2D "Streets of Rage" style beat 'em up

#1 Firstly, welcome.
Secondly, have you looked that documentation yet?

Now to your questions. T2D is a very good engine, however given you have non coding background, I think you'll find it a steep learning curve to write "Streets of Rage" depending on the depth of gameplay you're looking for. Tutorials wise I'm not aware of a "Streets of Rage" tutorial, however there are tutorials in the documentation which would get you started. Equally I'm not aware of a "Streets of Rage" genre kit.

Finally out of curiosity, if you're not a programmer are you approaching this as an artist for example? If so you may be better trying to find a programmer to help you do it. If not and you want to be a programmer, it might be worthwhile learning some programming basics first.

Either way the community is a good source of help and if you go for it, good luck.

#2
Thanks for the reply.

Have not checked out the documentation yet but I will do that.

To answer your question I am not an artist or programmer. I am simply a guy who thinks he has a good/funny idea for a game who does not have the money to hire a programmer to make it for me.

Pretty much the path I am deciding to take is to try to at least make a rough version of the game myself and perhaps pitch it to a publisher or just work on the game myself little by little until I have a version that I think is worthy enough to sell and go from there.

I do know a little about the fundementals of programing and I am an ok artist but I do not do enough of either one to claim one or the other as my "thing"

Gameplay wise I am not looking to make things too complicated which is why I cited "Streets Of Rage" as the example of what I am looking for. At the core the game would really be a side scrolling move up and down beat 'em up style game in which one or maybe two players can beat the crap out of enemies that come at them on screen.

The uniqueness and humor of the game comes from its story and character design.

I was hoping there would be some type of beat 'em up engine out there in which I could just focus on character, level, and music design then plug it all in but it does not appear that such a thing exists.

#3 Ok, more background always good. Didn't know your background so was difficult to gauge the reply.

As I previously said the docs will give you a feel for T2D.

Creating a rough version is doable (still with a steeper learning curve), moving a player round the screen is relatively straight foward, the combat and collision stuff is obviously more complex.

If you are seriously considering it, I would suggest you get T2D whilst it's still on sale for $99, it's going to go up in price soon however there are no dates or revised prices yet.

#4 On the design side, I find it is very helpful to scope the features and game play before starting development. Using Streets of Rage as a reference is a great starting point. What are the differences you want to create in look, game play mechanics, style of art, reward system, input, etc. This doesn't need to be a long document for a relatively simple game like Streets of Rage. Doing this step may help answer some development questions. What development resources are needed? What type of engine tech? What features need a lot of programming? And what kind of art pipeline you may want to setup?

When you get to the point of getting teammates, knowing the "holes" will help you fill them. This will also direct you to areas you may want to focus on for your expertise!

#5 Teams help out a lot. You can get your ideas to a point where it is a great one.

Fighting Games is what I play most of and its pretty similar. One thing you should do is check out some different ones to get some ideas. I recommend Dungeon Fighter Online. It has an RPG element which is good if you decide to go down that path. The Scott Pilgrim Game for Xbox Live and PSN is another good choice to play.

Just play as many as you can and get an idea of what makes them good and their pitfalls.

Remember to not add features while in development over the ones you already need to do. Finish those first, no matter how cool it would be. That helped me out a lot last time on my Team we got to add some other modes since we were efficient in doing everything.

#6 I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP, and I have to agree with the comment about playing a few of the great ones and seeing what works.

I'm working on demo art (though I'd hardly call myself an artist), and I noticed recently that Golden Axe: RoDA uses 3/4 walk cycles, back turned when walking "up," and side-view run cycles, all of which look good at 8 frames per cycle. When objects break, chunks of rock come flying out of the screen using a 1992 scaling effect that looks halfway decent. Very helpful to know this before creating a demo level with breakable objects. (Breaking stuff is a must, second only to multiplayer!)

I'm actually a bit intimidated by the prospect of making a functioning demo. I have the PSK and Adventure Kit, but I imagine it's best to use T2D without either of the kits to pull off a beat-em-up game. Is that correct?

PS- Also, I'm not sure if it make sense for me to work on demo art first, but I figure if I can't pull off a decent demo, the bright side is that I (already) have some decent concept art for my design doc.

