Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth - New Games from the fellers at Screen 7

[doctorfargo]

Always good to see a new Indy release. 

[Igor Hardy]

Indiana Jones is awesome!

(Just bumping this thread because I can't stand some random Icey fiasco being more discussed than Indy.)

[selmiak]

The whole arcade thing is a cool Idea and a nice addition. When you can select the fightstyle in FOY please make it 3 choices. Oldschool, arcade or choose every time.
about this demo: The walk in animation of indy looks stiff. The arcade animations looks like in a beat em up game though. Why are there not more Samurai Shodown references?
Then I had problems confirming the selected character for player one. I was pressing punch and enter and stuff like crazy and nothing happened. Plugging in a PS2 Controller via USB Adapter and pushing buttons there finally made it work. Good thing this is supported.
And some fatalities would be a nice addition. Didn't the priest in temple of doom rip out someone's heart? That would be cool

[blueskirt]

The demo fighting did reflect the SCUMM combat system very closely, however, so I'm sure the aforementioned SCUMM FoA purists would be very upset if we ended up changing much about the classic fighting mode in FoY... As a sidenote, I have to admit I always thought that fights in SCUMM sucked incredibly hard (about the only thing that did) - so, any ideas in particular? Maybe we could get away with just changing the blocking functionality? Maybe you can block high, mid and low and have to choose the right section in order to block (then turn down the animation speed so you can, if you are quick, actually react in time)? I will also have to play the FoA fights again for reference.

I don't know if I'm a purist. I prefer the sobriety (no kicking, no jumping) of the SCUMM mode that's for sure, and I defeated all the mooks but the sober Biff in the Last Crusade and the prison guard in Fate of Atlantis (yes, I beat the zeppelin ticket taker and that giant boulder nazi), but I also spent countless hours daydreaming how iconic fights in the Indy movies would feel if they were remade in the SCUMM fighting mode, like the bar fight at the start of Raiders, where you must beat a handful of progressively tougher enemies in a row but you can grab bottles scattered around between or during fights to use as improvised weapons, or the fight with Pat Roach, where the guy would be nigh impossible to beat with your fists, but the trick would be to simply make him retreat into the giant propeller, which is why I liked the cheap trick button in the FOY demo, for the cool fight potential it could bring to the old SCUMM fighting sequences.

You say you want to replay the FOA fights again for reference, may I suggest you play the Last Crusade instead? Fighting was smoother and more balanced in that game, plus you can spar in the gym at different difficulty levels right at the start, keyboard controls are enabled by default and Indy doesn't flee when you step back too much.

As a fan of the SCUMM mode, I say, simply replicate the Last Crusade fighting mode and throw in some improvement:

Replicate:
You and the opponent can punch and block high, mid and low.
You must observe your opponent' fists to guess where he will attack next.
Reintroduce the green and yellow health bar.
Bring back keyboard controls, fighting difficult enemies with the mouse was suicide in FOA.
If it's possible, reintroduce health carrying over in between fights, unless you find a first aid kit or something else to replenish your health, or unless you reach a new chapter (like in The Last Crusade where your health is replenished between Castle Brunwald and the airport).

Improvement:
Being able to escape from unwanted fights was a nice feature in FOA, however there should have been a button just for escaping because the most basic technique to defeat opponents in the SCUMM mode involves throwing a punch at full strength and stepping back, waiting for the opponent to step forward, throwing another punch and stepping back again... And in FOA it was too easy to accidentally escape from a battle by stepping back one time too many.

Cheap Tricks and other additions:
Keep the cheap tricks. They are great.
Cheap tricks should become available only when you lose half of your starting health during a fight (the yellow health bar).
There could be several cheap tricks, with different effects, like I suggested in my previous post.
You can use only one cheap trick per fight, so you must choose wisely.
Some enemies could be immune to some cheap tricks (tackling a bulky opponent should have no effect, sand in eyes shouldn't blind an opponent who wears goggles, etc.)
Some special enemies could use cheap tricks of their own.
Some special enemies could use melee weapons. Melee weapons deal damage even if you block the blow, the only way to avoid damage is to step out of the way before the enemy attacks, not unlike Biff's and Arnold's punches in TLC and FOA. Another cheap trick idea: disarm your opponent during a fight.

Don't worry too much about purists. If the FOY SCUMM fighting mode plays more or less like it did in the Last Crusade, I think most purists will be happy. Those who don't like the cheap tricks can simply ignore them during fights, like this dude who beat Biff without giving him the trophy full of ale.

[DoorKnobHandle]

blueskirt, those are some absolutely excellent suggestions for the classic fight mode! These will make it straight into our considerations I promise. Thanks a ton!

selmiak, most likely there will be a setting in the game menu, not just before you start a new playthrough. Basically you access the menu and just like you can switch the text reading speed, voice speech on or off or the walking speed you can also adjust the combat mode. The default will be the SCUMM-classic setting I think. There will probably be a reminder and a quick way to switch the setting in a pop-up window before you begin the first fight. So you will be able to switch the fight mode at any given point in the game (except when you are currently in a fight already of course).

