Fighting Edge

BoV: Virtua Fighter 2

January 3, 2010 12:36 AM

BoV: The King of Fighters NeoWave

December 24, 2009 3:29 AM

Street Fighter II (1991): Would You Like the Combo?

December 23, 2009 11:00 PM

Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the most Influential Games of All Time
Bill Loguidice, 2009

Ryu, Ken , E. Honda, Guile, Chun-Li, Zangief, Dhalsim, Sagat and M. Bison—do they really need an introduction? If so, you’re overdue for a serious Shoryuken. The game: Capcom’s Street Fighter II, probably the single most important arcade title of the 1990s.

Although there had been several competitive fighting games before it, Street Fighter II trumped them all with its spectacular graphics and sophisticated—even artistic—gameplay. If the graphics were the bait, the gameplay was the hook. A seemingly endless line of teenagers lined up in front of these machines, eager to demonstrate their visual street fighting skills—or, at least their mastery of Street Fighter II’s esoteric combat system. For many boys (and no doubt many girls as well!) growing up in the 1990s, Street Fighter II wasn’t just a game, but a rite of passage.

Street Fighter II joins the ranks of other Japanese games that overwhelmed American arcades: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Pole Position. All four games introduced critical innovations that would be shamelessly duplicated and endlessly refined. Although they perhaps had their greatest impact in the arcades, they also played a critical role in the console industry. Console makers competed fiercely for the rights to port these titles, as they knew countless fans would purchase their console specifically to play these games in their living rooms. Indeed, one of the recurring standards of console excellence throughout the 1980s and 1990s was the degree to which their ports of games like Pac-Man and Street Fighter II approximated the arcade experience.

However, there’s little argument that what made Street Fighter II so popular was its competitive nature, which, like Pong before it, made it uniquely suited to the arcade. Though it was possible to play Street Fighter II and other fighting games against the computer, the real challenge was facing off against a skilled human opponent. The arcade owners of the early 1990s must have loved these fighting games, which filled their arcades with quarter-popping teens who otherwise would have stayed home to play videogames on their consoles and computers. Indeed, the only real competition that fighting games had at the arcades were driving simulations, which benefitted from specially built enclosures and cabinets that would have been prohibitively expensive to have at home. Other arcade games didn’t enjoy this advantage, and their graphical superiority gradually eroded as console technology improved. However, unless one had like-minded friends to play with at home, the arcades were still the best place to test one’s mettle against other Street Fighter II fans. This fact helped keep fighting games flourishing in the arcades long after shoot ‘em ups and platformers had faded from that venue to the family television.

Street Fighter II was certainly not the first fighting game, and we’ll spend some time in this chapter describing its most influential predecessors. However, it did offer some key innovations that came to define the genre, which we’ll discuss in turn. There is some contention about what was actually the first true competitive fighting game. One very early contender is Vectorbeam’s Warrior, a 1979 arcade game that showed an overhead view of two duelling knights with swords. It featured vector graphics, and the two players could win either by whacking their opponent with their swords or forcing them into a pit (solo play wasn’t possible). However, the machine’s hardware was unreliable, and poor collision detection and sluggish controls—two of the most critical aspects for a fighting game—certainly didn’t help endear it to gamers. It faded quickly from the scene.

In 1984, John G. Avildsen’s The Karate Kid debuted in theatres. This film smashed into theatres like a flying sidekick, raking in over $90 million and inspiring untold legions of boys to seek martial arts training at one of the new dojos popping up all over the country. Everyone seemed to be saying “wax on, wax off” in their best Mr. Miyagi accent. Needless to say, the time was ripe for a good karate game that would let players reprise Ralph Macchio’s role as Daniel LaRusso.

Technos Japan Corporation’s Karate Champ, released in 1984 by Data East, certainly gave them the chance. The original version was for a single player who fought against computer-controlled opponents. The interface relied on a pair of joysticks for control; the left was primarily for movement and the right for attacks. Karate Champ also offered the familiar side-by-side perspective that would become standard in almost every subsequent fighting game. Technos is also responsible for Double Dragon, a side-scrolling “beat ‘em up” that we’ll discuss later. In addition to the now-standard sparring mode, Karate Champ also offered a series of minigames to further test one’s skill at the controllers.

