(WIP) - Ninja Arcade

Community Showcase Game Development
41

Great propgress.
Will it be more dangerous ennemies able to block your character attacks some times ?

42

Nice work, looking really good!

I know its a work in progress but instead of just spawning the enemies out of thin air perhaps have them drop down from the sky with a landing animation?

43

Thanks,

As for enemy blocks, yeah, that’s a possibility, not a definite at this point. It has been my plan to have the heavy guys carry shields that you have to break through. But I’ll see. The reason that’s not a definite is just time, whether it impacts the current fighting system in such a big way that I feel it’s not worth it. That’s a bit of unknown at the moment. I can think that it shouldn’t be a really big deal, but I’ll just have to see when I get there.

For the spawning, they actually won’t spawn in the “proper” game. I just have a key event to spawn them for testing purpose. In the game you will not see them appear, they will walk in. I do have some other stuff in mind but I’m not sure if I’ll get to anything more complex than kinda “being there” already. Anything that on it’s own adds a week or more to implement, I take serious consideration to either dropping it or does it enhance the game in a way where it’s worth it.

So, having enemies simply “spawn” in, is easy, but that’s not what I intend to do. They will be part of the world, even though they will seem to kinda of come from nowhere probably, they won’t just appear on screen.

44

This looks pretty cool, great work so far!

45

So, looking at the previous video I thought it was a bit boring and I wanted to post another big crowd battle with all the new tweaks and updates. Since the major new system I added last was the enemy recover system, I also do loads of tweaks and other stuff making the fighting feel better. So, I’ve actually made some fairly big changes to the jump attack systems. Much more fluid feel to them, especially the “flying swallow” move. I’ve made some animation tweaks to other attacks. Though I still need to deal with the one jump attack animation. It’s a pretty difficult one to solve. But hopefully I can get it much more fluid looking.

I’ve made a fair amount of updates to enemy AI to fix some problems there and to have them work a little better. So, it’s still super simple AI but it functions now a bit better in general. I think I’ve ironed out all the major bugs as well.

Anyway, I know visually it’s not really new, but I think the difference in the feel of the game play might come through a little bit in the video, if you compared it to older videos. It’s the small things that make the big difference and that’s been my focus now for a while, to get them right and I think it’s getting there now. Hopefully next week I still feel the same… :slight_smile:

46

So, I’ve finally done the complete set of “Attack” videos. These 3 new videos covers all the jump attack types and applying damage from the player blueprint side. The videos get kinda long, but I guess not too long. I try and explain things in enough detail so I hope it’s not too boring to sit through and hopefully there’s something useful in there for someone.

This video is about the normal jump attack. Jump straight up and attack.

47

This video is about the secondary jump attacks, running jumping and then attacking. It also includes the dive attack, nick named “Flying Swallow” attack.

48

This video is about applying damage to the enemy. It does not include the enemy side, receiving damage, just from the player side, applying damage. For the enemy blueprints, I can show that sooner if I get a request, but otherwise it’ll only be later down the line, after the player side is covered.

49

Nice, new videos to watch! Thanks alot :slight_smile:

50

So, on the heels of sharing my shooter game playable demo, I have a Ninja Arcade playable demo as well. I liked getting the shooter game into people’s hands to play with and I really wanted to do the same with Ninja Arcade at this early stage. I think it’s a good time to get an idea of how it plays from another perspective other than my own. So I’ve put together this little demo for people to try it out.

Ninja Arcade Demo v0.01a

This demo is just a simple “arena” where you can spawn some enemies and, you know, have some fun. It’s basically what I’ve shown in my videos up until now. It’s purely a “fighting” demo, since that is the major part of the game play mechanics.

NOTICE - There is a bug with resolution changes and mouse input. When you change resolution up, meaning going from 720p to 1080p the mouse will be locked in a 720p frame, for the remainder of that game session. Restarting the game will fix it. Also another way to fix it during that session is to ALT TAB out of the game and then back in. This will unlock the mouse. My menu also supports keyboard and game pad input, in which case the mouse lock does not matter.

Please feel free to drop some feedback in this forum if you try it out. I am aware of certain things right now but any feedback is welcome. Just even general thoughts or whatever the case might be.

Keep in mind the menu right now is temp, to a certain degree, even though the look and general layout will remain, there are missing options, etc. I’ve got a UMG menu in the works but that’s way off from being usable. I’m currently sticking with my blueprint menu, at least for the time being.

Hope you guys enjoy it, and please, feel free to post feedback or questions if you have any.

51

This is a fantastic demo, looks gorgeous as menus also. About gameplay ennemies attacking you on the back should hit when you are blocking, combos are cool. Is the game adaventure action with puzzles and mechanisms ?I would like to see some special attacks during escape move if we press atack button also depending on direction you escape. Is the sand on floor using vertex painting ? How do you manage sword detection hit ? Keep up the good work.

52

Hey,

just gave it a try. Looks good, gameplay feels good :smiley:

Love the fact that the enemies loose their weapon after they first go down and then pick it up again. So you can actually drag the weapon around and prevent them from attacking you ^^

I would turn down the DOF a bit though

53

Thank you for your feedback. Really appreciate it.

With regards to the block. I will probably keep it as omni-directional capability, but what I do plan for future is to implement a “block break” move by the enemy. So you can’t just sit there blocking all day. Also planned is an attack out of block. So currently you have to let go of block and then you can attack normally, but I want to make a special attack that can take you out of the block directly into an attack move. Basically to get clear if you’re surrounded, busy blocking.

