Plan for Axel Cushing

Work continues (albeit slowly) on "Isle of Blades." The current problem du jour is the method of implementation of the martial arts system, not in the technical aspect such as rotoscoping vs. mo-cap, but rather the way that a player will select the moves that his character will use in the game.

When I first started on this, it had been my intention for the player to be able to customize his character to an extent by choosing the martial arts moves and styles that would be learned. I wasn't shooting for a realistic world by any stretch of the imagination. This was going to be fantasy, anime-flavored hack and slash. They were going to start equipped with one default punch, one default weapon stroke, one default kick, and one throw. After that, as they visited the towns scattered through the game, they would have the means to add more moves to their arsenal, including flashy kicks, pile driver throws, sweeping weapon cuts, and special-effects laden ki strikes (aka gnarly fireballs). However, the two methods that immediately occur to me as to how to let a character procure those moves are equally interesting and equally challenging that I find myself in a dilemma.

The first method, basically choosing moves off a list, has the benefit being dirt simple. More complicated moves would require simpler moves as prerequisites. The player looks at the list, picks the moves he can afford to train in and meets the requirements for, then moves on to the next battle. The method offers the player to have a nearly infinite customizability to their characters. If they wanted to, they could have a character that specialized in nothing but kicks, or become the equivalent of a judo master who is able to throw even the toughest opponents around the map. The downside that occurs to me is that it kind of pulls the player out of the game for a moment or two, killing the suspension of disbelief as it were. Another possible problem is that the list of moves becomes so unwieldy that the player actually ends up not using some of them. A third problem is that a lot of the moves will have the same controller commands but have different names. (Take for example "Street Fighter 2." Ryu, Ken, and Sagat all use the same controller commands for their respective fireball attacks, though Sagat's has a different name.)

The second method, what I call the "page" method," has the benefit of being not quite so likely to pull the player out of the game. In the context of the game's story, the character is buy a scroll or page from a book of martial arts techniques. The upside on this is that the various styles in the game can be more easily categorized, along with giving the player the option to get several moves all at once rather than having to pick and choose and possibly get fewer moves for their money. Again, more advanced techniques would require pages with simpler techniques already in the character's "training manual." The downside is that it forces the character to adopt a single martial arts style. A compromise might be allowing a player to choose two martial arts styles, but it potentially complicates the game, especially if there are certain moves which use the same controller commands (yes, you're probably going to need to use a game pad unless I can think up a decent macro scheme for keyboard/mouse users), which will invariably happen on a lot of the simple moves. Another possible compromise is to have a small amount of randomization within the pages, where a player gets a certain page (number? level?) during one playthrough with a certain attack then gets a different attack when he buys the same page the next time around. Another potential difficulty (not quite a problem) is how best to handle the acquisition of special attacks (fireballs, lightning bolts, that sort of thing). They could be on some pages and not on others, or they could be a page unto themselves, separate from the regular pages.

One final thing that occurs to me is teaching the player how to pull off these moves. It's fine and well that they get the moves, but a lot of them will be wasted if the player devolves into button mashing. Yeah, I know, it'll probably devolve to that anyway, and I'm trying to have as much thumb-wrenching action as can be squeezed into a CD, but there should at least be a place where a player can practice all those neat new moves, a "dojo mode" if you will. "Brutal Paws of Fury" had a dojo mode, where new attacks were displayed and taught to you before you tried them out in combat, plus you didn't have to be in a totally separate mode away from the action. Your character's training happened in the game. The theory remains sound, I think, and it could be a benefit. But like all things, it's how it will actually play out that is important.

Until then, grasshopper...