Data East revised the game and rereleased it as Karate Champ Player vs. Player later in 1984, with home ports for a variety of systems following shortly thereafter. The arcade version featured two pairs of joysticks, and, as the title makes clear, offered competitive gameplay. Naturally, the ports had to make concessions for simpler control schemes, such as requiring players to hold down a controller button while moving the joystick (or operating) the d-pad) in a certain direction to execute a move. For instance, the rather inadequate Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port required players to move right on the d-pad and simultaneously press the A and B buttons to leap right. All versions but the NES have the players fighting over a woman, who seems to prefer a boyfriend who can pulverize his rival. The NES version removed this aspect of the game, though it’s unclear whether this was a move to make the game less sexist or simply to get the coding done faster. The sloppiness of the collision detection and control schemes suggest the latter.

A British company named System 3 developed and released a computer game in 1986 called International Karate. The game was quite similar to Karate Champ, but was available on far more platforms, including British computers like the ZX Spectrum. The game was published in the United States by Epyx. Data East sued System 3, accusing them of a complex set of copyright and trademark violations. The case was eventually decided against Data East, though the reasoning behind the judge’s decision was somewhat complicated. Essentially, he believed that the many elements the games had in common were essential to the sport of Karate and could not be copyrighted. On the other hand, the elements of Karate Champ and International Karate that were “creative contributions,” such as scoring and background scenes, were quite different and did not violate copyright. Data East seemed to have learned from the experience, and tried something similar in 1993 with Fighter’s History, which Capcom felt was similar enough to its Street Fighter II to warrant another trial. Again, the courts ruled in favour of the clone-maker, and Data East emerged victorious in the struggle.

There were several other notable fighting games made in the Karate Champ style, such as Beam Software’s Way of the Exploding Fist (1985), a popular Australian game that made its way to Britain and the United States for the Commodore 64 and most British computers of the time. However, arguably the best of the lot is Jordan Mechner’s Karateka, a methodically paced 1984 side-scrolling fighting game for the Apple II published by Broderbund and ported to most other platforms of the era.

Karateka, like Mechner’s later hit Prince of Persia (1989), was known for its realistic graphics and convincing animation of the human body. Unlike most fighting games, Karateka featured a comprehensive and cinematic storyline—the player must face a series of increasingly difficult fights to rescue princess Mariko from the evil Akuma. Interestingly enough, in most versions, the box art portrayed the player’s character and Princess Mariko as blond Europeans, only Akuma looks Asian.

Another early approach to the fighting genre is represented by Techno’s side-scrolling Double Dragon (1987), often called the definitive beat ‘em up.” Double Dragon and its imitators differ from competitive fighting games in several key ways. Most significantly, instead of all the action taking place on a single screen, the screen scrolls horizontally as the player (or players) progress through the game, battling increasingly tougher or more numerous enemies. Second, the controls are greatly simplified, with much fewer moves—a fact compensated for with the ability to pick up and use a variety of weapons (baseball bats, whips, and so on). Third, players usually cooperate with each other to fight computer-controlled thugs rather than duel one-on-one. Beat ‘em ups like Double Dragon were popular in the arcades, but were also a hit on home platforms.

Double Dragon saw several sequels and even a typically mediocre film treatment in 1994. It also inspired a slew of quality clones, including Capcom’s Final Fight and Sega’s Golden Axe, both in 1989. There have also been several successful beat ‘em ups based on comic book and cartoon characters, such as Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, yet another bestseller of 1989, and Konami’s X-Men (1992), a quarter-gobbler that offered simultaneous gameplay for up to six players. The popular TV show The Simpsons also served as the basis for a classic beat ‘em up, with Konami’s unlikely The Simpsons: The Arcade Game in 1991.

There was a cavalcade of computer, arcade, and console games based more or less on Karate Champ released in the mid to late 1980s, but most of these were quickly forgotten. One such game that might have ended up in the dustbin of history was Capcom’s Street Fighter (1987). Though it offered better audiovisuals than Karate Champ, the controls were inaccurate and often frustrating, and players only had two virtually identical playable characters to choose from (Ryu and Ken). The original controls were a joystick and two pneumatic pads. The idea was that the characters in the game would execute a strong or weak move depending on how hard players smacked these pads; needless to say, these machines were quickly ruined by abusive players. Later versions replaced these pads with the six-button setup that afterwards became a staple of the genre. It also featured three secret techniques (special moves) that players had to learn on their own. The game was eventually ported to many home platforms of the day, thought sometimes with modifications, like the release for the NEC TurboGrafx-CD as Fighting Street.

