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Xeontech

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,059
Just have fun with it and try to finish a couple models and make them fight.

Don't expect it to be Street fighter. But you could easily do a small clay fighter/rampage level thing on your own with the tools out there.

It will be a learning experience if nothing else.
 

Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
This all really helps a lot, thanks!

I was literally going to offer the exact same advice. Start with something like a Tetris clone (it's one of the easiest games to implement) before comitting to something this large. Then when you're done, slice up your game into the tiniest portion imaginable to begin with, and complete that before moving on to adding more content: in your case that would be one character with one simple background. It's better to have a completed game with just one character than an incomplete game with any number of them.

Also seconding the "drop by the game dev thread" advice, particularly before committing to any one engine like Unreal. I would infinitely sooner recommend Unity for a first time, one-person project; this isn't so much jumping in at the deep end as learning to swim in the Amazon rapids. :D

There's lots of advice for people starting to game dev right now, lots of things I would have loved to know early, and other things I stumbled upon by happy coincidence. I really need to make a thread about it sometime...
 

eso76

Prophet of Truth
Member
Dec 8, 2017
8,101
Oh if your game is low res (320/384 x 240something) 2D I have a few characters and backdrops I was working on for a game that was never released I can share :P
 

Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
Have you ever tried to mess with MUGEN OP? It may give you a hint of what's to come. And maybe you could prototype some things with it.

This may indeed not a bad idea to prototype and have an engine running while you work on the sprites, but of course you have to be aware that a game made in MUGEN cannot be sold and cannot be ported to anything but PC.

Well, what would you like me to show? I do have some concept art.

That would be great! Are you planning to go with pixel art sprites or high-res ones?
 

Teeth

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,926
On the programming side, a fighting game is definitely not the hardest type of game to make.

On the design side, a fighting game is probably the most difficult game to make. Like, straight up, I can't think of anything more difficult to design.

Good luck OP!
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
I don't wanna share too much concept art (since things are subject to change) but here's a working idea of what the protag will look like.
FXM6Bh3.jpg
 

Zealuu

Member
Feb 13, 2018
1,173
Not gonna tell you how to make games or manage projects because at best I can only do the latter, so instead I hope it materializes into something interesting. It doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile.
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
Edit: decided to remove these last pics.
 
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Ciao

Member
Jun 14, 2018
4,829
Kalmakov I have a friend who made a full PSone style fighting game all alone. Ton of content, characters, solid gameplay, and a small dedicated community. You can do it, if you don't aim for GG Xrd quality of graphics and general production. Have a look and come to his Discord if you want advices, we have several solo indie fighting games devs here too.

I want to work on a fighting game myself, and I have the exact same profile as you. Don't listen to those who try to discourage you, it's doable if you get some advices from those who did it already !
 

Jakisthe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,540
On the design side, a fighting game is probably the most difficult game to make. Like, straight up, I can't think of anything more difficult to design.

Good luck OP!
A realtime MMO with a competitive PVP mode? That's up there for me, anyway. Balancing levels, abilities, items, and team comps sounds like a real headache.
 

scaffa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
47
Good luck with the project and have fun. It's an ambitous plan but certainly not an impossible one. Just set clear goals for yourself, start with some small goals first and be sure to test often.

You don't need a team to make a game but you do need time, patience and dedication.
 

Bufbaf

Don't F5!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,620
Hamburg, Germany
OP, a few weeks ago I started to work on creating a Point'n'click adventure game, also all alone. I'm - similar to you, it seems - alright when it comes to drawing, completely inexperienced with programming and never did anything like this before. If you give up before I'll give up (and I've been giving up on various other things, too!) you lose! If I give up while you're still in active development, you win! If we both manage this, we both win :)

You in?
 

Wing Scarab

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,757
Fighting games have been a big part of my life for the last decade or so, for better or worse. I've attended locals just about every other week for the last three years or so, made some of my best friends there, and I've played a ton of games. During all of this time, I've always brainstormed several ideas of what I would do if I were to make a fighting game. Well, starting yesterday, I've started to put some of those ideas to paper and learning how to implement them. I started learning unreal engine 4 and I've been watching a ton of tutorials on how to use it and how to properly code. I'm more than aware that this is a massive undertaking, fighting games are super hard to develop after all, but it's something I want to do.

I'm making a thread on this because I feel like putting it out there that I am working on a fighter will help keep me focused and committed, as I will now have to meet an expectation I have set for myself.

I don't want to divulge too much on the game as anything is subject to change, but I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have. As I develop the game, I'll share updates on this thread.
Bro, don't listen to any of these Debbie Downers in here. Just go for your dreams. There is nothng wrong with attempting something, at least you have the drive to do it, can't say the same for a lot of these haters on here.
 

Jakisthe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,540
I don't wanna share too much concept art (since things are subject to change) but here's a working idea of what the protag will look like.
FXM6Bh3.jpg
Speaking as someone who way too often falls into the trap of wanting to be an "idea person" (of which there are a dime a dozen), I would *heavily* advise against showing off too much of/talking about the long range plans. At least for me, whenever I do that, I fall into a trap of a)luxuriating in praise b)talking too much about said long range plans as though I'm at that stage and c)putting more and more effort into said long range plans instead of needing to work on the extremely necessary building blocks.
 
