In Progress The Lab of Mr.Din

[don vecta]

Team attacks ideas?

Well, how about... when a character grabs a mook from behind, allows a second player to unleash a special attack on it (triggered only when the conditions of grabbed enemy from behind appears)? Cuz yeah... you know, in real life or flicks, if someone grabs you from behind and they hit you, they can do some nasty shit without releasing the grabbed enemy (unless he/she breaks in a spectacular way...like they actually do in SOR, kick in front then throw the enemy from behind).

And actually, this idea could work with certain enemies that grab you from behind and have this special tag attack.

My two cents.

 

[Mr.Din]

Team attacks ideas?

Well, how about... when a character grabs a mook from behind, allows a second player to unleash a special attack on it (triggered only when the conditions of grabbed enemy from behind appears)? Cuz yeah... you know, in real life or flicks, if someone grabs you from behind and they hit you, they can do some nasty shit without releasing the grabbed enemy (unless he/she breaks in a spectacular way...like they actually do in SOR, kick in front then throw the enemy from behind).

And actually, this idea could work with certain enemies that grab you from behind and have this special tag attack.

My two cents.

I've thought on this as well given I loved how urban reign went about it. If it's feasible I can see it happening after all it makes sense to give the back grab a little more use in co-op. It's safe to say the multiplayer side of the game would be a newer experience with these possibilities. Shank is another game with cool team moves.

 

[don vecta]

...or Golden Axe: Return of Death Adder's team wrestling grabs.

 

[Mr.Din]

...or Golden Axe: Return of Death Adder's team wrestling grabs.

There's team grabs in that game? I've only played it once on my own, if so that's awesome I'll have to check that out as well.

 

[DCurrent]

...

It's a team up spinning pile driver, and all four players can participate. Poorly animated but still awesome. It's also hard to pull off, but easy to see. Just watch the attract mode; they do it to one of the barbarian girl mid bosses.

Also don't forget Double Dragon 3 for the NES. It has the double team Hurricane Kick. Also every player and most enemies can vault off a parter do to a stronger jump kick. All you do is jump kick into an idle ally - the rest is automatic.

The real challenge with team moves isn't making them. They're no more difficult than scripting throws and usually simpler than that. The difficulty is balancing them to be tactically viable without making them the only thing worth doing.

• SoR1's vault attacks are situational and hard to hit anything with, but are by far the strongest moves in you arsenal. Look at the bosses life bar... A direct hit vault attack does almost as much damage as the police special.
  
• DD3's jump kicks aren't overpowering, but they're quick and easy to do.
• The Golden Axe Pile Driver, cool as it is shows how not to do it. Sure it's devastating, but by the time you get it set up and working you could've done more damage with less risk just pounding on the boss. It's even more pointless to use against mooks.
• Arcade Double Dragon 1-2 and Konami's Vendetta let you or the mooks do a Full Nelson hold so your partner could take the victims apart... Fine when enemies did it since it was effective for them and you could counter to keep it fair. But for players it's completely useless. You could take mooks out quicker without it and bosses were immune.
  
  SoR is even worse. Try to hold and have your partner attack... in SoR1 they take extremely low damage while held, in later versions you lose your grip, and in all three if the attack can reach you (obviously most of the time) YOU get hit too.

DC

 

[don vecta]

Yup, that's the trick: balancing them enough to make them useful (but not dependable). Hell, a nelson grab tag special could do a lot of damage so could be useful... but not as much as a police special damage, sure. Probly like Max's piledriver move, perhaps?

 

[Mr.Din]

I appreciate the feedback guys, I will take ALL of this into account when working on that aspect of the game I do agree with DC on the full nelson, I also want to give the goons some team attacks too depending on which goon, maybe make Big Ben throwing Garcia a little more use full or even better have Bongo or one of the Wrestler types throw the goons ruthlessly. Speaking of goons let's have a little talk about that too but before that I have some disappointing news: It's still going to be some time before I get to access my PC, I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and buy another pc or laptop and simple do file transfer, so I guess til then building the base engine with SoR2 sprites it is.