Capcom more than redeemed itself four years later with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. The sequel represented a vast improvement over its prequel. Besides the expected improvement in audiovisuals, Capcom made some innovative changes to the gameplay that revolutionized the genre: eight unique playable characters, each with an extensive set of attacks, some of which could be combined into multihit combinations, or “combos”. It also offered four AI-only “boss” characters and borrowed the competitive “loser pays” game system from the previous game; the winner of player versus player match could play another bout for free, but the loser had to ante up another quarter. This design game gamers yet another incentive to master the combos!

The huge number of moves made Street Fighter II the most sophisticated game of its kind. Players enjoyed trying out the different characters and devising strategies to deal with every possible situation. Although of course there had been strategy involved in earlier fighting games, Street Fighter II was substantially more complex. Players had to work hard to learn all the moves and then the right circumstances to execute them. Furthermore, the super-tight controls and detailed graphics made the game fun to play and impressive to watch. Players could either compete head-to-head or take on the game solo, in which case they’d fight all the other characters and the four bosses. Later versions made these bosses playable characters as well.

Although arcades had always been veritable arenas of competition, Street Fighter II took things to a new level. Dedicated players discussed moves and strategies with their friends, read magazines and guides, and spent countless hours practicing and tweaking their performance. Naturally, novice players facing a seasoned veteran often found themselves hopelessly outmatched, unable to last more than a few seconds or get off a single attack. Although some such players might accuse the other of cheating or playing “cheap”, for the most part even the nastiest attacks and combos had their appropriate countermove.

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was a staggering success for Capcom and the arcade industry as a whole. Capcom released multiple variations over the years, adding or revising content and tweaking or speeding up the gameplay. The game was also ported to most computer and console platforms. A Super Nintendo version appeared in 1992, but the NED TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis platforms didn’t see the game until 1993 with the arrival of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. Late 1993 saw the arcade release of Super Street Fighter II, which upgraded the audiovisuals and added new characters but slowed the gameplay down. In 1994, Super Street Fighter II Turbo added “super combos” and let players adjust the game’s speed. Street Fighter II aficionados endlessly debated the merits and limitations of each port, sequel, and remake. Fans would have to wait until 1995, however, for the first true sequel with all new content—Street Fighter Alpha, which was set chronologically before Street Fighter II and had a younger cast of fighters. This was followed in 1997 by Street Fighter III: New Generation, which revamped the gameplay and got rid of all the original characters except Ryu and Ken.

The enormous success of Street Fighter II spurred a huge number of clones and spin-offs. SNK added several key games to the genre, including Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (1991), Art of Fighting (1992), and Samurai Shodown (1993). A comprehensive list (much less description) of each such game would strain the energies of the authors and the patience of even the most devoted reader. Through it all, however, Street Fighter II remained the standard by which all others were measured.

Perhaps the most notorious of all is Midway’s Mortal Kombat, a 1992 arcade game that aroused almost instant controversy for its cinematic realism and over-the-top violence. It looked more realistic than Street Fighter II, because it was made with live actors who had been filmed over a bluescreen and digitized—a technique utilized in Atari Games’s otherwise insignificant Pit-Fighter, released two years earlier. Word quickly spread of the game’s “fatality” system, which allowed victorious players to perform some particularly gruesome finishing moves on the fallen competitor. Perhaps the worst offender was a “spine rip” fatality performed by the character Sub-Zero. As we might expect, the publicity made the game even more popular.

The excessive violence made for plenty of drama when it came time to port Mortal Kombat to consoles. Nintendo had long had a decidedly family-friendly policy when it came to its games, and naturally Mortal Kombat would need a serious scrubbing before it satisfied their censors. For the 1993 Super Nintendo port, the fatalities were toned down or taken out completely, and the blood was recolored gray and referred to as “sweat”. Meanwhile, Sega, who had long distinguished itself from Nintendo by projecting an edgier image, also had their Genesis version altered to make it less offensive to parents, but by entering a special code, gamers could bring back the violence. Needless to say, even though the Super Nintendo version featured better graphics and sound, once word got out about which version kept more of the arcade experience intact, the version for Sega’s Genesis won the battle for most sales. No doubt due to in no small part to this sales disparity, Nintendo would lower their censorship standards for the game’s many popular sequels.