The game play is more based on the fighting than anything else. It’s essentially a side scrolling brawler. I don’t plan any real puzzle elements and very little if any platforming elements. For this first game, I plan to keep it simple and under control, so the project doesn’t get away from me. I want to be able to finish it in decent time and then see if it’s worth making something bigger, based on the same concept, but taken much further.

Yes, the sand is vertex painted.

For the sword, I’ve actually shown how I do the attacks and hit detection in my youtube videos. The last video there actually shows how damage is applied, which include how hits are detected. But if you watch the series I explain all the attack sequences in detail. In short though, the hit detection is done by a capsule overlap, the capsule being attached to the sword.

54

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

I will try some DoF settings, maybe push it back a bit and limit the blur even a little more. This is more tweaked for my actual game level which feels a bit different compared to the demo level. But it’s a valid observation, I’ll take a look at it.

55

Awesome start man…Just got to play it and really looking forward to playing more… It’s silly all the little things that go into a game unnoticed but great job on the DOF on the options…really great start screen (great idea on the ball to make the screen loop infinitely)… I’m digging the changes in speed when landing and attacking…
I’m aware you’re far from finished and how much tweaking is still left so the only mention I have is I’d love to attack the enemy as he’s getting up…I’d imagine you’ve got that coming one day to add to the game but if not I’ll voice that maybe think about adding it…

Tokyo Wonderland will be up on Kickstarter in Oct (I guess I just Broke that news here…not that anyone cares) so I’ll start showing off some stuff soon…

Great stuff man…

56

Thanks for trying it and thanks a lot for the feedback.

Yeah, the enemy getting up system is not done. I’m very aware of the fact that you can’t attack appropriately there, it is on the list… :slight_smile:

57

Pretty brutal!!!
Awesome :smiley:

58

Pretty solid! I do notice a few bug where enemy gets ragdolled up to one of the pillar and then don’t know where to go when they get up.(nav mesh didn’t allow them to jump down I guess)
And sometimes when I use the jump dash slash and somehow get attacked when no one is playing an animation.(does that mean I dashed into enemy sword also would get damage?)

I know you are polish up a lot of things, but here are a few things that I noticed could be better.

  1. jumping and landing seems to be a bit on the slow side, also the distance provided seems to be pretty short for a ninja. :stuck_out_tongue:
  2. attack animation could be a bit faster, I don’t know if that would be the intended effect, but many action game have cancelable attacks that let you feel more responsive.(ie. light cancel to light, or light cancel to block)
  3. avoid animation sometimes doesn’t go where I want to, it’s rare, but I guess it might be like default only have 4 directions?(up down left right)
  4. also, almost all enemy seems to be on the same idle loop when I die, maybe have a more random start point when they enter idle loop?
  5. I can’t hide enemy weapons :(, they seems to know exactly where they are even though I kicked it pretty far.
  6. it would be nice to be able to attack downed enemy.

I would check back often. :slight_smile:

59

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Appreciate the time you took to test it out.

Currently the enemy getting up system is a work in progress and I expect some problems with it. That kind of situation has no special consideration right now. So in this demo at least, expect some weird thing to happen now and then.

Your comment there about getting damaged. That was a bug that I came across as well, and it’s been sorted out.

  1. I did mess with jumping quite a bit with regards to speed and the current version is what I stuck with and probably will stick to. The distance really is based on what I am going to allow for the scope of level design. The more jump “power” you give the more you expect to move along bigger levels and my level just won’t be huge, simply to keep down the scope of the project and allow me to finish it within reason.

  2. The attacks are intended as they are. You can attack as quick as the animation allows the previous move to play out the actual “attack” part of the move. There’s a follow through and a recovery period and you can attack again to run the combo before that. I’ve never played a game where you can cancel out current move with the next. There’s a window there that allow you to go into the next move and if you hit the timing correctly, it’s faster than simply tapping the button continuously. Either way though, this is how my game works, there’s a timing consideration to get the best out of it, otherwise you can still get a combo played out but it will be less smooth and a bit slower. As for the block, sure, I’ll take a look at how that really feels. I’ll be honest, I never block during actual game play… haha… But I’ll take a look at the block more based on while you’re attacking.

  3. The dodge move actually goes where you’re looking. You have to push a direction, then push dodge. If you do it quickly and happen to push dodge first, based on a tolerance, you will simply go where you were currently looking at. So, you have to push a direction first. I can possibly make that function with a bit less of possible error in direction, so if you hit dodge a fraction before direction. I think it should still go right now, but I have to look at it again to see the tolerance in there. I think it’s really small error tolerance.

  4. Yeah, this is just simply something I need to get to. Working on enemies in general. They are at first pass and that’s about it. I’m actually currently busy adding the other enemies and need to work on new animations… etc. So I’m starting to look more at enemies now in general.

  5. Yeah, I know… :slight_smile: I may or may not do something about that. It’s not the main game play to hide weapons… :slight_smile:

  6. This is in the list of things to come.

60

Finally another update on my project. I’ve been in two minds about showing this stuff but, hey I decided early on I wanted to share the making of this game and this is all part of it so, here it is.

I’m currently working on the boss battle. Although there’s quite a lot of work left on there, I’ve got some of his basic functionality working. I actually had a lot of this working in the UDK as well, just with Kismet, but of course in UE4 now things are just so much easier to deal with.

So in this video I just show a bit of the attacks and stuff happening. Hope you guys enjoy this one. I’m having loads of fun creating the boss, finally gives me a as well to throw some particles into the mix. I’m not making a shooter or anything “scifi” related and so the particle effects are a bit few and far between for my project. I do like making effects and so with this guy, I can go a bit crazy. How awesome are GPU particles?.. too awesome… :wink: