Fist of Stronk Devblog + "tech demo"! [Updated Sept. 8]

Hi!

I've been working on my project I've dubbed Fist of Stronk (who or whatever, or if that's just a humorous typo is still unknown) on and off for a while now. It's a platformer beat em up with emphasis on satisfying high speed reaction-based gameplay where you constantly PUNCH things with GIANT FISTS OF STRONK STEEL.

The main idea for the game's theme is that you're a boneheaded young orc caught stealing "sacred" fists of God that's now latched on your arms and won't let go. You're given the choice of either having your arms cut off or being jailed forever into a giant hollow mountain where all the world's forbidden things are imprisoned. No matter, because big, ugly and extremely dangerous foes are just another excuse for you to excercise ultraviolence with reckless abandon. There's also a group of recently imprisoned wannabe-villains that decide to haunt you and test your skills for their amusement.

Expect tons of mooks to crush in long combos while hopping from walls, rolling on the ground and flying through the air. There will also be giant pattern-centric bosses. Difficulty will be highly inspired by Dark Souls, my favourite game series ever even if the gameplay itself will be very different.

Honestly I don't have a very clear plan of what this game will be like since it's evolving constantly. One day I want to make it a linear arcadey romp with a silly minimal but very character-centric plot, and suddenly I want to make it a Metroidvania with multiple paths, secrets etc. So who knows what'll happen. Anyhoo, here's some character renders not in their intented scales. The fatty and hammerguy are at least 1/2 bigger than the other two.

Right now I've been mainly working on a the main character, finding a good feel for player's movement and abilities and just throwing things at it and seeing what'll stick.

Right now on the todo list for player character is:

• Jumping attack that'll give you extra speed.
• Pain/death animations and states + hazards to test them with.
• Two heavy attacks with slow windups and long range.

HERE'S A DEMO MOSTLY WITH WALL CLIMBING AND NOTHING ELSE: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/505 ... index.html

Ask me anything, lend your help, critique, ideas, basically anything goes - and are also requested! Remember that this is a week's effort built on old assets you're seeing here.

Love what I'm seeing!

Amazing character art, controls feel pretty good (what's there).

No real idea of what combat and such are supposed to be like in the end, so looking forward to future update

Thanks! Good to hear that you like the characters and the movement. I'm super self-criticizing so it's hard to know when something I do is actually good or not.

awesome dude

I think you should go with the metroidvania. I know they are super taxing to make but once you have the base engine in place the levels should come naturally. you look like you have the right idea. There hasnt been a good one out for ages.

I am already feeling alot of atmosphere and you only have 2 dudes and some platforms.

awesome dude

I think you should go with the metroidvania. I know they are super taxing to make but once you have the base engine in place the levels should come naturally. you look like you have the right idea. There hasnt been a good one out for ages.

I am already feeling alot of atmosphere and you only have 2 dudes and some platforms.

Yeah, I really want to make a Metroidvania. I just want to work on this game alone, so making those can be pretty overwhelming. I also want to keep the menu fiddling to minimum, so no loot or stuff like that. Just gameplay. If I'm going to have "loot" it'll be sub-weapons like in Castlevania and then a button to switch between different regular attacks that you'll gain from bosses or whatever. No leveling, usable items, stats etc. It would be so much work for a game that's just about the action.

One idea I've had is to make it pseudo-metroidvania, which means making large but seperate levels where you search for keys, switches, plot stuff etc. and then there would be two bosses per each level. We'll see. I'm currently making the first regular mook enemy that will be used for all sorts of roles, so the action gameplay will begin to take shape soon! Gotta learn how to record gifs/webm's too.

Sounds like a fresh take on the metroidvania. Really look fwd to to seeing more.

There was a really cool one on xbox a few years ago called shadow complex I think but there was a fair bit of levelling in that. I also really realy loved the new recent strider which sounds more like what you are trying to acheive. Have a go of that if you haven't allready.

tried axiom verge recently on ps4 but couldn't get on with it for some reason. I think it was trying too hard to be too retro and felt very klunky and was too punishing.

I think these days game play mechanics are key. Get your combat mechanics feeling intuitive,fluid, effective and powerful on a test level before you start making loads of real levels.

Also I don't think you should totally rule out some sort of levelling up. It doesnt have to be deep complex levelling up but could be just two or three levels of simple character boost. Even just per level eg like the old original altered beast where during a level if you collected one orb you got a little bigger and stronger, two orbs orbs even bigger and stronger. Then three orbs there was a cut scene and you turned into a werewolf that could fire fireballs. it's allways an addictive draw to have a character evolve in some way.