Due to their immense cultural impact, both Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat received live-action silver screen treatments. The first was Steven E. de Souza’s dreadful Street Fighter, a 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme action vehicle. Richard Harrington of the Washington Post derided the movie, quipping that “fortunately, we’re as unlikely to see a ‘Street Fighter’ sequel as we are to see one to the latest video/film fiasco, ‘Super Mario Bros.’.” Paul W. S. Anderson’s film Mortal Kombat, which debuted in 1995, fared much better both critically and commercially, with a solid story and excellent martial arts action, even spawning a few sequels.

As the 1990s continued, developers kept searching for ways to keep the fighting genre fresh. Sega had a surprise hit in 1993 with its arcade game, Virtua Fighter, a pioneering attempt to bring the third dimension to fighting games. Critics raved about its realistic fighting system and impressive 3D graphics. The series hit its seventh instalment with Virtua Fighter 5, a 2006 arcade game released the following year for the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, with the latter allowing for online play. The Virtua Fighter series inspired several other 3D fighting games, including Namco’s Tekken (1994) and Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive (1996). Both games led to best-selling and long-running series. The Dead or Alive series gained some measure of fame for its scantily clad female characters, something of a staple in fighting games, culminating in 2003 in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Microsoft Xbox—a volleyball game that starred the series’ female cast in next to nothing.

There are, of course, plenty of other interesting and innovative one-on-one fighting games we could mention, such as Squaresoft’s Bushido Blade (1997; Sony Playstation), a realistic weapons-based game featuring one-hit kills, Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear (1998), featuring beautiful anime-style graphics, and Namco’s Soulcalibur (1998),a weapons-based fighter with greater freedom of movement—all of which can boast of sequels and loyal fanbases.

An interesting trend in fighting games has been mixing together characters from different titles or even different genres, like 2008’s Soulcalibur IV for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3 including Yoda and Darth Vader, respectively, from Star Wars. Often it seems like the cast of fighters is as important as the gameplay. We certainly see this in games like Sega’s Fighters Megamix, a 1997 game that includes characters from the company’s earlier Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers titles. There are also several unlockable characters such as Bark the Polar Bear and Bean the Dynamite, obscure characters from Sega’s Sonic the Fighters (1996). Capcom and SNK also teamed up to create several fan-pleasing mashups. Other examples of crossover games are Capcom’s X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) and Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), which pits warriors from Street Fighter II and other Capcom games against several of Marvel’s most famous heroes, including Spiderman and Wolverine. Although some players found the idea of Spiderman going head to head with Megaman somewhat unsettling, others were delighted by the variety. These games were followed up with several sequels and spin-offs.

Perhaps the most famous modern game of this type is Super Smash Bros., an approachable multiplayer Nintendo 64 game developed by HAL Laboratory and released in 1999. It features characters from many of Nintendo’s franchises: Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid are represented, to name just a few. This critically acclaimed hybrid of fighting and platforming games sold nearly five million copies and spawned two sequels: Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001; Nintendo GameCube) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008; Nintendo Wii). This latter title is the first in the series to introduce third-party creations: Solid Snake from Konami’s Metal Gear series and Sega’s famous Sonic the Hedgehog.

Despite the occasional smash hit like Super Smash Bros., fighting games have fallen considerably from the position they enjoyed at their peak in the 1990s. Their decline was likely brought on by the sheer glut of these games, but also by the popularity of first- and third-person shooters in the 2000s.

First, whereas before gamers had to visit arcades to find worthwhile competition, the newer consoles offered easy networked and online gameplay. Thus, the type of hardcore gamer who was drawn to Street Fighter II in the later 1990s is probably playing a deathmatch in some version of Halo or Gears of War today, which accommodates both competitive and cooperative gameplay styles. Even though modern fighting games like Virtua Fighter 5 and Tekken 6 offer online multiplayer gameplay, these often distant matches don’t seem to stimulate quite the same competitive intensity of the old arcade games, where players literally stood only a few feet apart. Of course several classic fighting games, such as Street Fighter II, and new creations of both the one-on-one and side-scrolling variety, do see plenty of competitive online matches on the Microsoft Xbox 360’s and Sony Playstation 3’s respective networks. Capcom’s recent Street Fighter IV (2008), a high-definition reimagining of Street Fighter II, certainly proves the commercial viability of such a setup when paired with the right property.

