I was in a big rush to finally get this game done in a few months, but, honestly, I think it could be another year or more. The good news is that I don’t feel bad about that. Of course the bad news is that it’ll take forever.

Decided to redo Leslie. His character changed a bunch and he was sort of a lackluster boss. His attitude didn’t fit his appearance and the whole thing was just wrong. A big part of the feedback was more large characters, so the new Leslie is very large and awesome.
I also finished up another boss, Joan Larkin. She has jet boots and can fire missiles and other projectiles from them. To supplement that, she flies around at crazy speeds and attacks with fiery jet kicks!

I’ve finally buckled down and SORTA started working on a fully fleshed out scenario/story for the game. I think it will help the direction a lot.

That’s all for now. I’m back in the swing of things to prepare for the Indie Games Fest Competition. It’s due on the 18th of October!

http://www.indiepubgames.com/game/Aces_Wild_Advance!

Go play. Have a great time. Send me beautiful feedback.

I’d also like to mention the two musicians who I’ve been fortunate enough to have a part of this game.

One is Justin Hogie. He has a killer rock and metal sound with really soulful and battle-rific melodies. You may also know him as Final Atomic Buster online. He is also a founding member of Ozhadou.net, the premier fighting game community in Australia.

The other musician is James Landino, also known as KgZ. He is a terrific producer of electronic music, but I really sought him out because he has an incredible talent for jazz and other fusion styles. He takes dance and jazz and makes the grooviest stuff you’ve heard. He’s had tracks on many dance/rhythm based flash games.

Check them out at…
www.macjams.com/artists/FinalAtomicBuster
and
www.macjams.com/artists/KgZ

I’m REALLY scared to actually play the demo right now. I added some last minute stuff whirlwind style at the end and am worried I might have broken something.

But I will probably have a video up in a day or two… Hopefully something with a little production value and sound this time!

WHEW! I’m beat, time to relax for a bit.
Please try out the demo when I have it available or on indiepubgames.com

Stay tuned~!

Made a lot of big decisions lately. My drawing teacher always said to make big broad strokes for your final moments during a drawing.

Decided on a way to implement “Wild” which is a system I’ve been messing around with to power up moves. I’ve landed on a simple formula. Each cancel, your Wild increases by 1. Each attack’s damage is increased by the Wild. Smash attack damage is increased Wild^2. So the idea is to do as big as possible combo, then end with a smash attack since it’s lots harder to combo them together. BUT! Finding those elusive times where you can combo from a smash attack–using the environment or enemies–makes them even more powerful.

The movelist is simpler too, but you can still do lots. The combo button has two strings and a dive kick. One string is longer and ends with a hyper punch with lots of hits and you can move Ace around during it. The other combo is short, but has moves that move upward and can hit multiple enemies.
The smash button has an attack for each direction–up, up-forward, forward, down-forward,down–as well as a neutral attack which is really slow and you cannot cancel out of it, but it hits all around and sends enemies flying far. So using all these smash skills in conjunction with combos will allow you to power them up.

I have the first level built except for enemies, which I’m doing today. Enemies still need a lot of work so I’ll be working on them until the deadline. I also have the first boss, Mr. Leslie, done. He dashes around a lot and throws strong long range punches. He can also punch cars and crates at Ace. The level itself, has lots of platforming and introduces several enemy types. I hope to really blend the platforming and combat here.

The second level is a bit simpler, but has more unique events. You’re riding on the back of a semi down the highway. It’s very dangerous with not much room to fight, but you can also punch enemies into the passing highway. Lots of flying enemies. The placeholder boss is a stronger version of the flying mechs. He fires lots and lots of missiles and can summon more mechs. The real boss is a giant robot. He’s a mix of lots of giant robot cliches. He fires lasers and missiles and tries to punch you. You have to punch is punches to stop them.

The other two planned levels are a warehouse and scaling a building. The warehouse will have much more variety in it’s room layout, lots of environmental hazards like lights and oil drums, and some narrow passageways. The rooftop level is precarious like the semi level–lots of pits and buildings to fall off of. You’re mainly working your way upward so it will add a new dynamic to the fighting. It also has lots of stronger enemy fights where you have to use dueling strategies as opposed to brawling strategies.

For the past few months my mouse has gradually been losing it’s mind. It would double, triple or even auto-fire clicks when the left button was held down.
So I finally bummed one off of my sister. Not really that exciting of a story, except that I put up with it for so long. Finally had to stop because it was full on turbo mode.

I’d also like to note that I have two musicians working on the music! It is quite incredible, honestly. I’m thrilled to have them a part of it and they are making some really fantastic tracks.

Lately I’ve just been working hard on the combat. Spent a few days making assets I thought I needed, then didn’t. But that’s how this crazy biz goes sometimes.
FINALLY, got down to making some boss fights. I studied a lot of games (megaman, godhand, bayonetta, hero core, iji, noitu love) for a long time the past couple of days and spoke with a few designers. I think I have a good idea, now, of what a basic boss fight can be and how to create variety and implement them into my own engine and mechanics. That got more jargony than I had anticipated.

TECHNICALLY, I’m still on track with the schedule in my mind, but each day is going to be more insane than the last. I’ve learned a lot in just the past couple weeks about game design and am REALLY excited about working on new games with a million percent more efficient design process. Plus I’m networking tons and want to start on some colabs as soon as I can!

Back to the grindstone.

