Secrets of Game Feel and Juice
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 лют 2015
- 🔴 Get bonus content by supporting Game Maker’s Toolkit - gamemakerstoolkit.com/support/ 🔴
Some game designers use words like "game feel" and "juice" to describe the abstract and often invisible factors that make the best action games surge with life and energy. In this episode of Game Maker's Toolkit, we try to figure out what those words mean, and how you can capitalise on them to make your game feel more fun and satisfying.
=== Sources and Resources ===
Jan Willem Nijman (Vlambeer)'s "The art of screenshake"
• Jan Willem Nijman - Vl...
Jonatan Söderström (Cactus)'s "The 4 Hour Game Design"
• Cactus IGS 2009- Part 1
Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho (Grapefruit)'s "Juice it or lose it"
• Juice it or lose it - ...
=== Games Shown ===
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games, 2012)
Random Heroes (Ravenous Games, 2012)
Super Time Force (Capybara Games, 2014)
Rogue Legacy (Cellar Door Games, 2013)
Super Meat Boy (Team Meat, 2010)
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth, 2008)
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Nicalis / Edmund McMillen, 2014)
Super Mario World (Nintendo, 1990)
Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996)
Nuclear Throne (Vlambeer, 2015)
rymdkapsel (Grapefrukt, 2013)
Ridiculous Fishing (Vlambeer, 2013)
Gunbrick (Nitrome, 2015)
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1992)
God of War (Santa Monica Studio, 2005)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2002)
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (WayForward, 2014)
Guacamelee (Drinkbox Studios, 2013)
Shank (Klei Entertainment, 2010)
Gun Godz (Vlambeer, 2013)
Super Crate Box (Vlambeer, 2010)
Peggle (PopCap Games, 2007)
Alien Hominid HD (The Behemoth, 2007)
=== Credits ===
Music used in this episode:
Miami (Hotline Miami)
Main Theme (Super Mario 64)
Forest Funk (Super Meat Boy)
Luftrauser (Luftrausers)
Construction Yard (Super Crate Box
Decade Dance (Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number)
Clip credits:
"God of War 1 - Part 1 of 11" - bdcool213
• God of War 1 - Part 1 ...
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BGA/ - Ігри
"like electricity is surging through your xbox"
who's gonna tell him
Tell him what
@@Galiskaend That electricity DOES surge through you're xbox. But it's a joke, obviously
@@jr.p.8429 and now ist's dead
Electricity flows through your xbox.
Electricity SURGING through it is very, very, VERY bad and includes wonderful blue smoke effects if your lucky.
i call that mini atomic bomb
"Be Miyamoto". Is that the Game Developer version of "Git Good"? :P
Shouldn't it be "Be Miyazaki" then?)
@@barditheweird6062 Miyazaki is the animation version of the same thing.
Just be Miya bro
@@TheHiroClaw123 Uhh... What?
Yes
"Video game equivalent of a cabbage", Wrekt
+0penpress Still, cabbage is the food of the Dragonborn XD
@Ragnarok you're wrong!
More like iceberg lettuce.
Its basically crunchy water..
Yeah,Cabbages can be extremely tasty,it all depends on your cooking skills,haha.~u~*.✌️ ✨
Me with the 699th like: I guide others to a treasure that I can’t possess
Short pauses upon hitting enemies with a powerful move is one of my favourite ways of making attacks feel satisfying to land.
For any future devs passing over this, this is called "Hitstop" and there are many tutorials regarding implementing your own! It's absolutely worth it
It's interesting, Mark's voice has so much more energy and presence in his more recent videos. This is a great video, but his content has definitely improved over the years!
He sounded like a cabbage
@@oldcowbb now he got juice
@@oldcowbb He forgot to juice himself up before releasing this video.
These "make your bullets as big as your face" and "double down everything" apply mostly to the action genres. In some tactical and TBS genres you go for more subtle means, as the loud and exaggerated effects are undesirable distraction. I just loved the buttons in Spellcross for example: they felt so cold and hard on touch... :)
It is the umami of game design.
Excellent, brilliant, satisfying and wholesome flavor, but if you just dump a crapload of it into your game, it makes you feel a bit ill.
That's the weebest analysis ever.
Serafin -
Judging from OPs profile pic, I would say he is a weeb. XD
I'm half Asian, so maybe I only count half weeb lol.