Second, the learning curve required to play fighting games had risen to the point where only seasoned veterans could hope to master their incredible sophistication. If Street Fighter II had alienated some novices, Street Fighter III—with its myriad special moves and parries—was downright forbidding. Another factor, of course, is that consoles had caught up to the arcades in terms of audiovisuals; no longer did console ports seem like pale imitations of the real thing. Serious gamers left arcades, never to return.

What is the legacy of Street Fighter II? Although it’s easy to get lost in the many revisions, sequels, clones, and spin-offs, the game’s role in gaming history may turn out to be more social than anything else. The many gamers who became obsessed with this game, tirelessly discussing strategies and refining techniques, were the seeds of what we’d now call the “hardcore gamer” community.

Hit games of the 1980s like Space Invaders and Pac-Man were certainly influential, but seemed more suited to individuals than communities of gamers. Competition was only indirect and based on the rather abstract high score table. Street Fighter II was, if nothing else, very clear about winning and losing. As players competed, they talked, either to taunt their opponent or compare notes. Serious players analyzed the game’s ins and outs with the same dedication a sports nut might lavish on a favorite team. In short, fans of Street Fighter II didn’t talk to each other the same way the fans of older games did. How much, really, can you say about playing Pac-Man? On the other hand, any competent Street Fighter II player can easily talk your ear off about the comparative merits of Ryu versus Guile—and probably still remembers how to pull off at least a few favorite combos. Street Fighter II defied the old paradigm of good game development: it was not easy to learn how to play well. Capcom took a serious risk by introducing such a complex and sophisticated game, but the gamers of 1991 and beyond welcomed the challenge.

Labels: Articles

Design By Genre: Fighting Games

10:57 PM

Ultimate Game Design: Building Game Worlds
Tom Meigs, 2003

Fighting games of all flavors continue to be popular, with standout titles like Tekken 4 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance leading the way. Let’s look at some of the design details that influence the fighting genre:

• Motion-captured fight performances
• Controller tuning
• Fight arenas
• Fighting performance and combos
• Prop utilization
• Multiple fight settings
• Expanded fight modes

Similar to sophisticated sports moves, fight games include elaborate physical performances from fighters. Again, for the sake of motion fluidity, these performances sometimes begin by utilizing motion capture. Design-wise, every single move required for motion capture needs to be planned and accounted for to build the moves required by your fighting game. Motion-capture sessions can be very expensive, so you must undertake serious session planning to insure that you will motion-capture all the moves required by your game design. There can be hundreds of these motions and in-betweens (motions between motions, or motion segues). You can learn more about motion capture by visiting the House of Moves web site (www.houseofmoves.com).

Many teams extrapolate each move destined for motion capture from the game design document into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel, or they use asset-tracking software like NXN alienbrain (www.nxn-software.com) to build a motion-capture list. You will probably want to consider planning a “make-up” session to capture moves that were omitted, changed, or replaced from your initial capture sessions.

A large part of the “feel” of a great fighting game is in the game-controller processing; namely, how quickly button presses “fire off” or “translate” into controlled fighting moves. The game controller gets “scanned” for input by the game engine repeatedly many times per second, and building flash fighting response times often comes down to tuning the controller and animation handler code to minimize any lag in move execution. Fluid fight character control becomes a performance-engineering issue for the game code as it reads in controller input and translates this information into character movement. Next comes animation tuning in making sure that fighter model animation transitions (from one move to another, such as from a fighting stance to a torso grab) can be made without interference, dropped frames, or bad animation “hook-up” transitions (how motions end and begin; how they flow one into another).

Fight arenas have expanded in modern fighting games form the very popular fixed-view scrolling fighters, to fight games within complete environmental arena built upon more elaborate camera systems and environmental interaction. This has opened up the physical fight space and made fight games seem much “larger”, but it has also made new demands on background resources, challenging artists and designers to create a wide variety of compelling fight arenas. Fight arenas now allow for fighting characters to “wander” through the scene from area to area as the fight progresses. This has compelled designers to build up far more sophisticated fight scenarios incorporating multi-area fight scenes, weather effects, and so forth.

Fighting performance has become more complex, while staying true to the idea of multibutton combo attacks and unique character abilities. Fighting strategy has continued to challenge players to “last through the long round” as they must learn to balance high-power attacks with life energy loss and damage taken over even-larger fighting fields. Fighter characters are capable of large numbers of attacks, each of which must be polished for performance.

