slottered pretty quick. As you explained enemies were not always level with you. Many of them were above or below you. You had to change tactics and strategy to take out enemies because there might be hidden snipers above you, or some enemy that might be firing up at you from below. It was quite a bit different than what we have now. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] walk along beat em ups with tactics?
Hi. Recently I've been a litle irritated, and there's nothing that cheers me up quite as much as pile driving crooks! so I've been playing double dragon advanced and final fight advanced, final fight particularly is actually an arcade perfect conversion for the gba, and on my big tv with my huge speakers it's pretty awsome, especially playinhg with the x arcade stick. however, this set me thinking. thus far, while we've had several audio games where you walk along and smack people, Q9, battlezone, possibly even superliam in mechanics terms, all have basically worked the same way with a single, 1D advance/retreat mode, possibly including jumps and jumping attacks as in Q9, but essentially boiling down to something more boppit style with little thought given to the relative positions of your character and enemies. Yet games like Final fight, streets of rage, golden axe etc, do not actually work like this at all. Yes, in most games you just walk left to right beating up thugs, however there is also a crytical, vertical element, and I don't just mean jumping. The best way to explain this, is imagine each level of the game, instead of being a single line with the odd pit thrown in, is a long rectangle. Yes, you must walk from left to right, and usually must go right to finish the level, but you can also walk up and down by a limited amount, while stil facing right or left. Another way of thinking of this might be to look at your pc keyboard. If you imagine having an action figure, and placing it on the leter row on the A key but keeping facing right, you can side step up to the Q key or down to the z key, or progress forward to the S key, all while facing right. Imagine that a thug is on the d key. The thug could come streight towards you by going forward, or could try side stepping around you by going down to c and onto the bottom row, or up to e and onto the top, however, the thug can only hit you (and you it), when both are on the same row. Thus, the game becomes one of position, moving not just forward and back, but up and down, indeed, in many games (including streets of rage and final fight), you'll get hit pretty quickly if you walk streight left or right into a thug, but are best off moving diagonally oup or down and initiating a grab. I hope this explanation makes sense to anyone who hasn't had the eyeballs to see how such games work. The thing is, just as in 2D platformers lack of the actual second dimention in audio makes the games far simpler, in 2D beat em ups, lack of this up/down positioning makes the games far simpler too, sinse without being able to out flank or maneuver your enemies, they just turn into a hit it before it hits you type of thing. I think though, this would be comparatively easy to show in audio by using either pitch, or volume to show vertical position of enemies relative to your character, and thus making you neede to considder where they are vertically. this would add significantly to the tactical gameplay of such games, sinse you would need to for instance estimate when an enemy is close on a vertical level then move up or down to attack them, or wait until an enemy came into your vertical plane before attacking. Even just three positions for enemies, above, below and on the same level would be enough for tactical play I think. I really hope the next person who looks at making a walk along beat em up in audio will considder this, sinse I really think we need to move away from the boppit style here it, react, type of gameplay of games like Superliam, and move into something more technical, and ultimately more replayable and satisfying. Yes, this will be more difficult, but games like Final fight and double dragon were never easy either. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
