Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

FIGURE 5-2
Sample spreadsheet entry
C H A P T E R 5
list. You will probably want to consider planning a “make-up” session to capture
moves that were omitted, changed, or replaced from your initial capture sessions.
A large part of the “feel” of a great fighting game is in the game-controller processing;
namely, how quickly button presses “fire off” or “translate” into controlled
fighting moves. The game controller gets “scanned” for input by the game engine repeatedly
many times per second, and building flash fighting response times often comes
down to tuning the controller and animation handler code to minimize any lag in
move execution. Fluid fight character control becomes a performance-engineering issue
for the game code as it reads in controller input and translates this information
into character movement. Next comes animation tuning in making sure that fighter
model animation transitions (from one move to another, such as from a fighting
stance to a torso grab) can be made without interference, dropped frames, or bad animation
“hook-up” transitions (how motions end and begin; how they flow one into
another).
Fight arenas have expanded in modern fighting games from the very popular
fixed-view scrolling fighters, to fight games within complete environmental arenas
built upon more elaborate camera systems and environmental interaction. This has
opened up the physical fight space and made fight games seem much “larger,” but it
has also made new demands on background resources, challenging artists and designers
to create a wide variety of compelling fight arenas. Fight arenas now allow for
fighting characters to “wander” through the scene from area to area as the fight progresses.
This has compelled designers to build up far more sophisticated fight scenarios
incorporating multi-area fight scenes, weather effects, and so forth.
Fighting performance has become more complex, while staying true to the idea of
multibutton combo attacks and unique character abilities. Fighting strategy has continued
to challenge players to “last through the long round” as they must learn to balance
high-power attacks with life energy loss and damage taken over ever-larger
fighting fields. Fighter characters are capable of large numbers of attacks, each of
which must be polished for performance.
Grabs, throws, weapon use, and special-case moves must be carefully planned as
their execution on opposing characters can be tricky when you have characters of
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