Colosseum of Rogues: 7drl 2014, Turn based fighting game COMPLETE

[deepshock]

This will be the thread to follow for my entry into this year's 7DRL: Colosseum of Rogues.

As a member of the fighting game community and the roguelike community, I decided to take on a challenge: Can I plausibly merge both genres in a seven day proof of concept? Can I make FG concepts work in a turn based context? Only one way to find out.

The announcement post on 7drl.org: http://7drl.org/2014/03/10/deepshocks-7drl-entry-colosseum-of-rogues/

Day 1: I've given basic attacks a startup time before they resolve, and I've given the attacks and special moves recovery values. In addition, I've added a basic UI that shows both combatant's health values. Special move data is coded in, but the actual implementation thereof is incomplete. I'll provide an actual file at the end of Day 2.

[SoulBeaver]

Hey deepshock!

I found your thread The idea sounds interesting. I've seen a game that tried to blend a Fighter with rock-paper-scissors. Each fighter was allowed to input three commands (kick, punch, guard) and start the round. A kick would beat a punch, but lose to a guard, which then counters, or something like that. Perhaps such a turn-based system with pre-emptive commands would be suitable for a fighter roguelike?

Anyhow, I hope you post some pictures so we can see the progress, not just read it Keep at it and good luck!

[deepshock]

Thanks!

Day 2 update here (http://7drl.org/2014/03/11/day-2-update/)

- Fixed the player character’s special moves, which now display and act with the proper startup (pre-activation) and recovery (post-activation) wait time values.

- Fixed ‘knockback’ (forces the opponent away) and ‘rush’ (moves toward the opponent) effects on the Rising Dragon and Hurricane Whirlwind special moves.

-Released a day 2 version of the game. Still very, very messy and without proper game flow. Day 3 will be about cleaning the game up, implementing a proper round structure (two to win), and any further expansion I can do in that time.

[Zireael]

Sounds like a great idea, keeping an eye on this.

[deepshock]

Day 3 update: http://7drl.org/2014/03/11/colosseum-of-rogues-day-3/

The 1, 2 and 3 keys are your special moves, shown in order. The basic roguelike bump is your attack. The spacebar is your key to wait. It’ll be a ‘block’ button of sorts when I implement blocking, blockstun and hitstun as concepts.

Progress:

- Implemented a round structure. Two rounds wins the match. When one combatant is KO’d, a message indicates whether you won or lost the round (or if two rounds have been won by one combatant, the match).

-Cleaned up the UI a tad. No more ghost text.

-Fixed various bugs and structural issues.

- A new round repositions characters to the same spot they started on in the first round.

[deepshock]

Day 4 update: http://7drl.org/2014/03/12/colosseum-of-rogues-day-4/

-Implemented blocking. Blocking lasts 10 frames (or until blockstun is over if the blocker does end up blocking a hit), is done by pressing the space bar, and negates all regular attack damage as long as it’s being done. It also reduces incoming special move damage to 25%.

-Implemented hitstun (immobility while being hit) and blockstun (immobility while blocking.) These values allow for what in fighting games is called ‘frame advantage’, or how ready each combatant is to act, relative to each other, after one either blocks or is hit by the other’s move.

-Fixed crash bugs related to the character’s stat sheet (‘L’) and the help screen (‘H’).

-Rebalanced enemies, special move damage, hitstun and blockstun.

-Fixed faulty text messages that sometimes referred to a downed unit as ‘uninjured’.

The zip is in the link.

[deepshock]

Day 5 update, 8-stage arcade ladder mode, message history and pre-fight opponent stats:

http://7drl.org/2014/03/14/colosseum-of-rogues-day-5-arcade-style-ladder-fight-cards/

-Every match is with one of a preset group of opponents, and there are 8 matches you have to win before you beat the game.

-Some opponents have come up with negative damage values. I’ve solved this one.

-Beating the game or losing a match takes you back to the title.

-Escape quits the game with a prompt to confirm if the player is sure.

-Before every match, the opponent’s longsheet (the same stat sheet you see when you press ‘L’) comes up, with its name, special moves, basic attack damage, and movement recovery values.

-’M’ now displays the full message history.

-More UI cleanup.

Tomorrow I plan to finish the game and see if I can add supers, EX moves and the super meter, as well as bughunting and final balancing. If there’s time either that night or Saturday, I plan to make purely randomly generated special moves and opponents.

[deepshock]

For Days 6 and 7 (not so much 7 because I have a lot of other things to do that day), I intend to expand on the concepts I've established in the game as much as I reasonably can, generate random moves and opponents, allow the player to create a fighter using a stats system, and do bug-testing and final balancing. If anyone following this game has any suggestions as to what to do in these last two days, I'm all ears. I already plan to add recognition of combos, a damage scaling system, meter, move strengths (light/medium/heavy), EX moves and supers. However, I'm not sure of any other additions that would be worth the time spent on them. I'm not sure how to implement things like highs, lows, throws, knockdowns (both soft and hard), and cancels. These are concepts that work in other fighting games because they're real time, graphical, vertical rather than top-down, and precise. I don't know if they'll be as viable here.

[deepshock]

Day 6 update: Move strengths, meter, enhanced (EX) forms of special moves, and supers.

http://7drl.org/2014/03/15/colosseum-of-rogues-day-6-move-strengths-and-super-meter/

Download the Day 6 version here.

-Implemented a super meter that builds as one performs special moves, attacks, blocks or takes damage.

- Implemented light (Ctrl+direction or special move key), medium (no key modifier), and heavy (Shift + direction or special move key) attacks, as well as EX special moves (which use 50 meter and require a press of Ctrl and Shift before the special move key).

-Implemented two supers that use 100 meter, and a more powerful one with greater time costs and damage that uses 200 meter.

- The UI displays the frame data of a move by its strength type, after the move is used. Attempts to redraw the screen when shift or ctrl  are used, with no non-modifier key, have been unsuccessful.

The final day is a wild card, reserved for any further bughunting, balancing and modification I can do between now and midnight on March 16th. I’ll try to implement randomized opponent movesets and frame data by then.

[deepshock]

I've finished it!

Final changes:

-Added color coding to indicate character states (blocking, getting hit, winding up a move, recovering from a move)

-Randomized normal move data for opponents

-Added the choice of two characters (Max and Ruby, with the same moves but slightly different properties. Think Ryu and Ken).

-I’m considering doing post-work on this game in a month or two, to add more to it.

Screenshots:





Link:

http://7drl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ColosseumOfRoguesDay7.zip

Thanks for another amazing challenge and year!

[LazyCat]

Link:

http://7drl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ColosseumOfRoguesDay7.zip

Thanks for another amazing challenge and year!

Doesn't work, WinXP: "is not a valid Win32 application".

[deepshock]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11305633/xxxxxx-exe-is-not-a-valid-win32-application/14754251#14754251

For what seems to be a rather arbitrary reason, Visual Studio 2012 projects can't naturally target Windows XP. My goal right now is to find a way to make it do that.

Edit: I built the program in monodevelop instead of VS, and targeted the 4.0 Framework. This should solve the WinXP issue.

Thanks, Lazycat!

[Zireael]

Will be checking it out!

[Vanguard]

Rising Dragon beats everything

[deepshock]

Hmm. How do you recommend I tone it down? It's clearly too powerful, so what in particular needs to change about it? I'm thinking it's the hitstun, and I'll see if making that about 1/2 of what it normally is (30 instead of 60) would work.

I also intend to implement knockdown as a status (indicated by another color) where the knocked down unit can't move or be hit until they wake up, and turn at least half of that hitstun into knockdown.