Grabs, throws, weapon use, and special-case moves must be carefully planned as their execution on opposing characters can be tricky when you have character of vastly different physical sizes fighting each other (for example, think of Yoda fighting Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode II, or a dwarf fighting a giant). A dwarf punch or grab hits a giant’s shinbone. A chest-high grab for the giant versus a dwarf collides with nothing.

Programmatically, and as part of your toolset, you will be tuning collision boxes or collision areas to trigger certain events. Collision boxes determine where the two fighting actors or characters “collide” with each other. This occurrence will trigger an event. Among other uses, these events trigger physical animation reactions to punches, kicks, grabs, and weapon use, or display events like blood-spray particles, sweat sprays, or tooth chips. Ouch!

Fighting games are starting to incorporate more prop use. Fight characters can grab items in the scene (such as bar stools) and use them as weapons. This kind of action calls for the same kind of scripting that you might use in any other third-person action game.

Multiple fight settings have created a demand for much more elaborate fight levels, as the fight drifts or wanders through an environment. Gone, it seems, are the days of the relatively fixed-view fighting game as the genre continues to grow.

Expanded fight modes allow fighters to pair up with computer-driven fighters in tournament modes, and bring single-player action elements to fight games, rather than just a one-on-one setting or a simple tag team. The fight genre remains a very popular genre, yet it deserves plenty of room for growth into the future. Fight games with far greater dimensionality loom on the horizon.

Labels: Articles

Getting to “Yes”: Genres: Fighting Games

10:51 PM

Game Design
Bob Bates: 2004

Fighting games are two-person games in which each player controls a figure on the screen, using a combination of moves to attack his opponent and defend against his opponent’s attacks. These games are generally viewed from a side perspective, and each session lasts only a few minutes.

Players expect to find a basic set of attacks and counters they can learn right away, as well as more complicated combinations they can master over time.

Genre-Specific Game Design Issues
Fighting games are simple and direct, yet they can be very engaging. This is one of the few genres to assume that the players are physically sitting side by side and can talk to (and taunt) each other. Your goal is to create quick bursts of swift and intense action, followed by more of the same.

Because the focus is so tight, great graphics are a must. The only things players see are a confined fighting area, a relatively static backdrop, and the two fighters. These characters are the most visually developed of all the genres, because the processor can focus so much attention on them.

Each of the characters must have a unique look that conveys personality, and a set of distinctive moves that are interesting to watch. The animations must be perfect.

The characters and moves must be well balanced. If one character has unstoppable moves, everyone will want to play him. If another is too weak, no players will choose him as their avatar. Either case would be evidence of poor design.

Pay attention to weapons, special graphics effects and sound effects, because they add a large portion of the flash and dazzle of the games.

Manage the damage points so that the rounds are neither too short nor too long.

Start the player with a set of easy-to-learn moves. The button-presses should do approximately the same things for all characters (for example, High Attack, Low Attack, Defend, and so on), but you should also build in special moves for each character that the players can learn as they slowly master the game.

Ed Boon

Ed Boon has been in the game industry for 17 years. After graduating from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, he began working for Williams Electronics, programming pinball machines. In 1990 he moved to the videogame department where he designed and programmed High Impact Football and its sequel Super High Impact. Midway split from Williams Electronics, and in 1991 Boon began work on the first Mortal Kombat arcade game. The game spawned several sequels, two Hollywood motion pictures, two television series and has generated over a billion dollars in revenue. His most recent title Mortal Kombat Deception was released in October of 2004 for the Playstation 2 and Xbox videogame systems.

I disagree that the goal of a fighting game is “quick bursts of swift and intense action, followed by more of the same.” The goal really is like a boxing game where each hit reduces the opponent’s health by a certain percentage. The first player to get enough hits on his opponent to reduce his health meter to 0 wins the round. The first opponent to win 2 out of 3 rounds wins the match.

Also, it’s not true that “the button presses should do approximately the same thing across all the characters.” In fact, exactly the opposite is true. Some fighting games have been criticized for doing exactly that. If all of the basic attacks for the characters were approximately the same, then there really wouldn’t be much distinction between different characters, other than their special moves. This results in the perception that all the characters are basically the same and the game quickly gets dull.

The goal with fighting games is to make the characters as diverse as possible in all areas: Basic attacks, defensive moves, special moves, speed, strength. The more variables you can introduce into the basic fighting mechanic, the more variables you can adjust to make as varied a cast of characters as possible. This is very challenging as the rosters of characters in fighting games has gone up from about 8 in the early 90’s to 20+ in today’s games.