Aryzen Inniriea lol just an observation. also, can Asians be weebs, or do they cancel each other out?
Serafin -
It's like noise cancelling headphones: Nobody seems to be able to hear a thing...
Really makes you *feel* like umami
My take - every action, every sequence in the game should divide into three parts. Start, slowdown, climax.
Start is the beginning, exciting because things begin to change. For example, player pulls the trigger of a rocket launcher, noise plays, gun flashes - OR player presses 'jump' and lifts off.
Then, slowdown. This part should be understated and long to build up anticipation. For example, rocket travelling to the enemy, or your character hanging in midair. If you actually look at how jumping works in Mario games, Mario DOES seem to be faster at the start, then slow down in midair, just to speed up again when landing.
Then final - climax, the conclusion. That's where the satisfying payoff to all the buildup is. Enemy blowing up in a fiery explosion, or perhaps your character safely landing on the other side of a deadly pit, making you feel like you accomplished a good job.
Everything GMT discusses in this video - screen shake, that little pause, sound effects - goes here, into the climax. But you can't have payoff without buildup, in this respect games are just like any other form of art.
Well said! Not all elements need all three parts, but for the ones that can make use of it, it's very satisfying when they do.
the action and delay sequence is actually such a big part of the game a single second of input and action start up can change the game completely,
from devil may crys extremely fast paced inputs and being able to cancel every single input with-another,
compared to the slow and methodical combat from darksouls where every input has a 1 second delay and cannot be canceled at all.
Doesn't that little pause act as "slowdown"?
Lines up perfectly the time slowdown before the explosion adds some mmph
@@bendunkley5623 yes or delay
Skyrim’s sound design was so good, I sometimes almost felt my hits connect
but the A.I. sucks dick.
As someone who tries to make their videos as professional and entertaining as possible, I just wanted to thank you for making such amazing content. You really do this medium justice and my heart skips a beat every time I see you've made a new video. Keep up the good work, Mark! :)
woosh
Loretta Cage woosh??? But there wasn’t a joke even made
@A M lol yea
That first thing you mentioned - feedback from your hits connecting with enemies - is the reason I just can't bother with any Bethesda games. Elder Scrolls or Fallout. It feels like I'm hitting/shooting at ghosts.
+Nnenna Monet Funny I actually think fallout 4 did a great job in making combat feel very visceral and impattful. Especially when shooting robots that would break apart as you shoot them
Exactly- Or think of ARK. I mean sure, Dragons spill some blood, but that's it, really. You could also just not hit the enemy, wondering why they don't die.
People love Tropical Freeze but I found jumping on enemies immensely unsatisfying. It sounds like two wooden toys clinking together and the enemies hardly react. In DKC every enemy had a loud cry of pain and flew off the screen head over heels when you jumped on them and you bounced off like they were made of rubber.
It's funny you say that. I know in the skyrim configs there is bEnableHavokHit, which knocks body parts of enemies around, but it ended up being too glitchy, so they disabled it by default.
@@mariahanover9335 My thing with Tropical Freeze is the weight. I grew up with the SNES games which have very tight, responsive controls. WIth the more modern games, especially jumping controls feel heavy and sloppy. Plus the player character is so small on screen that I struggle to make out what's going on.
Even today, this video is still really useful and I can't recommend it enough. This is definitely a "game dev fundamental".
Good to see that you're using fighting games as an example!
A lot of indie developers, specially the ones that were not gaming during the golden age of fighting games tend to ignore the basic, yet satisfying tricks that Capcom and SNK's titles used in order to make every punch feel rewarding.
Speaking of SNK, Metal Slug is probably another good example of a game that has an amazing game feel.
Meta Slug has a very satisfying feel. You instantly know when you kill an enemy, grenades have huge explosions, and sub-bosses and bosses blow up spectacularly.
So, which games do you think have the best "game feel"?
Good hack and slash like DMC
Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe
A recent one I loved is Elite Dangerous. It actually feels like flying a space ship. Dodging and rolling and boosting all feel satisfying and responsive. The sound design hugely adds to that.
Off the top of my head: Dark Souls, MGR: Revengeance, Duke Nukem 3D (best shooter juice), Money Idol Exchanger (best puzzle juice), Theme Hospital, Nidhogg, Streets of Rage, Max Payne, SF Third Strike, Descent 2.
