Making DT3 and Video Games
One of the best, and sometimes worst, things about developing video games is how much they change while they're being developed. It's a highly unpredictable and volatile process where 10 bugs can pop up out of nowhere, and fixing 2 of them causes those 10 original bugs to turn into 17 bugs. Oh wait, that's not what this section is about...
I prototype a lot of stuff and always recommend it to anyone designing games. Even if you know you're not going to use something or follow through with an idea you have. If you want to see how it works, and given that it won't take too much time, do a quick prototype. It helps to see some of the flaws and strong points of your idea. Wait, that's not quite what this section is about either...
While I love prototypes, I feel that they aren't always enough. Sometimes you just have to see your ideas play out in the game proper. Games evolve and change as their developed. In DT3's case, with its original idea of the 7 Gates, each granting both characters 3 sets of abilities. (Plus that Mario one.) There was the melee oriented set, the ranged set, and the more quirky set. And in hindsight, it could still work, but it wasn't until seeing the first 2 sets from each character play so well together that it made the 3rd feel very out of place. I won't go into that here as there is another blog post that went into that already. I don't think any amount of prototyping would have assisted in getting to this change. The way the project has played out feels like it just begged for the change to cut out the 3rd set. Sometimes, you just have to put in the time to make shit to see how it really works.
Seemingly small things can be huge. Jerry's Megaman attacks all have a slight refire delay to remove point blank spamming. I've done it plenty of times during playtesting, ShadowSonic did it in his last LP video of the DT3 demo. Slaix spammed missiles in a bosses face to make incredibly short work of them. Point-blank spamming breaks a lot of things. Part of the reason there's a projectile limit (such as only 2 arrows allowed on screen or 3 X-Buster shots) is to remove such exploits. So, Jerry's Megaman refire delays have been extended to all projectile weapons, including Claire's Daggers and Holy Water. It's not a big delay, just enough to remove the above issue.
Controller Support
Gamepad controls are now built into DT3. That's really all that needs to be said about that...
A Common Idea I Like
I seem to really like cat and mouse scenarios as Gate F has a map where the player will be chased around while they find various points of interest. Said thing is invincible OF COURSE and will use the black magic of A* pathfinding to always find the most efficient route to the player. The map is question is somewhat maze like where the player can open and close routes. While the cat of this scenario is slightly slower than the player, it's often best to be as far from it as possible, or in some cases, close off a route at the last second to grant you just a few more seconds away from it. Also said thing gets slightly faster the more points of interest the player completes; Because reasons!
I know I said I'd have a video explaining some of my boss design methods on the next blog post... I guess I lied. It's still going to happen, but I want to finish up a few things in the project before I go into another video. If I do the video now, I'll probably end up rushing it and I don't want to do that.
There's something else I was going to mention in this post, but brain farts have occurred...
POSTING ANYWAY!!
9 comments:
Goodbye Holy Water spam. ;_;
You will be missed.
That thing in Gate F won't be one of these hands though which we encountered in Gate C? Is this thing chasing you the boss of Gate F which you will fight in a later room? Like a pre boss encounter?
It's like the hand in Gate C, except it can't go through walls and uses way different behavior to get to the player. On the technical side, it's the only thing in the game that uses true path-finding.
As the objectives are completed, the thing gets faster. On the player side, their job is to either outrun it or put barriers between it and themselves to make it take longer paths to get back to the player. I did think about using the boss to do this, but that isn't going to work.
I Kinda liked the spam, at least a little bit. 3 Projectiles at the screen feels...different for some reason. For example:
I liked Holy Water because it shot upwards and you could kill your enemy quickly.
I liked MM buster because..well, because of obvious reasons.
I just feel its fun to play with the spam.
The MM Buster is pretty much unchanged. Its main purpose is to control those high powered weapons like the missiles and holy water when at point blank.
But i like being overpowered...It's fun to destroy the world and everything inside..*sniff*
The change doesn't really feel like a nerf when you haven't been actively "trying" to break the game. Even the Holy Water "spam" I used on Death still works to an extent. The change was mainly for fixing exploits in Gate 5 that would have made certain bosses even easier than the easiest bosses in DT1, whose effective strategies included such fun activities as "sit there and button mash and tank all the hits" and "Rupture plus Wave of Awesome infinite stunlock Ultra Combo Flawless Victory."
Good times.
But you are Not going to use the Wall Master enemy as the Thing that Is following you, right? It wouldnt fit into a Sci fi environment. Maybe something from metroid?
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