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mxbison

Banned
Jan 14, 2019
2,148
Have you made a game?

Making a fighting game is a lot harder than you may think, even if its a simple one. Might one to try a platformer or something first.
 

Quad Lasers

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,542
A sprite based fighter made in UE4 that you loosely started writing a design doc for yesterday.

Anything's possible, but uh...you might have wanted to wait a bit on this thread.
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
A sprite based fighter made in UE4 that you loosely started writing a design doc for yesterday.

Anything's possible, but uh...you might have wanted to wait a bit on this thread.
This is probably true, but I already stated why I did so.

Also, on the 2d sprites thing, from what I understand implementing sprites in unreal may not be as simple as just doing models, so I'll weigh my options
 

Teeth

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,926
A realtime MMO with a competitive PVP mode? That's up there for me, anyway. Balancing levels, abilities, items, and team comps sounds like a real headache.

Yeah, that would be. I guess I feel like most of those come down to a few things that trump almost everything else and then it's just number management. But it does have the asymmetrical realtime issues fighting games have. What they don't have is animation timing and screen space considerations to contend with.

Like, in a fighting game, you have to marry art and design completely. In an MMO style game, you generally just have targeted attacks where sizing and speed can be tweaked however you want because pretty much everything exists outside of melee range. In a fighting game, the hit boxes have to be intuitive to the moves seen, which have to flow properly for animation to have impact and all of that has to work within a character design (gameplay, not visual....although that too) to work with footsies (spacing/timing), zoning, rushdown, combo timing, etc.

The spacing in an MMO style game is more about where your character is in the field, not where your character "becomes" when they throw a fireball.
 

Quacktion

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,478
Please hire a good character designer. Skullgirls was utterly ruined for me because of its ugly-ass (and creeply sexualised) characters, its important to have characters people actually want to play as after just looking at them.

I don't wanna share too much concept art (since things are subject to change) but here's a working idea of what the protag will look like.
FXM6Bh3.jpg
This doesnt look bad so far, but remember that less is more, make characters immediately distinct and dont overdesign. Like take the SF chracters for instance and how easy it is to break them down into just colour blocks, its literal perfection, people need to remember your characters with as little effort as possible.


CROSS.jpg
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
Please hire a good character designer.
I'm going to be the character designer, that's actually the one thing I'm completely confident in doing.

Also, I get what you mean, but Capcom art is actually my main inspiration for character design. My favorite designs are from Vampire Savior especially
 

Shy

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
18,520
Break a leg, OP.
C9xpkxZ.gif


And don't forgot. Make sure to code your game to use GGPO from the ground up.
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Please keep us up to date on your progress.
 

AzVal

Member
May 7, 2018
1,873
From what little Io have learnt of Game maker and development in general if you have the Graphic design down you have a good start, however depending on the number of objects you want to animate and how fluid and nice you want the animation, that will take a lot of time, probably way more than the programing itself. Even doing basic outline sprites takes me weeks and photoshop, for me, for some reason is the most unintuitive application I have ever used and I have used a lot of production apps from different companies for regular work.
 

Unspecified

Member
Dec 9, 2017
27
@op, as a hobbyist/indie dev of 20 years myself, I recommend going with Unity to start with, UE4 is good, but it's not nearly as beginner friendly, especially for a small scale first 2d game type project. Choosing unreal to start is basically akin to using a rocket launcher to squash a mosquito.
It's going to be a rough road if you're just starting out from zero experience, and you don't want your tools making it even harder on you - start smaller and simpler.

I admire your desire to learn and wish you luck!
 
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OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
@op, as a hobbyist/indie dev of 20 years myself, I recommend going with Unity to start with, UE4 is good, but it's not nearly as beginner friendly, especially for a small scale first 2d game type project. Choosing unreal to start is basically akin to using a rocket launcher to squash a mosquito.
It's going to be a rough road if you're just starting out from zero experience, and you don't want your tools making it even harder on you - start smaller and simpler.

I admire your desire to learn and wish you luck!
I'll see how I like the two compared to another, but unreal right now just seems the most flexible
 
OP
OP

Kalmakov

user requested ban
Banned
Sep 10, 2019
1,300
From what little Io have learnt of Game maker and development in general if you have the Graphic design down you have a good start, however depending on the number of objects you want to animate and how fluid and nice you want the animation, that will take a lot of time, probably way more than the programing itself. Even doing basic outline sprites takes me weeks and photoshop, for me, for some reason is the most unintuitive application I have ever used and I have used a lot of production apps from different companies for regular work.
I think Lab Zero uses photoshop for sprites and even they say that the program is unintuitive
 

TimeFire

Avenger
Nov 26, 2017
9,625
Brazil
Why are you still here, OP? Go develop! Try to make a prototype with two squares moving and making hitboxes appear and collide!
 
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