FGSL #001 : Introduction to the Fighting Game Study Log
2014-09-30
I’ve begun a study of how fighting games are made and have decided to start a FGSL (Fighting Game Study Log) blog post series posting my findings and progress developing fighting game code.
Besides being a huge fan of fighting games I’m very interested in how you program a well made fighting game. To do my study I’ve decided to build a fighting game engine and game prototype. Experience making a fighting game is invaluable into learning how making a good fighting game is done. I need to try, fail, and learn about the different techniques that would be used to make a complex fighting game system.I don’t know how long this project will take offhand, I imagine it will go on quite a while at a slow but steady pace. I’ve found so far I’m spending more time reflecting on design than I am programming.
As a software developer, I’m very interested in how I would be able tomanage therelatively complex state machine logic of a fighting game character. I have some ideas which I’m implementing now but I’m sure I’ll learn a lot in the process and have a much better solution in the future.
Right now the game is done in C++ and uses OpenGL for rendering. I’m not using an engine because for this particular project there’s a level of control I want over game loop timing and device input that an engine typically abstracts away too much for my liking. I will get into more specifics on the libraries and technology I’m using in the FGSL blog post.
- Design : I will focus on different design issues in fighting games. These posts will be high level and won’t involve any programming code orimplementationdetails. - Development : Progress on the development of the fighting game I’m writing. - Implementation Spotlights : Articles on how I implemented a specific design feature. These will include code samples. - Thoughts : On topic fighting game posts that don’t necessarily fit into the other categories
I’m hoping to gain a lot of new knowledge across many different disciplines by doing this study. Some of the categories of knowledge I hope to improve in from this study include game design, c++, game programming, complexfinitestate machine implementation & art.I hope my findings also prove useful to other people studying similar topics.
Here is a image of the game as it currently stands, the progress of this photo actually reflects where I am development-wise in blog #004 in this series.
Sleeping Dogs Definitive Editon
2014-09-27
The past 6 months I’ve been working at United Front Games and it’s been really great. It’s a lot of hard work but it’s really interesting work and I’m learning a ton from some of the very seasoned programmers I work with.
The first game I’ve worked on at UFG is now announced : Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition. It’s been great working on a game I’m personally interested in. It really drives me to want to make the game as good as I possibly can.
Here’s some screenshots of the game.
3 Hour Opposite
2014-07-18
I decided to participate in the 3 hour game jam. The title is pretty self explanatory. They announce a theme on Friday then you have to make a full game in only 3 hours before the end of Sunday. Submissions are then put to the vote during the week and a winner is announced the following week. This weeks theme is “Opposite”.
My entry is called3 Hour Opposite. As you can see I spent a lot of time working on the title. The game involves you eating small cute green creatures and randomly the stat of the world will change from non-opposite to opposite. When the world changes state to opposite the creatures you are eating are now hunting you.
I managed to get the basic game done in the 3 hours along with about 30 mins of me getting re-acquainted to Haxe/Haxeflixel. I had used Unity the previous week and got stuck troubleshooting for so long I didn’t have anything to show after 3 hours. The lesson is if you are doing a ultra-short game jam then make sure you use your most comfortable development stack.
I plan to spend some more time on this game in the week. I suspect I need about another 5 hours to get the game I want to make. It will be interesting to see how many gains I get for the time spent in the next version of the game.
If you’d like to playthe game you can playit here :
http://alexm.itch.io/3-hour-opposite
Tags: gamejam