Battle Cutscenes

Twinconclusive · Post by **Twinconclusive** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:31 pm

If you managed to play the entire Detelamane Demo, you probably noticed the fighting cutscenes in which characters, well, fight.

However, after watching these for the hundredth time, I'm really wondering if its worth the effort to continue this.

It takes way too long to make the sprite animations and then the thought of having to plot-script the battle makes me sad on the inside, so I tend to avoid game making altogether for the couple of weeks before I get the courage to finish it all at once, which usually lasts for quite a while as it takes me an insanely huge number of trials until I can get it to work out reasonably well.

In addition to this, the animations go by so quickly, that I'm sure that no one manages to notice any of the sprite changes (the tick rates in the wait()'s could fix this, but there are so many that I've no intention to get to this anytime soon).

So..Do you guys think the scenes are nice enough for me to devote the time to make them, or would my time be better spent actually working on the game?

Post by **Mogri** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:35 pm

Haven't played it, but I'm wondering if non-interactive cutscenes are the way to go. SpyJim has one battle cutscene where Lab is testing the Babe Magnet and the player controls Lab trying to flirt with a test subject. The player doesn't have any real control, but the limited interaction is still entertaining. JSH's What Am I has similar plot/cutscene battles.

Meatballsub · Post by **Meatballsub** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:37 pm

I haven't played the entire demo, but the scenes I saw were a nice touch in my opinion. It looks a lot nicer than just having a string of textboxes or something. Keep them up if you can.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:50 pm

Having at least some walkabout animation is a lot better than anything Final Fantasy 1-6 did in terms of "walkabout battles" (they usually just relied on battle scripting). They just used some stock walkabout frames then moved them in certain ways to imply fighting or other actions.

I thought the plotscripted scene was nifty, but if it takes too long, then go ahead and try and find an alternative.

Twinconclusive · Post by **Twinconclusive** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:56 pm

People enjoy them...
It slows me down...

I suppose the best option would be to use an easier method until I finish the game releases, and then go back and add the animated battles later?

But holy crap, if I can properly animate teams vs. team scenes...

Calehay · Post by **Calehay** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:57 pm

Twinspiration wrote:People enjoy them...
It slows me down...

I suppose the best option would be to use an easier method until I finish the game releases, and then go back and add the animated battles later?

But holy crap, if I can properly animate teams vs. team scenes...

Don't be afraid to skip things and come back. If something is bogging you down, you can always come back to it later.

It might help to design your scene with a time frame and/or pseudocode away from the OHR. That way, you can create a list of what animations you need, how long the animations should be up, etc. You could even make a mockup of the animation in a GIF maker. Then you'll have all of the information you'll need right there, and the only code you'll have to fix are typo bugs.

Meatballsub · Post by **Meatballsub** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:58 pm

Twinspiration wrote:People enjoy them...
It slows me down...

I suppose the best option would be to use an easier method until I finish the game releases, and then go back and add the animated battles later?

But holy crap, if I can properly animate teams vs. team scenes...

It might be easier for you to finish the game and then go back and edit the cutscenes. Unless you have a deadline for your game, i'd suggest doing them as long as you can stomach it. It is little things like that that make a game stand out among others, at least for me.

Twinconclusive · Post by **Twinconclusive** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:15 am

It might be easier for you to finish the game and then go back and edit the cutscenes. Unless you have a deadline for your game, i'd suggest doing them as long as you can stomach it. It is little things like that that make a game stand out among others, at least for me.

I might just do this, or as Calehey suggested, simply skip the complicated cutscenes altogether for now.

And would having a deadline help game production at all?
I've never really thought about having a release-related goal before (Aside from planning to release the game).

JSH357 · Post by **JSH357** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:20 am

Mogri wrote:Haven't played it, but I'm wondering if non-interactive cutscenes are the way to go. SpyJim has one battle cutscene where Lab is testing the Babe Magnet and the player controls Lab trying to flirt with a test subject. The player doesn't have any real control, but the limited interaction is still entertaining. JSH's What Am I has similar plot/cutscene battles.

I did? I don't even remember this! Dammit, here I go to replay one of my old games again...

Post by **Mogri** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:39 am

The arena battles.

JSH357 · Post by **JSH357** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:57 am

Oh! those. If I ever make the final version, a lot of the battles are going to be like that. They're fun, but you have to be good at animating them.

Post by **Mogri** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:02 am

Come to think of it, the arena did it both with battles and walkabouts.

RMZ · Post by **RMZ** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:08 am

Hmmm... I've done this a lot in Halloween Quest 2. Granted, they weren't like uber high detailed, but they were still neat. I would still do them, just try and simplify them a bit. They really add a bunch of personality to a fight instead of just going into it ya know.

Only One In All · Post by **Only One In All** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:13 pm

I would do as Calehay suggests. What I usually do is flesh out the game basics, and then go back and add details. I might just do a dungeon with the basic graphics (no variety) and whatever items and such are needed. Later, I'll go back and add layers and variety and improve things that are weak. This not only gives you more incentive to work on your game as you are not intimidated by a big task, but when you find you don't want to really work on making your game progress, you can just go back and work on improving details to get you motivated again.

Meatballsub · Post by **Meatballsub** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:50 pm

Only One In All wrote:I would do as Calehay suggests. What I usually do is flesh out the game basics, and then go back and add details. I might just do a dungeon with the basic graphics (no variety) and whatever items and such are needed. Later, I'll go back and add layers and variety and improve things that are weak. This not only gives you more incentive to work on your game as you are not intimidated by a big task, but when you find you don't want to really work on making your game progress, you can just go back and work on improving details to get you motivated again.

I am not knocking this idea, but anytime I try and do that with maps I end up running out of tiles in a tileset.

Maybe it just doesn't work for some people.