Tips for designers
Animations in fighting games are perhaps the most critical element that can make the game “feel” great or horrible. More than any other game genre, fighting games are very reflex-sensitive and absolutely require that the controls be as responsive as possible for the player. Animations play a critical role in this formula. When a player presses an attack button, his character needs to begin his attack animation immediately. Players need to see their character begin their animation the instant they press the button. A delay of just a few frames will make the difference between a responsive and sluggish-feeling fighting game.

The same is true with maneuvering your fighter on the screen. There are periods in the game where control of the fighter is temporarily taken away from the player—in the middle of a punch attack, for example. The time window where you cannot interrupt with another command from your controller needs to be minimal. The instant your attack animation finishes, control of your character needs to resume. Both the animation speeds and the small time windows where the player controls are disabled contribute to the responsive feel of a fighting game.

Also, since so much of fighting games graphics are devoted to displaying these large character models, the design of the characters, their costumes, their size, and their styles all are very sensitive areas that require much more thought than just putting a guy in a white karate suit. Character design is much more critical in fighting games, and the bulk of the content is in the lineup of characters.

Games that designers should play
You can literally count on one hand the fighting games that have a major influence in this category (at least in the United States). These include Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, as well as Street Fighter and Soul Calibur. Interestingly, all of these titles have been around for many years (some 10+) and have had many sequels. This genre is so competitive that it is very hard, if not impossible to introduce a successful new fighting game without putting a license on it.

On advances in technology
Sophistication in graphics presentation is probably the most noticeable feature that has changed fighting game designs. As the hardware systems become more powerful they allow games to present much more realistic graphics. Designers have over 10,000 polygons to represent their characters. Also, with motion capture technology these characters’ movements can be exactly like a real human because the motions are taken from data created by human motion. I see this trend continuing. Each new generation of fighting game will make big leaps in the visuals and the advances will mostly be in the area of graphic presentation.

On story
Fighting games (for the most part) were originally made for the arcade, where games were designed to provide entertainment in short 2-3 minute spurts. When you only have the player’s attention for such a short period of time, you need to entertain them enough that they want to put another quarter into the game and experience it again. This means you can’t spend time telling an elaborate story. You need to bring them right into the action and give them the most exciting experience you can deliver in 3 minutes. This legacy of “short burst of entertainment” for the most part has remained intact with fighting games. But as they are being designed for the home, additional game modes have been added to provide the longer stretches of fun.

The team
The buzzword phrase that describes the development of a videogame today is “movie-lie production,” and the phrase is so often used because it’s accurate.

It is very important for designers to acknowledge the massive amount of effort that goes into the creation of a video game. In just 10 years, the Mortal Kombat fighting games have gone from a 4-man team to about 60-70. Instead of just a couple of programmers, artists and a sound designer, we now also have writers, producers, directors, and designers. All these people have to understand the vision of the game and understand what their contribution will be.

Labels: Articles

Pick Your Genre, Any Genre: Fighting

10:46 PM

Game Design for Teens
Les Pardew and Alpine Studios, 2004

Mano-a-mano, hand-to-hand, foot-to-foot, and other appropriate body parts can be thrown together. Using more confined areas or arenas, you must outmaneuver the competition and literally kick its butt. Fast finger movements and quick reflexes are the king and queen here. To stay alive, you have to fight your way up the list of contenders.

Below is a list of things to consider when choosing this genre:
• Location. Location. Location.
• Special movement for the camera—fixed or following.
• Fighting combinations and reactions.
• Controls.
• Special effects.

What Is Your Location?
From the Swiss Alps to the French Mediterranean, from the shores of Hawaii to the deserts of Africa, the player will need a variety of locations. You can pick the most interesting of places. These battles could take place deep in the heat and magma under the earth’s crust or under the ocean in a pod arena specially designed to broadcast the fight throughout the universe. How many locales or arenas will you generate for the player?

You circle left around your opponent. He executes a great uppercut; luckily, you put yourself in your block stance and take very minor damage. You respond with a flying leap of Dodulus Destruction and send him flying through the wall. Yes, through the wall. Many of these types of games use destructible worlds and objects, walls being among them.

