Homestrife 4⅓ - Development Thread 2 - Tech Demo 2 out now!

[frozenMeatpopsicle]

The thing with MUGEN is that isn't so much hard as it is user-unfriendly. As far as I know it's still all text file editing. Unless you get a 3rd party editor.

Homestrife will be bit easier to work with since the official editors(what we will be using) will be available to the public. A crapload of work will still go into making a character(or stage) though. You still need to make all the art/animations, then import them into the editor, then place all hit/hurt boxes and apply all the variables for damage, armor, stun, etc. A lot of super tedious work.

Homestrife is probably gonna windup being this SSB version of MUGEN since with the tools available, people will be able to make and add whatever characters they want. Don't think we'll allow menus and stuff to be editable though(unless we actually eventually convert it to a MUGEN style editable engine...), But I digress.

[Darlos9D]

Yes, we want the public to join in the fun... eventually.

[Heroguy]

Some characters that would be nice to see, even if it seems they won't be making it in.
Dad, Bro, the Alpha kids (Dirk, Roxy, ect)
Colonel Sassacre, Lord English, The Condesce (hells yes sexy sea hitles)
Spades Slick, Problem Sleuth
Any God-Tier characters, Any Sprites

Hopefully the secret character is one of these, because then AWESOME.

Especially the Condesce.

BTW, how is the project going? I'd love to help, but my skillset involves writing copious amounts of terrible short stories and RPing profusely, not art and technical. Although I suppose I could learn the latter if I was given some easy job that just takes a long time to do. One thing I have lots of is time.

[ah2190]

Some characters that would be nice to see, even if it seems they won't be making it in.
Dad, Bro, the Alpha kids (Dirk, Roxy, ect)
Colonel Sassacre, Lord English, The Condesce (hells yes sexy sea hitles)
Spades Slick, Problem Sleuth
Any God-Tier characters, Any Sprites

Well, like it was said ages ago, those characters would most likely be DLC characters, although SS is in (abit as Jack Noir) and I think that someone else is the secret character. Not saying which one, though - because I've already left enough hints.

[Heroguy]

Man, I didn't get any of those hints! Bollocks.

Guess I'll just have to join the dev-team to sate my curiosity.

[Darlos9D]

At some point we may dole out "put together characters in the editor" jobs to various people once we actually have art assets, an engine, and said editor. But not for a while.

I hate to be a dick, but if you can't do something artistic rather well, you're best off not offering to help. Because the technical side is covered. Unless somebody knows something I don't.

[Heroguy]

Fair enough. I mean, it seems the project is well underway as it is, so if I'm unneeded, sounds good.

[PumpkinAppearifier]

I hate to be a dick, but if you can't do something artistic rather well, you're best off not offering to help. Because the technical side is covered. Unless somebody knows something I don't.

There IS one thing you can do though.

Tell people about the project!

That tumblr post got over 5000 notes. I am sure there are other ways (even if they are small) that you can tell people about this.

The more people that know about this, the better our chances at finding artists and other things we need, as well as us having way more people to play with when this comes out!

[Heroguy]

Good point. I love fighting games, especially ones like this, so I'll spread the word a little.
Grab a signiture thing or something.

Do you have one?

[PumpkinAppearifier]

Welp, you guys asked for it, so here it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you SHITTY.png

show spoiler

hide spoiler

This is the sort of idea I was thinking of going along with for the Exiles theme.

[Darlos9D]

Hey guys, gameplay question (which isn't answered by the wiki): are we going to have "versus-style" attack cancelling and allow specials to be cancelled into supers? I'm leaning towards "yes" since our combo paths are generally pretty limited. Might as well loosen it up a bit.

[Todd Ingram]

Hey guys, gameplay question (which isn't answered by the wiki): are we going to have "versus-style" attack cancelling and allow specials to be cancelled into supers? I'm leaning towards "yes" since our combo paths are generally pretty limited. Might as well loosen it up a bit.

If it's possible, than yes. It would allow for a lot more in-depth combo usage, and would make gameplay trailers look a lot cooler.

[frozenMeatpopsicle]

Yea, definitely. We were gonna have cancels all over the place anyway.

[Darlos9D]

So, what are the specifics on grabs again? The wiki is kinda vague. There's three major questions I think:

1 - I think we've already decided they can be combo'd into, in the basic sense that you can grab opponents who are in hitstun. Right?

2 - Can normals cancel into a grab, though? If not, it'd make characters with command throws a bit more unique since they'd be the only characters who could cancel a normal into some kind of throw, since command throws are specials, and almost all normals can be cancelled into specials.

3 - Can people break out of the very beginning part of a throw? I think there's been some debate on this, despite what the wiki says.

[ArmsAreLoud]

...That post kinda confuses me in that it denies virtually everything that I know about grabs. :T

[Darlos9D]

...That post kinda confuses me in that it denies virtually everything that I know about grabs. :T

How many fighting games have you played? The work wildly differently across many games. Besides generally being unblockable.

[ArmsAreLoud]

Capcom-style 2D games. You can never combo into a grab unless you are a grappler designed to do that (Potemkin or Cerebella). Grabs are mainly there to be one half of one of the most basic and effective mix ups in the genre

[frozenMeatpopsicle]

• Grabs work on a simple principle of "if the grab attack hitbox connects with the opponent's body hitbox, the grab connects". That means that a standing character's grab will connect with an airborne character, and vice versa. There are no "jump-outs" in this game. Instead, players will be expected to utilize dodges if they think a grab is coming.
• Throw - After a grab connects, press forward of backward to throw in that direction. Can be broken. Can be comboed into. The distance your character can throw an opponent depends on 2 things; 1. the physical strength, or non-physical strength if they use telekinesis, of your character. And 2. the weight of the character thrown.