[m0ds]

Thanks for playing and the healthy debate it's created Your thoughts are duly noted! You're looking at one piece of the 5000 piece puzzle, that's all, so try & enjoy it for what it is. An Indy arcade fighter. It's very out of place, but we've released two puzzley point and click mini games with a third on the way and of course the big one eventually too - why not release something that's a bit off the wall?  

As Jan has said you will never be diverted from a classic adventure experience in the full game. We just like adding features. You know, like men like adding stuff to cars, women enjoy adding stuff to their wardrobe. And people are always getting angry emailing in saying the project is dead, so it's worth us releasing tid bits.

So far feedback has been majority positive, which is great. And the best part is if people really are "WTF?" - it raises debate, about our project, and that has never been a bad thing thus far. I think it's great for the project what the guys have done on this little trinket.

[subspark]

Indeed. Perhaps we'll release a short video of our SCUMM fighter system for those of you who are itching for some nostalgia.
In any case, thanks again for the constructive feedback, folks. Always welcome - always appreciated.

Paul.

[Matti]

I'm not sure what mode I'd choose when playing the final game, but everything's fine as long as it's optional  Adding features never hurt anybody. I too think that blueskirts ideas are great.

Anyway, it's really cool what you guys do here and I'm happy that you still/again work on this. I'm looking forward to everything new you release!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

the fact that such a thing is included in the game degrades the product - regardless of whether you can choose to circumvent it (you'll have to know it's there in order to avoid it). That's my opinion, Zmax's and a few others and it's entirely up to Screen7 to make of it whatever they will.

I don't think it 'degrades' FoY as a product.  When I played it, I got the sensation of 'this is a joke game' rather than a serious element in FoY, and that was the opinion I relayed.  I'm not against 'any' attempt by designers to break the adventure game mold and try something new, whether it's a fighting game or not.  Do I believe you can make a competent fighting game within the mold of an adventure game like FoY?  Definitely yes.  Do I think this particular fighting game works with the rest of the design of FoY?  No, I do not, and it mainly has to do with the inherently comical nature of the presentation (the street fighter-style round announcements and so on).  Hopefully this clarifies what I was trying to say earlier without offending anyone.

Replicate:
You and the opponent can punch and block high, mid and low.
You must observe your opponent' fists to guess where he will attack next.
Reintroduce the green and yellow health bar.

I've gone this approach in a few of my games and I seriously couldn't recommend it.  A majority of tester feedback has been negative because it's an issue of quantity -- or too much -- on the table for the player to have to try and guess WHERE an attack will come from, and with high/mid/low you've got a 33% chance of getting it right.  The only real alternative, then is to take it into the cartoony realm of a game like Punch-Out and have an enemy telegraph their specials, but since we're dealing with direct hit-or-miss situations here rather than a dynamic animation that can be interrupted (as you can in Punch-Out), you're looking at them telegraphing EVERY punch.  In this case I think a single, comprehensive block is the fairest and most consistent way to deal with it, and if you want to put a 'challenge spin' on block, allow a charged 'block-breaker' hit that will stun you (or them) if block is being abused as well as having block only partially mitigate damage so it's worth it to block power hits but not as worthwhile to sit and block everything.  I think this is probably a good balance between having to block each type of hit differently vs. having a permanent, unbreakable block vs. a more draconian method of limiting how often you can block.

As far as dirty tricks go, that's the name of the game with Indy, from wrenches to dirt to distraction, he's never been afraid to use whatever advantage he could when a fight is going against him, but I'd also caution against allowing them at any time.  If you want the SCUMM style fights to be more cinematic, my advice would be to add elements of scripting as you would a cutscene for a game, with boss fights that force Indy into a corner, or through a pile of debris where -- HELLO -- there just happens to be a wrench or something lying around to even the odds (think the epic confrontation with LeChuck at the end of MI 2, except with more interactivity and branching paths based on how good you are at fighting).  SCUMM fights were boring because there was no story, it was just 'hey look, a kraut to beat on' and then there's a fight.  There's no tension or cinema to it so people largely found them boring.  Take a page from the movies and recognize that Indy rarely has the advantage and is typically fighting multiple foes or in some way outnumbered (sometimes it's a tank!).  You can bring the magic of interactivity and combat together with a story 'event' where it's not just 'punch guy until he falls over' but includes some environmental interactivity.  I imagine that this would be an area where m0ds would have a lot of creative ideas and input.

