Fighting Edge

Pick Your Genre, Any Genre: Fighting

December 23, 2009 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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