The Guttenburg Project - Action/Fighting sequence (demo)

[skuttleman]

Here is a DEMO of a sequence that will - unless I receive overwhelmingly negative feedback - appear 2 or 3 times throughout my spy themed point-n-click adventure game (verb coin interface).

I know the graphics are bad. I cannot draw. I find that if I spend 2 hours on something it doesn't look any better than if I spend 5 minutes on it, so I have no intention of improving the graphics by myself. Please do not leave comments on the graphics unless you are volunteering to help out.

//edit
This sequence is about 75% FoA Fighting, 20% SoMI Insult Sword Fighting, and 5% Street Fighter. This is not a fighting sequence that you'll run into 20 times (like FoA or SoMI), instead, this is more akin to a "boss battle". A special occasion that is relevant to the plot. But rather than showing a fight via cutsequence, I thought I'd try to make it playable.

It is impossible to "lose" this sequence. You can win it by filling the "action meter" or just waiting it out. The purpose is not to add a new layer of difficulty or trick the player into suddenly playing a completely different style of game, but rather to break up the repetitive point-n-click game-play, and add an element of excitement during important part of the plot. Try to hold that in your brain when you play this and let me know how you think you might react when you get to this part 20 - 40 minutes into gameplay.

Here are the things I am most curious about.

- Controls: The controls are operated by keyboard and are listed in-game. They may or may not be too complicated and I'm concerned that - after acclimating to a point-n-click adventure game - the average person might be confused and feel put off by the abrupt change in gameplay. There is a pdf included if you can't figure out what's going on. Hopefully that will help.

- Difficulty: Is this too difficult? Too easy? People who like side-scrolling fighting games will undoubtedly find this very easy, but for people that are looking forward to the slow paced adventure game, this might be frustrating and kill the fun. How do you feel?

- Errors: If you run into any weird things, like a character freezing, or the buttons temporarily not responding, or anything else that seems like it shouldn't be happening, please let me know.

Any feedback you have about this (except my inability to draw) is appreciated. THANKS!!!

[Kasander]

Your action sequences reminded me about Indy Jones and the Last Crusade (fighting) and Secret of Monkey Island (taunting). Nevertheless, I find them refreshing, and think it's a nice idea to break the puzzle-solving routine. I found the addition of taunts most enjoyable. I think it fits well into your game's genre (which seems to be a tongue-in-cheek spy/secret agent comedy). You could put even more emphasis on taunts, so they can be more abstract, confusing, or maybe even multi-leveled. And I don't really mind if they are longer than the actual fight. I mean, it's not Mortal Kombat, right? 

Controls:
Controls are ok, but there should be some kind of introductory tutorial (like at the beginning of IJ&LC , for example) in which player can get familiar with them, so in the real fight he can fight instead of looking at descriptions at the bottom of screen.

I didn't notice if the use of taunts has any impact on a fight. I'd like to see my character taunts confuse the opponent (and vice versa, if I fail to respond properly in given time). It could be like in this quote that our fellow AGSer Tabata had in her signature: "If you can't convice (ie: beat the crap out of) them, confuse them". When our hero is down and beaten, perhaps some sharp and unexpected taunt should be his last (ass-saving) resort, so he can turn the fight around. 

Difficulty
I've played the fight about six times, managing to win it only twice. It's all too fast for me... And I've played (and WON) MK 1&2, Street Figter 2, Double Dragon and few others, so I have some pixel-ass-kicking experience (it wasn't so long ago...or was it? ) ).

I've managed to win my first fight only by >punching (9), advancing a step (6), then repeating< and after this, I thought, "phew, this is way too easy". Well, I wasn't right, because when I tried to kick in the next fight, I found out that mis-timed kicks are punished severely. Opponent kicked back, the hero flew all the way to the edge of the screen, then I had to try to fight all the way back (without success, not even once in six fights). I like the fact that kicking is powerful, but IMO the punishment is too severe.

Perhaps a kind of (optional?) "slow motion mode" would make it easier for players like me, and more enjoyable...But I guess you'd need more character frames then. Or the easiest solution: possibility to change the difficulty of action sequences in Options menu.

Errors I didn't notice any;)

I hope this helps. Cheers and keep on working!