Brutal Doom (or vanilla Doom for that matter) and F.E.A.R. 1 nail it on the head as far as FPS go.
Damn, these toolkit video's are so awesome to watch, and helpful! thank you so much mark! :)
Thank you!
I think this really exposes an essential yet hidden element of the components of games. Not just the individual bits but an abstract combination of sounds, motion and feedback.
I've never been able to put a name to it but now I can! It's one of the things I really feel is lacking from all the current MMORPG games and a great deal of other RPGs and shooters, this satisfying feedback from doing a thing presented with a appealing graphical effect or a punchy sound; they all just feel like your first example, "Random Heroes".
Loving these videos by the way!
Please make more videos. They're extremely informative and some of what you say lines up with a lot of my beliefs about video games. Great series.
I think the key here is simply having these aspects of presentation convey or emphasize gameplay information to the player as well as is possible. The reason this stuff feels good is because it creates a close connection between the player and what they are playing, as feedback is made incredibly clear.
Some things like excessive explosions and screen shake can go too far and actually obscure gameplay information, making the game feel worse than it would if it were a bit more restrained, and unfortunately I feel Super Time Force and Vlambeer games are good examples of this.
This is why vlambeer does things like add a way to turn down the screenshake in their games
I've taken this advice/analysis to heart with the games I make.
This video is not only interesting to watch, but it's genuinely helpful for new game devs.
Recently discovered your channel and am loving it! Keep up the good work!
I actually loved random heroes as a small kid.
Joe Prado yeah, is fun and not too overwhelming
It only becomes boring if you are looking for something more
I still love random heroes
Thanks a lot for taking the time to make this, excellent advice and great examples.
Too much screen shake is bad!
Vlambeer disagrees :D
It's about HOW and WHAT you use it for than HOW MUCH.
I have to agree. Some of the examples are so over the top that it comes across as obviously gimmicky. I don't think your game studio has a long life ahead of it if it's only known for "that brutal shaking".
One trick ponies are vulnerable to getting old on their own. but even worse, what are you going to do when the general trend (inevitably) moves away from over-the-top and to favoring subtly.
Trends WILL change, and very often change to the exact opposite. Sometimes simply BECAUSE the concept was overused by everybody and their brothers.
Yeah, had to drop a few games because of it. I wish more devs included option to switch it off for higher accessibility.
Vlambeer has an option to turn it down in their games
I find it hard to watch these toolkits, because although they are fantastic, it feels like so much useful information I'm bound to miss something important when I'm making my games! Great job though Mark, keep it up!
Nice! Short and sweet breakdown of some of the elements that help immerse us within a game world.
To elaborate on your points about how the visual/audio indicators to sweeten and add impact to the play experience, it is akin to how animators use ease ins/outs to sell an animation. In the case of video games, as you were pointing out, carefully marrying the character animations to the physics of the game helps us to feel what the character is feeling. The recoil of an energy weapon in an FPS gives us a better idea of the strength our in-game character must have to wield it. The random firing of a weapon dropped on a spring pad in Duck Game, one of the tightest games I have played in the last few years, adds to the already chaotic gameplay as if the level is vying to wipe out your duck as eagerly as the other players. Those little last minute tweaks do make all the difference. I would even be open to DLC that just adds polish to a game in this way.
As always, enjoyed the video and looking forward to more!
I'm glad to see you drew a lot of inspiration from "The Art Of Screenshake". It's still my most favoritest (For lack of a better word) talk ever, and I'm a mega fan of Vlambeer even though I hardly every play their games.
Congratulations. This is the best video-games related channel in UA-cam.
Thank you!
._ .
yes
Its amazing what a couple of screen shake effects coupled with a couple of better sounds made to my game. Thanks for the tips!
You're amazing! I love when youtubers talk in depth about video games
I found your channel through Rock Paper Shotgun. Man, this is right up my alley. Subscribed!
That was a great video, really informative. You an extra credits give a great intro to topics in game design.
Very good video. Never thought about this. But it makes absolutely sense.
These are great. I'm glad I found you
Thanks for this video! Definitely got the information I need to give my game more of a feel to it!