Just to put what I'm saying into a visual perspective, imagine that Indy has just lost a fight with a nazi assassin for control of a plane and it crashed.  Teetering on the edge of a cliff (nose-first), Indy crawls out of the cockpit to see the nazi standing by the torn-open rear of the plane, determined to finish his mission and kill Indy.  Now we have environmental hazards (the plane gradually tipping, chairs and cargo of various stuff strewn about) that either Indy can knock the nazi through or the nazi can throw indy into, raising the tension of the fight as it becomes clear that this is really a life or death situation for the player and not just a punch-up.  Indy's goal is now one of survival; get by the guard ANY WAY HE CAN and out the tail section before the whole thing goes over, and he can do this with his fists or use the environment to his advantage.  So basically you have this wide, scrolling plane where the action progresses right-to-left as Indy tries to make progress..  Obviously, tensions will rise if the nazi gets the upper hand and punches indy back into the cockpit, where he slams into the controls and we see some vines snap on the shattered windshield, signalling that time's running out.  So basically, a fight like this can go back and forth and still feel engaging, or it can be a totally one-sided affair and still keep your interest because there are enough factors involved to keep it fresh.  Obviously not every fight can be this awesome, but you can see where I'm going with it.

[subspark]

Some great feedback there, ProgZ! Thanks for your time on that.
To be completely honest, I'm itching like a ratfink for the day you can all engage the experience of FOY's introduction. You will be most satisfied. I simply can't say anymore, however.

Thanks again!
Paul.

[blueskirt]

I've gone this approach in a few of my games and I seriously couldn't recommend it.  A majority of tester feedback has been negative because it's an issue of quantity -- or too much -- on the table for the player to have to try and guess WHERE an attack will come from, and with high/mid/low you've got a 33% chance of getting it right.  The only real alternative, then is to take it into the cartoony realm of a game like Punch-Out and have an enemy telegraph their specials, but since we're dealing with direct hit-or-miss situations here rather than a dynamic animation that can be interrupted (as you can in Punch-Out), you're looking at them telegraphing EVERY punch.

Well, there's no guessing in FOA and TLC, if you pay attention to your opponents' fists, you will know exactly where to block since they move their fists high/mid/low to indicate where they will punch next. The difficulty with blocking is you gotta pay attention to your opponent' fists, block, punch, retreat and step front, all this in split seconds. But with an enemy sufficiently slow you could easily block every punches, there was no luck involved. I guess it all depend just how fast battles happen if FOY, which I why I suggested they play TLC instead of FOA since battle speed in TLC was rather balanced, while in FOA either CPU cycle in dosbox is too fast and you don't have time to see the punch coming, or it's too slow and the controls are unresponsive.

But I won't deny that successfully blocking was tough in these games. Personally I preferred to delay blocking until it became inevitable, by punching and retreating until I could no longer, then I started to pay attention to the opponent fists and attempted to block, throwing a punch every two seconds or so. I did suggest a more simple high/low system earlier, instead of high/mid/low, but it's hard to see how it would play or if it would be too easy or not without playing it. But I guess lack of difficulty could be compensated with tougher enemies.

I back up entirely your bit about cinematic fights.

[subspark]

We have for you an early preview of our SCUMM system when it was being built back in 2008. It has largely improved in the SCUMM direction and vastly diverges from the Arcade system, but if it brings hope and reassurance without giving too much away (you'll thank yourselves in the end), then this sneak-peek into the expansive history of our multidisciplinary development pipeline is just for you:

www.barnettcollege.com/movies/SCUMMFight.mp4
Keep cheering our team on, folks. There is so much for you to see and do!

Paul.

[m0ds]

I imagine that this would be an area where m0ds would have a lot of creative ideas and input.

Yes, I will If you don't like the system you play with when you're able to use a cheap trick, you have every right to moan at me Because that's the one I've designed and will take further, and with more cinematics.

Paul is right, we have more to show, and will in time. It's just necessary for you to accept we have all the time in the world to release this, not some set date - and you'll enjoy whatever is to come Cheers though Progz, your comments are interesting and useful to me, as are blueskits who gets his own full reply on the FoY forum.

[Mati256]

Can you please upload that video to youtube?   
Or is it OK if I upload it to my account? 

[m0ds]

Mati, you may upload it to your own youtube!

[subspark]

Everyone is certainly encouraged to upload to youtube if they wish to share with others. I should have mentioned this in my post above, my apologies.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Igor Hardy]

Everyone is certainly encouraged to upload to youtube if they wish to share with others. I should have mentioned this in my post above, my apologies.

Cheers,
Paul.

Feeling very encouraged, I've uploaded it on the hyper-popular HardDev channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4oh9oS1eYU

[BaptisteTheFool]

Everyone is certainly encouraged to upload to youtube if they wish to share with others. I should have mentioned this in my post above, my apologies.

Cheers,
Paul.

Feeling very encouraged, I've uploaded it on the hyper-popular HardDev channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4oh9oS1eYU

I kind of like this.



My main complaint though over what I see in this topic is not the arcade fight system (as goofy as it is), but the sprite.  I think, after much reflection, that I found the nature of my problem.  It all comes down, for me, to the ribbon on Indy's fedora.  It's many shades lighter than the hat itself.  Take another look at the film-- Indy's hat ribbon is DARKER than the hat.

[subspark]

First post updated with some exciting news.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Stupot]

First post updated with some exciting news.

Cheers,
Paul.

That's insane!  Brilliant stuff.  You guys keep pulling all this random awesomeness out the bag.