#7 You guys trying to do a little something like this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/suckerfreegames/dungeons-the-eye-of-draconus

We've been working on getting Torque X 2D to do this sort of thing for a while. We are finally reaching the end of that journey. Golden Axe eat your heart out :P

Yeah I know there is only a little bit of game footage in that, mainly due to bugs introduced by XNA 4.0 (we had a lot to repair), but we've resolved them and soon as we get Levels 1 and 2 done this December I'll post up some new footage. Until Torque X was discontinued, we were originally programming this thing to double as both a game and a "kit" to offer to GG. Sadly Torque X is no longer supported except by a CEV :(

#8 I love it! And I have to agree that if you're going to put a hero in a thong, make him fat and nerdy.

Great work, William and Co.!!!

#9 Wow, I really did not expect to get this much feed back on my post!

William your game looks awesome and yes in a lot of ways it is similar to what I want to do but while your game is closer to golden axe I think my concept is a little bit closer to streets of rage.

What we really have in common is our desire to inject humor into the genre.

I still have a lot of unanswered questions about what I want to do though. I do not know if I want this to be a console game like yours that could be downloaded on Xbox Arcade or PSN or if I want it to be a mobile game for phones and tablets.

It is tough as I really am by myself on this. I am just a gamer with what I think is a good idea for a game and trying to put it all together.

The feedback from this thread has helped a lot though and I think I am pointed in the right direction.

#10 Yeah the wonderful thing about the system we've developed is converting it from a Golden Axe game to a Streets of Rage type game is about as easy as switching out the artwork and tweaking the grappling controls a tad. The only hard parts are scripting the boss battles, everything else is almost drag and drop... Really wish Torque X wasn't dropped what we are making would make a nice kit, lol.

Just a warning, it took us 6 months for our programmer (who knows what he's doing) to get Torque X 2D to work for a 2.5D brawler and it's taken us 2 years to get it to control smoothly and work all the kinks out of the system and allow an easy AI, paths interface, etc. If you are just one guy who's a gamer and doesn't program, you are in for a world of hurt.

#11 @William,

Yeah... last night I came up with a smaller platformer project that would work well with the PSK. I would definitely need a team to pull off a good brawler, so for that project, I'm going to spend more time on art and documentation. (The platformer I'm working on will help me grow as an artist, so I can be more than just the idea guy... though having a better artist take the lead on art would be preferable.)


@Andrew,

I've been doing research on 2D brawlers (which really are 2.5D) and I've seen a lot of OpenBOR mods... there are a lot of people like us who want multiplayer co-op action. I'm sure you add your own original twist as I do, but would stick to the simple pick-up-and-play, 2-or-3-button formula that's worked well since the mid-80s.

A shame that William & Co. won't be able to sell their work as a kit... I keep hoping for a brawler kit!

#12 William, I would like to try it out. I am always up for being all nostalgic and going back to the days of going to Pizza Hut and playing X-Men or Ninja Turtles Arcade.

Ill keep tabs on it.

#13 Good ol' X-Men and its 6-player madness! Back then I thought six players would be the future of gaming. Now, we have widescreen TVs and four control ports (instead of two) on every console, and it's so rare to find an "offline" multiplayer.

For this reason, even my small platformer project will be a two-player game.


Oh... and William, good move on the smaller sprites for a 3-player brawler. While researching OpenBOR mods, I noticed a lot of 4-player games with big, fast-moving characters. (Street Fighter Alpha/3rd Strike sprites) Basically it was 4 huge guys all hanging out on the side of the screen, machine-gun-punching a cluster of bad guys!

I can see how Dungeons wouldn't suffer from that, since 3 players could have a lot of space to themselves if they want (and they could be forced to spread out if you have Golden Axe situations where enemies with projectile weapons surround you from each side of the screen while fighters pop up in the middle). That, and from the little gameplay footage I saw, the combat looked genuinely challenging and fun!

If I had an Xbox, I would buy this! (I will recommend it to a friend who buys multiplayer indie games on his 360.)

#14 Oh man I forgot we posted here... Update video :D

Also anyone interested in play testing a 2 level advanced alpha? Send me your email ;)

#15 Very nice Will.