That's all the info on grabs. I'm not sure about comboing into grabs. Having a think about it I think the default, universal grabs shouldn't be able to be comboed into, but command grabs can be. They're special, so it gives anyone even slightly grapple-ey and extra something to play with.

I'm not sure how grapplers work in other games as I never play them, so I may or may not have just described what they're generally like.

[Darlos9D]

Capcom-style 2D games. You can never combo into a grab unless you are a grappler designed to do that (Potemkin or Cerebella). Grabs are mainly there to be one half of one of the most basic and effective mix ups in the genre

In the case of Potemkin and Cere, you're probably thinking of Heat Knuckle and Excellebella. Those are anti-air throws which are kinda in their own league from your typical ground-to-ground (or air-to-air) throws. Cere CAN combo into throws, but only because she has a normal that can stagger the opponent mid-combo under the right circumstances, and you can throw people out of stagger in SG. Being able to throw people out of stagger is something any character in SG could do, though, assuming they can stagger the opponent somehow, and follow it with a throw before the stagger runs out. Actually, all these rules also apply to GG as well. It's just a lot harder to get stagger in GG, so you don't really hear about it.

Of course, now it sounds like I'm defeating my own point. BUT there are games where you can legit combo into legit throws. Melty Blood is the best example I can think of. You can easily combo into untechable air throws, anyway. Not sure about ground throws, now that I think about it. (my guess is you can, assuming they're still on the ground) In BlazBlue you technically can combo into throws (ground or air), but of course that gives the opponent a huge tech window, making it a big gamble. But if they don't tech it DOES count as a combo... of sorts. Oh, and don't forget KoF. You can combo into command throws all damn day in most entries of that series. Of course that's just command throws. Plus, comboing like that in KoF tends to eat meter and resources. Still, it's not unusual for KoF's big grappler Goro Daimon to do a combo involving 3 consecutive command throws and capped off with a super throw.

Ultimately, my point is that there's enough variance across the genre to where we can basically handle grabs however we wish. Now, "comboing into throws" probably SOUNDS powerful, but typically in games where you can combo into throws, the throws suffer from proration just like any other attack in the combo, so it's really not that terrible or overpowered. The only exception is BB, and that's only because the opponent can tech the throw easily if you do it mid combo. Eating the full throw damage is their punishment for not teching it.

FM, I actually kinda like your suggestion. Being able to combo with regular throws would put us in this weird situation where every character would probably have a grab in their combo, making everybody weirdly grapple-y. Either that or we'd have to make regular throws so ineffective mid combo for most characters that they would never use them mid combo, at which point there's no reason to actually make them able to be combo'd into anyway.

So yeah, I guess for now Equius' Wrangler and whatever Aradia does will be the only grabs that can be combo'd into. For Aradia, her long range combos would probably rely on it, and for Equius I just think it'd be awesome for him to be able to bounce somebody off of a surface and grab them out of the air when they come back to him, heh.

Oh, one more thing: Even though regular throws wouldn't connect with opponents in hit or blockstun, I think you should still be able to cancel a normal into a throw. This would make tick throws easier to do.

[Roseredwrath]

If you're still looking for movelists, I deal with fighting games a lot and I know all of the mechanics, and I'm also in the process of attempting to get my own Homestuck fighting game off of the ground. If you want, I can do SSB type movesets for all of the characters one, two, three.

[Darlos9D]

If you're still looking for movelists, I deal with fighting games a lot and I know all of the mechanics, and I'm also in the process of attempting to get my own Homestuck fighting game off of the ground. If you want, I can do SSB type movesets for all of the characters one, two, three.

Don't tell us you can do movelists. Do a movelist. But before you do that, understand our actual control and attack layout, as well as our planned gameplay elements. This isn't actually SSB, so read the wiki and keep up with the conversation.

Also, keep in mind that every moveset needs some kind of overall strategic theme. It can't just be a mishmash of "attacks you think would be individually cool."

[Darlos9D]

Bumping for tech discussion.

So the deadline for the tech/art demo is drawing close. I've got most everything done except for a few things. One thing in particular I don't have done and WON'T have done for this is proper handling of angled surfaces, as far as an actual running and jumping character is concerned. The reason for this is because I'm thinking about completely re-working the way slopes are handled in this game.

Angled surfaces are hard!

[Frost]

How's the collision engine work, in general? Pixel-based, or actual honest-to-god shapes and lines and things? If you've gone with the second option, you're a braver man than I am.

[Darlos9D]

How's the collision engine work, in general? Pixel-based, or actual honest-to-god shapes and lines and things? If you've gone with the second option, you're a braver man than I am.

The second. Though I'm seriously considering simplifying it. For instance I might limit slopes to only be at increments of 22.5 degrees. Then I can just have some pre-established collision formulas instead of calculating everything on the fly. Stage designers could easily work with this limitation, I'm sure. I might also start rounding things off to the nearest whole number while doing certain calculations in order to eliminate floating point imprecision bullshit.

I might find something better though.

[Frost]

Something just occured to me - you've sorted out most of what you're likely to need from the physics engine, right? Because suddenly having to implement, say... moving platforms, or conveyor belts, or falling rocks, or lava, or curved surfaces, or large NPC enemies, seems like it could make your life really difficult really fast.

I wouldn't ask, but as far as I can tell, y'all have only seriously fleshed out two stages out of ~15. Probably wouldn't be realistic (or sensible) to sketch them all out ahead of time, but you should probably try to settle on a minimum set of stage features you guys are expecting to be able to work with. Adding features to a preexisting system makes programmers Very Unhappy.