Lights, Camera, Fight!
When designing the game, think about what flavor you would like the game to have. The flavor of your game will determine the camera movement style. A fixed or somewhat stationary camera is more like a cinematic fight scene from Maxetor, the Rabid vs. Thela, the Not So Bold Part III. The moving, floating camera that follows all contestants keeps all characters visible. Both are used in this genre.

A fixed camera will point at the player’s character and try to keep the action in view. It rotates a little but does not move from its position, as if mounted to a wall or under a table. The camera may zoom to accentuate the action or dramatic area. If the camera does not have a good view of the scene for the player, it will switch to another camera or location so that the best or closest shots are made. This method relies heavily on the game content designer, as he must place the locations for each scene.

The follow camera tags behind the player’s character. This camera tries to keep the area just in front of the character’s movement visible at all times. If the player is moving around, the camera will swing around to stay behind a little for a better view. If the player stops and turns around, the camera might wait for further movement before it will swing around. This motion requires camera controls that the player can use to swivel it into position. To some players, this can be disconcerting and annoying at the very least. Keep the camera in a good position behind the player’s character.

Combo #5
A combo is a sequence of moves that deals more damage when performed together rather than separately. The sequence can also produce a new movement for the character, for example, pressing left moves left but left, left, then up might produce a roll to the left jumping at the end of the roll. A small list of the really good combos and how you can pull them off will help with the next section. Also, this helps you come up with one of the selling points, a point that marketing directors want to see. Think about the takedown maneuvers and what can knock down a character in the game. Will the characters get thrown very far, or will it be more realistic? Make the character’s actions fit your location. What are the best moves? How hard is it to realize or complete these actions?

Stay in Control
The controls that define movement and attacks are critical in making a serious fighting game. The player will need to move easily and pull off the sequence that will perform an attack. If the controls are not separated well enough from the left and right hands, the player might find it confusing and hard to play. Keep the controls simple.

You’re Special
In thinking about your custom moves and controls, ponder a moment about what these actions will look like. The special effects of actions are the eye candy that keeps the player interested. If you want the character to make a great swing, then there should be an arc that is shown behind the arm doing the swinging. The custom moves or actions will need to have custom or special effects associated with them. You will want to lay out a few ideas of what they might be like in your design document.

Special Considerations: Fighting
A fighting game is generally defined as a game that focuses on the individual fighting skills of characters in the game as they combat other individual opponents. Like racing games, they are performance games in which control is a vital issue. The three most important issues for fighting game design are the fighters, the arenas, and the game control.

Fighting games are about close personal combat, so the characters in a fighting game are central to its success. Character design in fighting games needs to be a lot more detailed than in other types of games. The character design is not just about how the character looks but about how the character fights, as well. In addition to character illustrations, the design should contain sketches of the characters’ special moves and fighting styles.

The arenas are also important in fighting game design. Many games have interactive arenas, which are becoming the standard for fighting games. An interactive arena is an environment where the player can pick up objects and use them in the game or where elements in the environment present hazards to the players. An example of this is an arena where the two combatants are fighting on a catwalk high above molten steel in a manufacturing plant.

As in racing games, game control is very important in fighting games. The control of the characters is vital to a good fighting game. Unlike a racing game, there are elements of fighting game control that can be part of the game design document.

Most fighting games have special button press sequences called combos that control the character’s actions. These combos are a vital part of the game. When creating a design for a fighting game, you should create a chart that has all the combos for the game. This chart should be a prominent part of the game design document.

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Fighting Game Clichés

10:44 PM

David Perry on Game Design: A Brainstorming Toolbox
David Perry, 2009

Fighting games have been around for decades. They came into prominence with the Street Fighter II series and with Mortal Kombat, but they have evolved considerably since then. Still, some of the early games already contained elements that would be destined for clichedom. Let’s look at a few, and feel free to add your own observations.

• Fighters wield all sorts of magic.
• There are very similar controls across games.
• Button mashing is a valid strategy.
• Fast and weak versus slow and strong.
• Jumping very high.
• There is a life bar.
• Players fight at the same capacity until they are actually defeated. They do not weaken in ability, despite being bashed repeatedly by the opponent’s attacks.
• There is a special ability bar.
• Corner bashing.
• Jumping off invisible walls.
• Fighters take a lot of damage.
• Falling off the arena.
• Fighters only know one style of fighting.
• Formulaic fighter types.
• Small fighters are weak and fast, especially females.
• Larger characters are generally slower and stronger.

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