Zizka
Member
Hello everyone,
The last few days or so I've been pondering and pondering and pondering my combat system. I've covered pages and pages of paper and realized that the only way to get to a finished design would be to actually try instead of being stuck in paralysis.
Interactive RPG battles are my favorite. I think Paper Mario and to some lesser extent Earthbound are a great source of inspiration.
I want player input to be continuous throughout fights. So this is why I'm trying to recreate. I won't show you the first two designs but I'll share the third along with some explanations.
The wheel idea is inspired by Shadow Hearts:
...but I wanted to go further than that as I felt it was too basic.
(I've drawn everything except for the Goomba which is currently a placeholder of course).
The idea is to have the coin on top of the wheel representing either the shield (defense) or the crossed swords (offense). The game is by default in offensive mode. The enemy action bar fills up over time and when it's full, the wheel automatically shifts to defense mode. This way, the coin keeps flipping back and forth between offense and defense.
The hearts represent health, this is straightforward. In the mockup I've showed, the player has lost one heart out of six.
Energy refills over time and powers all actions in battle, both offense and defense.
1. Battle Flow:
I. Battle begins, the wheel starts spinning, quickly at first. While the wheel is spinning, energy is getting replenished and the enemy action bar is filling up.
II. The wheel slows down the longer the player waits. This is a risk/reward. The longer you wait, the more your attacks and defense are likely to be, but meanwhile the enemy is preparing its attack.
III. The player presses a button to pick the current selection on the wheel at the cost of 1 energy. A red section means a miss, a green a hit, a yellow a critical hit and so on.
IV. A positive outcome speeds up the wheel while a negative one doesn't. This is to prevent the wheel from getting too slow and keep things challenging.
V. Once the enemy is ready to attack the wheel transition to its defense setup. The colors of the wheel then have different functions, such as dodge, block and receive damage and so on.
VI. When the defense is dealt with, the wheel switches back to offense and battle continues until someone is victorious.
VII. The positive sections of the wheel disappear when they're selected. This means that the more successful attacks on the player turn, the harder it gets to combo more hits.
IX. When the wheel transitions from defense and offense and vice-versa, all the sections are back.
X. Enemies determine the content of the wheel. Agile enemies provide narrower hit areas for example.
What do I need help with?
At the moment the art is all over the place. The wheel doesn't look anywhere near ready for example.
A. Ideas to make the art more cohesive with the theme of space, planets, astronomy and so on? For instance, the moon for defense, the swords are meant to represent the sun, etc...
B. Suggestions to organize the U.I.
C. Comments and critique about the combat as it stands at the moment.
D. Any other thoughts or comments.
E. Do you think it's too complex? Is this a matter of "feature creep" where I've gone overboard?
Thank you for reading!
The last few days or so I've been pondering and pondering and pondering my combat system. I've covered pages and pages of paper and realized that the only way to get to a finished design would be to actually try instead of being stuck in paralysis.
Interactive RPG battles are my favorite. I think Paper Mario and to some lesser extent Earthbound are a great source of inspiration.
I want player input to be continuous throughout fights. So this is why I'm trying to recreate. I won't show you the first two designs but I'll share the third along with some explanations.
The wheel idea is inspired by Shadow Hearts:
...but I wanted to go further than that as I felt it was too basic.
(I've drawn everything except for the Goomba which is currently a placeholder of course).
The idea is to have the coin on top of the wheel representing either the shield (defense) or the crossed swords (offense). The game is by default in offensive mode. The enemy action bar fills up over time and when it's full, the wheel automatically shifts to defense mode. This way, the coin keeps flipping back and forth between offense and defense.
The hearts represent health, this is straightforward. In the mockup I've showed, the player has lost one heart out of six.
Energy refills over time and powers all actions in battle, both offense and defense.
1. Battle Flow:
I. Battle begins, the wheel starts spinning, quickly at first. While the wheel is spinning, energy is getting replenished and the enemy action bar is filling up.
II. The wheel slows down the longer the player waits. This is a risk/reward. The longer you wait, the more your attacks and defense are likely to be, but meanwhile the enemy is preparing its attack.
III. The player presses a button to pick the current selection on the wheel at the cost of 1 energy. A red section means a miss, a green a hit, a yellow a critical hit and so on.
IV. A positive outcome speeds up the wheel while a negative one doesn't. This is to prevent the wheel from getting too slow and keep things challenging.
V. Once the enemy is ready to attack the wheel transition to its defense setup. The colors of the wheel then have different functions, such as dodge, block and receive damage and so on.
VI. When the defense is dealt with, the wheel switches back to offense and battle continues until someone is victorious.
VII. The positive sections of the wheel disappear when they're selected. This means that the more successful attacks on the player turn, the harder it gets to combo more hits.
IX. When the wheel transitions from defense and offense and vice-versa, all the sections are back.
X. Enemies determine the content of the wheel. Agile enemies provide narrower hit areas for example.
What do I need help with?
At the moment the art is all over the place. The wheel doesn't look anywhere near ready for example.
A. Ideas to make the art more cohesive with the theme of space, planets, astronomy and so on? For instance, the moon for defense, the swords are meant to represent the sun, etc...
B. Suggestions to organize the U.I.
C. Comments and critique about the combat as it stands at the moment.
D. Any other thoughts or comments.
E. Do you think it's too complex? Is this a matter of "feature creep" where I've gone overboard?
Thank you for reading!