This video has a ton of great points about how to make you feel like your second to second actions are having an impact, but at the same time I feel it's important to make sure all this flashiness and pizazz doesn't get in the way of what really matters in the end: the gameplay, and being able to react to upcoming obstacles. I've seen several games that, in their attempt to make every motion and attack feel impactful, end up overshooting a bit, actually obscuring the ability to see attacks and enemies that are closing in, as well as platforms that are needed to progress. You've gotta strike a good balance between utility and aesthetic, making sure neither gets in the way of the other (though if you absolutely must give one up, I'd say to make it aesthetic. A game that isn't fun to play is a game that is dead, no matter how many flashy explosions you give it.)
Thank you Mark, we actually decided to make the cannonballs in our pirate game bigger because of this video and it's made the game SO much more fun :D
You make superb informative and entertaining stuff !! Totally great for gamers/gaming community
DOOM. the sound effects, the animations of the guns and of the enemies being hit. it's wonderful and i feel that was one of the biggest parts missing from doom 3
lol the nail gun from doom 3. wtf was that.
Feedback, exageration and lot of useful playtest are the thing I have seen through this video for the most part. :)
Awesome video Mark! ;)
I just finished playing Gris and that is one amazing game without enemies to fight, points to score but is immersive and just beautiful. You should do a video on its design, story and gameplay.
One of the most actionable GMTK videos -- calling out the specific methods of adding juice and impact (flashing enemy white, pausing for a frame, dust clouds, etc) is technically very satisfying. Higher-level design concepts are crucial, but as a game dev these flourishes are where the rubber meets the road
Best example has to be super mario sunshine. Those movements are just way to fun to perform. great video!
You described the most essential thing in video game.
Thanks for this information and knowledge.
Loved It.
I can say there are people who thinks similar to me.
oh there's lots to take away from this 5 min UA-cam video, Mark. Well Done!
You and Matthewmatosis are the best gaming youtubers I've come across, extremely good stuff! I'm trying to make a classic third person survival horror game like the ones from the PS1-PS2 era, pretty sure your videos are going to help :)
Thanks! Best of luck
Bruno Silva Hope to see the outcome of this one day. I miss the good ol' fixed camera/third person survival horrors. Even with Capcom remastering older games left and right (I.E. RE1, with RE2 in the works, and hopefully an RE3 remaster) is only slightly filling the void. Best of luck to your project!
How's the progress of the game going 1 year later?
Check out MrBtongue, too.
Bruno Silva check out Joseph Anderson's channel too. He's great!
I personally found the action in Bastion to be incredibly satisfying. It's been awhile since I played it, so I can't pin down exactly what it was, but it really felt like your weapons were very powerful. Also, Wind Waker felt amazing - my favourite Zelda game personally.
Totally agree with this video, everything need a soul to make it feel alive. Graphic, music, movie, novel...
This is great. Very informative.
I love when the game pause uppon a strong attack to make the impact feels amazing.
oh yea, I love that video, this is how you do it
Ubermosh Vol.3 is the pinnacle of this. The gun sounds, screen shake, bullet size, and all else really line up
I thought I had controller rumble on in Celeste but after I finished it I realised it was only the sound effect and screenshake which made me feel it.
This is a very important concept that more people need to know about.
Great stuff! Need more
a HUGE secret to "juice" in games that I don't hear often enough is the LERP function. Use it everywhere. It just makes things feel good.
use it in the camera, use it in rotation, use it everywhere
When I think good game feel, the series that automatically comes to mind is No More Heroes. I'm not even a fan of hack n slash games, but that series has such potent game-feel that it makes such a simple mechanic fun.
Really Awesome video. Subbed!
Just making things feel like they actually have impact helps a lot, whether this be by making the screen shudder, adding recoil, pausing for a split second when dealing or taking damage, making huge animations and sounds when taking damage, all four, or other factors.
This is the best UA-cam channel!
"Hitstopping" is super good to know about. It's one of those things you don't really notice when it's there, but do when it's not.
The SUPER MEATBOY OST was sooooooo good! I was heavily disappointed when I bought the game again for PS4 and they had changed the soundtrack for that release.
Nice video man!
I think a bigger issue is that developers build games without a real point; without it really mattering. Do this, go here, do that, shoot, repeat. There is a lack of importance and meaning behind their games.
