We need your help!

Posted on October 5, 2012 by The BatCat

Here at BatCat Pan-international games-station, we’re having a debate on enemy collisions in combat.

As you can see from the image, we currently have collision boxes on our hero and villains:

This means that, as seen in Streets of Rage or Mario, you are unable to pass through enemies, instead either having to jump over them or fighting toe-to-toe until you or they are dead. Some of us here are very for this.

Meanwhile, in the other camp, some of us think that you need to be able to pass through foes and hit them (or be hit) on the way, in a similar fashion as seen here.

Help us break the tie and tell us what you think!

  • Ross Mckinley

    OOOh, I think it really depends on the gameplay.

    If the gameplay will be fast-paced, then have it so you don’t collide. but if it’s a slower paced game, then collisions being enabled would enforce that “you can’t just run through enemies” aspect.

    • http://www.facebook.com/sergio.calabria.73 Sergio Calabria

      Ending a speed run inpaled on an enemy katana because of bad timing could be a great end! In canabalt you need to hit the obstacles the odd time just to slow down ;) I think Marks two tier approach would be great, yeah Frankie!
      The whole thing comes down to what happens when you go by an enemy without killing or being killed, can you stop, turn and fight? will they all pile up when you stop/are stopped?
      gonna go check GoNinja now! Good luck with it…

  • Anthony Litton

    Personally, I would stay stick with the collisions the way you have it. It’s a 2d game – adding or implying a third dimension without having the graphical tools to navigate it is just going to be confusing and messy. Will you be in front or behind? Either way somebody is going to be obscured and there won’t be enough visual information to know what’s going on.

  • Frankie

    Hmmmm… you want the samurai effect of slice n dice while running by, but at the same time you don’t want your player to be able to just run past. Could you use a mechanic where if the player is running and they press attack just before the baddie, that you’ve a specific pass-by&sword slash animation?
    Might be tricky to balance difficulty then, if all the baddies have this one-shot solution to getting by them. Hmmm… the uninterrupted run would greatly add to the game’s awesome samurai feel. Maybe if an enemy is particularly tough they’ll generate a defensive sword-clash type animation and prevent the player passing through?

    • Ross McKinley

      This is basically the way I had things in my mind when I wrote my reply. I think the whole game would slow down if you didn’t have the pass’n'slash ability…

    • http://www.facebook.com/thomas.faust.2911 Thomas Faust

      seconded (thirded?) – but yes, you don’t want to make it too easy. maybe just have a very, very short window of opportunity to allow the pass&slash move?

  • http://twitter.com/WiredMark Mark Aherne

    I think you could use both, adding depth to the game and making it more dynamic.

    Build it into the game mechanics. Have two methods of attacking.

    Walking up to, or stopping in front of, an enemy puts you in direct confrontation mode, this would be shown in the stances/animations of the player and the enemy. In this case there are collision boxes. Fighting this way is almost defensive, with neither side having an advantage.

    Running up to an enemy without stopping allows you to pass by without colliding with the character. As you are passing the enemy there is a narrow window where you have to attack, if you succeed you score a critical strike on the enemy. If you fail the enemy scores a critical strike on you. If you fail to hit or the critical strike doesn’t kill the enemy you can either try to run past him/her again, or walk up to the enemy and fight again that way.

    You could have a variation on the running strike, where a passing hit always kills. So players can try to pass the level by running through, developing a “strike rythm” of sorts.

    Mark

  • http://www.facebook.com/alanjgrace Alan Grace

    If its a side on Samurai runner then id go with the second option. If you pass through them without attacking them or if they hit you then you lose energy/health, as you approach them you have to strike them before colliding with them to kill them. Check GoNinja on the App Store, might be on Android too. The attack is automatic, you just control the jumping but the attack seems to work ok and is fluid as you run by the enemy. That be my two cents anyways!

  • http://www.facebook.com/sean.durkan.311 Sean Durkan

    i think the slice & pass feature will be truer to the style.
    it’ll also allow for another level to the fighting mechanic by having to think about fighting enemies on both sides of you.

    • http://www.facebook.com/sean.durkan.311 Sean Durkan

      But, on second thought, it all depends on how you guys decide to pace it.
      being able to pass enemies might let players speed-run the level if they get good enough, and then all your precious pacing design gets fooked, and thats the main dealio for a linear platformer

  • http://www.facebook.com/piercymichael Michael Piercy

    The best of both worlds might worth exploring as mentioned already, and another solution to keeping the player challenged might be to use a slowly rejuvenating gauge of sorts. This way you can impede the player from using this as an easy way out?

  • http://www.facebook.com/christopher.conlan Christopher Conlan

    I think it would have to be a little from column A, a little from column B. If you had to stop to defeat every enemy, you’re removing the constant runner element which I understand is important.

    On the other hand, if you can run through every enemy with the only consequence being a bit of damage then it’s leaning more on the side of a twitch/reflex game as the players only need to be concerned with timing. Also, this obviously doesn’t fit if you plan to allow the player to use different moves and combos.

    It seems like you’d best be going for somewhere in the middle, where the player can slice through the rabble (as they do in movies as well as the YouTube clip you linked) and they have to stop and confront bosses and skilled opponents, maybe in Infinity Blade style? Maybe make it so that certain ‘rabble’ units need to be sliced in a certain way (the yellow guys require an uppercut, the blue guys require a slash etc) to mix it up a bit.

  • http://www.facebook.com/MorninWood Joe Cheevers

    I Agree with Mark having both would be a good way to mix up the combat. But have a dodge or slide mechanic to pass through NPC’s otherwise the classic Mario style collision happens when you don’t time the dodge correctly