Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
button to each of the moves that the designers wanted to include. To compensate
for this and to create an extra challenge, they designed games so that the player
would execute an especially effective or spectacular attack if she could rapidly issue
a particular sequence of buttons and joystick maneuvers. The effectiveness of the
move is often related to its difficulty of execution; more complex combos carry
higher risk because the avatar is open to attack while the player carries out the
sequence.
When the software detects that a player has started a combo move, it sometimes
displays a
combo meter
somewhere on the screen—a visual indicator of the player's
progress through pressing the buttons. If the player stops or gets the sequence
wrong, the meter resets to zero and she has to start over.
Bout-structured fighting games tend to show all the fighters on-screen at once from
a side view. Even in a game that uses 3D technology to display the world and the
fighters, the play is largely 2D in the plane of the video screen. The fighters move
left and right and may jump up and down, but they seldom move toward the player
or away from him. Again, realistic boxing games are an exception because they try
to model the ring and boxers' movements accurately—another reason why they're
not usually classed with fighting games.
NOTE
Assassin's
Creed
combines the
close-combat fighting
of a more conventional
fighting game with
the open world and
missions of a
Grand
Theft Auto
style game,
producing a unique
hybrid.
Most innovation in fighting games consists of developments in characters' actions
and reactions. This includes their interactions with each other and their environ-
ment and their reactions to injury, as well as the methods used to control the
fighters—especially when considering how to handle special moves and combos.
Fast Puzzle Games
Most computerized puzzle games, such as
Sokoban
, move slowly and allow the
player to think about his next move for as long as he wants, so they're not action
games. Fast puzzle games require the player to solve a problem as quickly as possi-
ble. These games are usually simple, visually abstract, have a limited control set,
and are easy to design and build.
Tet r is
is the archetypal fast puzzle game. Other
examples include
Collapse!
,
Columns
, and
Bejeweled
in its timed mode. Casual gam-
ers like fast puzzle games because they are easy to learn and don't take a long time
to play. They also don't use stereotypical content associated with many video
games: no guns, no dragons, no scantily clad women. This subgenre is ideal for
handheld devices and cell phones.
Action-Adventures
The action-adventure is a hybrid genre, combining features from both action
games and adventure games. To play them well requires a fair amount of physical
skill, but they also offer a storyline, numerous characters, an inventory system, dia-
log, and other features of adventure games. The later editions of the
Zelda
series for
the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo GameCube are action-adventures, as is
Indiana Jones