Sounds like a fresh take on the metroidvania. Really look ...

Thanks for reminding about Strider, been thinking about buying it just to study its design since it looks pretty cool.

Also yeah, I might have some kind of leveling system where you can level up and down depending on how you play, much like in Altered Beast and Cave Story. Something that gradually gives you better reach, speed and damage for attacks (and new animations) or something you can 'pop' to go into a super powered mode for a short time but also lose all that 'exp' in the process. I want to keep speedrunning in mind when making this, so anything that gains players speed but is easily lost is good.

Your art is amazing! Everything is off to a great start, even though you don't quite know which direction you're going with it yet.

If you are taking some feedback, would you mind if i suggest a few things?

...OK, good!

-The main character animations could use a liiiitle bit more speed. Not the actual movement speed, just the animation; it looks a tad slow slow. Maybe 20% or so would feel better.

-The camera is very jittery when you change direction. This can be helped by having the camera center on the main character when stopped. If you try my game, and like the camera, I can share the settings with you.

-It takes too long after you land before you can jump again. If the time between landing and jumping again could be shorter, it would feel a lot better.

I think that's all the suggestions I have so far. You've done a great job so far, and i'm sure it'll be a really cool game when you finish.

Bunch of good feedback!

Yeah, some of the animations could be faster, but not all of them. The non-looped animations are gonna stay that speed because otherwise they stop way too early and look kinda janky. But I'll try making the rolling, punching and running animations faster.

The reason why there's delay in jumping when you land is to make the player actually think before jumping. Even if the game is gonna be very jump-centric, spamming it won't be an option. If you've played any Souls game you'll know what I mean. In those games there is delay between almost everything you do so every action is something you need to think about. But I'll experiment with this stuff after I've added stuff to fight and more challenging platform test areas.

I'll look into your game ASAP. The jittery camera is pretty much straight up copy of Cave Story's camera. It positions itself in front of the player instead of in the middle so you'll see more in front of you all the time. Centering the camera in the middle of the character when stopped is possible, but I don't know what would be gained from it because then it's gonna limit your visibility on both sides instead of just one side. EDIT: Checked out your game. Looks really promising! If you could share your camera system I'd be happy to learn from them. Doesn't mean I'd copypaste it. I just don't know how to make the camera's lerp movement actually start out slow. Right now it just kinda jumps and then slows down.

Dang, I sound really defensive. You're giving me good feedback! I'll be sure to try your suggestions out in way or another.

Beautiful, I want to see him soon in steam.

^ Thank you! I'll be making a Greenlight page once I'm 100% sure that this game will actually be finished. Right now it's in very early stages. I don't want to make a Greenlight and then cancel it if I realize that the game won't be finished or I can't keep my promises for what I'm planned for the game.

Oh, and here's a screenshot of the game's old "prototype" I did last year. Too bad I lost pretty much everything related to it. I'm not salty about it though. It let me rethink the art style a bit and rework the player character.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50541629/durp.jpg

No worries, Hasuak! I hope I didn't come across as too harsh. Your game really is looking amazing so far.

I can definitely share my camera settings with you, if you like. I'll send you a capx later today.

If I can throw my two cents in I'd say don't make a Metroidvania - I'd like to see a one on one Street Fighter 2 style game, but inside of an environment that's exploreable. Similar to Bruce Lee, for the Commodore 64 (yes, I'm old):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee_%28video_game%29

No worries, Hasuak! I hope I didn't come across as too harsh. Your game really is looking amazing so far.

I can definitely share my camera settings with you, if you like. I'll send you a capx later today.

Oh no, you didn't come across harsh at all. I guess it's just my way of writing lengthy replies that made it look like I reacted to it or something. lool

If I can throw my two cents in I'd say don't make a Metroidvania - I'd like to see a one on one Street Fighter 2 style game, but inside of an environment that's exploreable. Similar to Bruce Lee, for the Commodore 64 (yes, I'm old):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee_%28video_game%29

Good news, there will be Bruce Lee-esque bossfights where you fight characters of your size who are either equally or more powerful than you. Not every boss will be just about patterns like in, for example, Castlevania games. Bad news, there will still be equally as many, or even more, giant pattern-based bosses.

I've been thinking about the Metroidvania thing and currently am planning on something akin to Demon's Souls. You have a hub that takes you to all the levels. You can play them in any order you want, and every level is seperated to three parts with bosses between them. Each part is Metroidvania-style, but not as massive. Just branching paths with different challenges and secrets. Playing levels in different order unlocks stuff in other levels adding to the game's replay value.

Hey Hasuak! I got that camera capx for you. I hope you find it useful. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/305 ... _demo.capx