Firstly I'd like to talk about the different variations of goons I want to introduce,
- Palettes vs Headswaps -
I know there's quite a debate rather headswaps is traditional for SoR, honestly I think it is as of SoR2, I say this because while he has one extra move Donovan is practically a head/body swap of Galsia in which Garcia's old moveset was split between the two. I like headswaps but I also like having different palettes so I decided to have both. Head/body swaps changes the design and changes up the set moveset for a certain type of goon while palettes change the AI of the character, each have their own name of course. Here's a visual example

This is the Brawler type goon, the moveset for these goon types are based on SoR1 Garcia as well as a few new things. There will be more types of them since they're one of the most common of the goons. Keep in mind I'm going off PURE memory since my typed up stuff is on that pc but from left to right, top to bottom
Garcia, Gideon, Claude, Stefano
These are the more aggressive first to hit types, Garcia is the weakest of the four, you'll find him pulling out knives the most, Gideon is slightly stronger and loves to pick up bats, he also has the pestering habit of knocking you down (think like the sor2 bikers) these two are grouped together a little more often since they're part of the same gang which I'll bring up momentarily. Claude is the most aggressive and has the most stamina, he has his own unique move not seen before by these types. Stefano uses a palette lifted from SoRR, I loved it so much I could've sworn it was in one of the mobile soR1 games it's so genesis-y. He's the wildcard of the 4, doesn't appear too often and his AI varies between the 3 previously mentioned.
Julio, Jaque, Vito, Guido
These 4 are more cowardly than the rest, they depend more on cheapshots and full nelsons. Julio relies mostly on getting in a jab and circling around you for a full nelson he also picks up knives at any opportunity, Jaque has a unique attack used from behind you and uses the wake up attack a little more often, Vito is passive agressive, uses the full nelson the most and occasionally uses the attack from behind, Guido is the wild card of this group that doesn't appear as often.
Vince, Terry, Sal, Jean
Reskinned Garcia clones, They'll play like Garcia's different AI maybe I'll add a little surprise.

What do you guys think? I'll try to post some more info on the planned structure as I go along.

 

[aL BeasTie]

Nice sprites and palettes!

Will you remove the shadows or keep it for retro look?
Or use the OpenBOR transparent shadows?

 

[Mr.Din]

Nice sprites and palettes!

Will you remove the shadows or keep it for retro look?
Or use the OpenBOR transparent shadows?

I dig the retro look so I'll likely keep the shadows like that.

 

[Bloodbane]

About team moves, I can see the issue with balancing. I'm not sure about spamming cause some team moves end with one character being far from his/her mate. If the moves were to be spammed, players will have to get close to each other to repeat the moves. Getting close isn't always easy thing (some enemies might stop you in the way). So in the end, team moves are hard to pull moves which yields great damage if done successfully and that's the balance

I also want to give the goons some team attacks too depending on which goon, maybe make Big Ben throwing Garcia a little more use full or even better have Bongo or one of the Wrestler types throw the goons ruthlessly

Ah yes, I've figured out a trick to do that but I don't have a mod to try it

Now about those goons, nice work on the sprites!
About palettes vs headswaps, IMO different palette = different enemy works well if the enemy isn't repeated too often. Denjin Makai series (Ghost Chaser Densei included) have these kind of enemies but they aren't repeated too often so it's not a problem. Regular troops are the most repeated one but the repeatee wield gun making it easy to distinguish
In your case, I think it's too much to have Garcia clones. You should just use either palette or headswap technique

 

[Mr.Din]

About team moves, I can see the issue with balancing. I'm not sure about spamming cause some team moves end with one character being far from his/her mate. If the moves were to be spammed, players will have to get close to each other to repeat the moves. Getting close isn't always easy thing (some enemies might stop you in the way). So in the end, team moves are hard to pull moves which yields great damage if done successfully and that's the balance

I also want to give the goons some team attacks too depending on which goon, maybe make Big Ben throwing Garcia a little more use full or even better have Bongo or one of the Wrestler types throw the goons ruthlessly