Hello everyone. I’m Don-san, otherwise known as a third-rate programmer. On Bayonetta, I was mainly in charge of the player and enemy character interactions.

Bayonetta was the first project in a while where I once again teamed up with Kamiya-san. Our previous collaboration was on Devil May Cry, where I was first put in charge of player/enemy programming. Back then, I had no understanding of 3D, so I remember drilling myself in the basics of three dimensions. It was also my first time working on a completely original game, so I guess I didn’t really have a grasp on how to make enemies back then.

However, making an original game was incredibly fun, and I remember making lots of things just because. I remember adding things simply because I had a few extra moments – I would change up the grunt enemies, give them new traits, or increase the number of their variations, or I’d increase the variety of swords that would fly around our “rival character.”

I don’t know if it was because they liked me just making things on my own, but after that, I kept getting asked to program the enemies. I guess I chewed through things too fast, but every time I would be placed on a new team, the number of enemies I was in charge of kept growing. On Devil May Cry, I was in charge of maybe 1/3 of the enemies; however, on Resident Evil 4, I was in charge of them all. On God Hand, I was also placed in charge of programming the player as well as all the enemies in the game. With Bayonetta, I handed off a couple of the enemies to some new programmers here, and thus I wasn’t in charge of everything, but I did take care of 95% of things. And of course, I was in charge of Bayonetta herself. Since I’ve been in charge of enemies for something like 10 years now, there are a few things that I pay particular attention to when creating enemies, and I’d like to share them with you.

1) You Don’t Need a Design Doc

When making enemies, one would think that you need a design doc, but in reality, there ends up being so many changes in the end that it doesn’t really make a difference. (Other than setting a direction to work from in the beginning.) So I don’t really ask or depend on a design doc, and instead I talk with those involved to get a good idea of what needs to be done, and then I take over on my own and make the enemy my way. Especially with Kamiya-san, who tends to not be someone who is very specific from the get-go, opting instead to just shoot ideas at you on the fly, you have to be ready to adapt and adjust at all times.

2) You Should Get Things On-Screen ASAP

Making enemies is frequently about trial and error. If you are able to get things moving on-screen at an early stage, you can figure out if you are off-course and get back on track without much damage. One may think that because one hasn’t thought things out entirely before starting that there would be quite a bit of trial and error; however, as the fundamental game design is prone to change, I need to be able to react quickly to these changes. If you are able to get things up and running early, you are able to conduct even more experiments, which are directly linked to increasing the quality of the work.

3) Don’t Make Enemies That Behave Irrationally

For instance, I absolutely hate enemies that automatically evade or counter at the exact moment the player hits the attack button. The player has done nothing ahead of time to warrant it, so I do often wonder what in the hell the enemy is reacting to that he is dodging all of a sudden. I tend to get cold towards things that make me feel like I am fighting against a computer.

When I make an enemy, I treat it as an extension of myself, so if I feel that I myself couldn’t react and dodge in a certain amount of time, I am not going to allow an enemy to do that either. Nor will I ever let an enemy do some sort of attack that can’t be dodged even though the player is reacting to it. I may be an old man, but I’m a pretty hardcore gamer, so I think I’m pretty good at reacting to things.

4) Do Your Best to Avoid Patterns

Making things pattern-based does allow players to create strategies easily, but I think it ends up feeling more like work than fun. Even when you think that a pattern is fun, there is probably something else to it that is making you feel like you are having a good time, don’t you think? If I am making an enemy, I want people to enjoy what I am creating, so I try my best to avoid patterns.

Furthermore, if a player can block, it becomes a hot-bed for patterns or for the kind of passive gameplay that I am not a fan of. When we made God Hand, only the enemies could block, and I often hear that this was unreasonable. However, I feel that if we would have let the player block too, we probably would have ended up with a monotonous game. So to counter, you can Guard Break in God Hand. It wasn’t made to be unreasonable, instead it is an opportunity.

Of course, in Bayonetta, there is no block.

5) Watch Closely and Stealthily How People Play

When you watch someone play, places where you are overdoing it, or places where things aren’t there yet will become clear, and this will become a great reference. However, when being watched, people try to hide their “go-to moves,” so I try to watch them play in secret. (I’m an expert tip-toer.)

If I spy someone on the development team completely stuck in a groove with a go-to move, this is when I secretly work up a counter to their addiction. (Unforgivable, right?)

Just like patterns, go-to moves spoil gameplay by making it a simple work mechanism, so I tend to counter these moves, especially in the case of powerful enemy characters.

Of course, I don’t find it a problem if a user finds a go-to move in a released game and uses it. That is a matter of an individual’s efforts, and I am happy if they work hard to find these techniques. However, if I catch a developer doing this, I can’t let it slide. (This too, is unforgivable!)

That is all I can really think of right now… Well, actually, there are tons of points I can’t tell people, the kind of glib lines about how I want to do this and that; however, if I get in trouble with everyone here for spilling our secrets that would not be fun, so I’ll leave things here.

In Bayonetta, I’ve based things on the points I listed above, and I made it with the intention of having plenty of things to sink your teeth into. Whether it is Bayonetta’s rival, Jeanne, the giant claw wielding Grace and Glory, or the beast-like Fairness and Fearless, I think they are all “walking the walk” so to speak. Even though the game is tough, Bayonetta’s abilities as a player character are great as well, so I hope that as a result you will all be able to experience a new kind of thrilling, high-speed battle!