Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
platformers. Unfortunately, the addition of a third dimension makes control more
complicated and difficult; the “Controls” section discusses this in more detail.
Fighting Games
Fighting games have little in common with other action games because they
involve neither exploration, shooting, nor puzzle-solving. They still qualify as
action games because they place great demands on a player's physical skills: reac-
tion time and timing. These games simulate hand-to-hand combat, usually using
highly exaggerated moves vaguely modeled on Asian martial arts techniques.
(Serious boxing games belong more to the sports genre than to the action genre, as
they try to model the techniques of boxing realistically.) Fighting games may be
further subdivided into those in which characters fight in one-on-one bouts, and
mêlée games in which one or two characters fight against large numbers of oppo-
nents. (The latter are sometimes called
beat-'em-ups
.) Fighting games also use
hand-to-hand weapons such as swords and staves, and a limited number of ranged
weapons.
Figure 13.4
shows screen shots from two fighting games,
Street Fighter
and
Dead or Alive 3
.
FIGURE 13.4
Fighting games,
Street Fighter
and
Dead or Alive 3
The player's actions typically consist of hand-to-hand attacking and defending
moves of various sorts. Typically, certain defenses block some attacks but not oth-
ers, and players have to learn when and how the moves are effective through trial
and error. Each successful attack takes energy away from the character hit, and the
game continues until one fighter's energy drops to zero. The strategy of the game
rather resembles rock-paper-scissors as players try to guess which move their oppo-
nent will use next.
A common feature of fighting games is the
combo move
, often simply shortened to
combo
. Because early console and arcade machines offered only a small number of
buttons and a simple 8-way joystick or D-pad, there was no way to assign a separate