Ah yes, I've figured out a trick to do that but I don't have a mod to try it

Now about those goons, nice work on the sprites!
About palettes vs headswaps, IMO different palette = different enemy works well if the enemy isn't repeated too often. Denjin Makai series (Ghost Chaser Densei included) have these kind of enemies but they aren't repeated too often so it's not a problem. Regular troops are the most repeated one but the repeatee wield gun making it easy to distinguish
In your case, I think it's too much to have Garcia clones. You should just use either palette or headswap technique

I could see that though the idea here is with having both is being able to use them in certain themes or areas for more variety, it may be easier shown than explained but the Syndicate is made up of several gangs. In this case goons like Garcia and Julio would appear in the entertainment district while a goon like Terry would be in the slums. I originally just wanted to go with just the head swaps but I wanted to keep the names and palettes from the original games as well and with all those palettes alone a little head swapping between them would add more variety, palette swapping is fun to play around with to be honest lol. It'll take some balancing out but I'll make sure to keep it interesting.

Also I'm having trouble getting axel's last kick in his double kick to connect, I've set one frame with no attack box between the two kicks and still no dice. Otherwise it works fine I got the cancel mechanic in where you have to time it correctly to get the last kick. I just can't get that last kick to connect.

 

[stin]

@Mr.Din, you are the same moderator/Devel of another space/place?

I'm following your project from the beginning, I hope to see him soon finished.

I am an avid fan of the SOR series and Thank You for this Project

ps: sorry for english, google traslate.

 

[Mr.Din]

@Mr.Din, you are the same moderator/Devel of another space/place?

I'm following your project from the beginning, I hope to see him soon finished.

I am an avid fan of the SOR series and Thank You for this Project

ps: sorry for english, google traslate.

I'm a moderator over at Streets of Rage Online and the founder of Brawlers Avenue.
I appreciate the feedback, always. We're a long ways from complete but the work is being done.

Special thank you to Mister X Neo for sending me some back up files for Axel, I may be able to use more than SoR2 sprites after all. I'm putting together a little tech demo to pass to a few choice testers soon, any suggestions on what to use for recording?

 

[stin]

Open Broadcaster, could help for recording

https://obsproject.com

 

[Mr.Din]

320x240

480x272

Can't seem to get the latter to work atm but what do you think? I prefer native settings.

 

[stin]

Personally, i really like the native setting, space and proportions of the sprites and the stage, reminds me the original STR2-3.

(I have played all three titles, on a genuine SEGA Genesis an old time ago and on PC with mythical and unique SOR-R, certainly)

The second setting, it may be more appropriate in the case of many enemies that appear on the screen and according to the type of gameplay to be set. ( in my humble opinion)



ps: I'm sorry for the incorrect grammar language (google traslate)

 

[Mr.Din]

Personally, i really like the native setting, space and proportions of the sprites and the stage, reminds me the original STR2-3.

(I have played all three titles, on a genuine SEGA Genesis an old time ago and on PC with mythical and unique SOR-R, certainly)

The second setting, it may be more appropriate in the case of many enemies that appear on the screen and according to the type of gameplay to be set. ( in my humble opinion)



ps: I'm sorry for the incorrect grammar language (google traslate)

No Worries I understood I agree on both fronts. I made a new mock up that allows for the exact same walking space vertically and extends the background instead, maybe this will be a decent middle ground?

 

[stin]

I like it, but I like to think that the scene will also be full of details, parallax, animations in the background, lights, reflections, explosions, many graphic effects, an intuitive combat system, but at the same time full of combos (in the ground and in the air).

Would love to see a fluid, fast and robust gameplay.

A worthy heir of SOR-R

I trust in you (and your Team) a lot for this project

 

[O Ilusionista]

Nice sprites. And I would say go for 480x272. It gives way more room to have fun with.

About CHARGEATTACK, its kinda...weird. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

 

[stin]

I believe that the last mock up, is the right balance between the native and extended setting (In agreement with the original sprites and depth perception).

But i'm just a simple gamer.