How much force and power is there behind an action in your game. Or conversely how little is there? There is a question that gets asked so rarely, I find, with developers. And that is, what do you want your players to FEEL when they play your game. What emotions do you want them to express?
When you figure some of that out, then you can start to apply some of the tricks of the trade, and even come up with your own. Maybe your character has a weapon that takes a moment to charge up, so you take the camera and slowly focus in during the charge time, and then snap the camera back out to a wider angle as the shot is released and subsequently affected. It's anticipatory and it builds excitement for what is sure to be something epic.
Or maybe your weapon is so powerful that you blind the player for a second after discharge, only to focus in to a view of thunderous explosions.
Ah! There is so much you can do to reinforce and encourage game feel and player engagement. I love thinking about this kind of stuff. :p
Reason why modern games can feel bad to play:
Devs take inspiration from bits of games they like;
Present day = lots of games = lots of good games to take inspiration from;
More inspiration = more copying/derivation, rather than completely original concepts;
If you don't understand WHY something is good, you'll have to copy a larger portion of the game in order to succeed in mimicking its feel;
To be clear, it's not just the good parts that beget copying. It's also everything that has been pre-established as necessary or normal. For example, why can you die in ? Is it because you independently decided to add this element, or because every game has it?
Agree with everything you're saying and its in fact a major point in the book 'the art of game design: a book of lenses', which is considered by many to be the game design bible.
Right from the start it tells you that the most important skill of a designer is listening, and that the most important aspect of a game is the experience. Definitely pick it up if you don't have it already
It reminds me of the music, sometimes its technically perfect but there is no movement, no motion or inertia, no interaction between elements. And when all of the above IS in there, then it becomes a real inmersive experience, it kind of becomes "real". In a "alternative universe" kind of way.
Very good videos, keep up your good job!
Excellent video and topic! I strongly feel that with the games that have the best "game feel", you can strongly argue also have the best game-play.
Great game-play largely has to do with how satisfying it is to perform actions within the game, which is also synonymous with this game feel concept. All of my favorite action, fighting and racing games perfectly encompass this concept perfectly and it is no surprise.
Some games (mostly action) with brilliant game feel I've come across over time...
Streets of Rage 2
Shinobi 3
Thunder Force IV
Alien Soldier
Ninja Warriors (snes)
MMX
Super Punch Out
Mario 64
Soulcalibur
Smash Melee
F-Zero GX
Tekken 5 (series)
Half Life 2
DBZ Tenkaichi 3
Ninja Gaiden Black (OG Xbox)
God of War series
Def Jam Fight for NY
Dark Souls series
Batman Arkham Series
Doom 2016
The impacts, movement, attacks and actions in these titles all feel heavy, satisfying, rewarding and ultimately super fun to play and pulverize enemies.
That is a good point indeed. Game feel indeed is more important than what people give it credit for.
i love Super Crate Box! Nice video!
I prefer the term "kinaesthetics". Seems more descriptive and less wishy-washy than "game feel". But whatever it's called, this is something I really love when it's done well in games. Most of my favourite games do it really well.
I don't know... I don't think kinaesthetics isn't an entirely accurate term to apply to this concept. It suggests it's only about motion, when visual and auditory feedback is just as important.
"Kinaesthetics" sounds so fancy. "Game feel" sounds so contrived. "Juice" is the proper middle ground.
Could also be called "mis-en-scene except for videogames", or just "that feel when".
Peace Master juice sounds off topic.
Chris Wagar Unloose the Juice!
_"So really when I use the term 'kinaesthetics', it’s really more of a bastardized version of a single part of a greater construct that doesn’t really have a name yet. Does that really make my word choice more appropriate? Well, no not really."_
-Errant Signal, "Kinaesthetics"
Claus Jensby Madsen's point that "kinaesthetics" is not semantically accommodating enough of a term for what's being discussed here is well taken. On the other hand, "game feel" is _really_ unspecific and probably intentionally so. And "Juice" just sounds to me like one of those insubstantial words (like "immersive" or "fun") that everyone uses differently and only have a kind of vague idea of what others mean when they use it unless they spell it out.
I guess the reason why Steve Swink coined "game feel" as a kind of wishy-washy term is because this entire field of video game's studies was (and still is) nascent and underdeveloped. It'll be a good while, I think, before we get anything approximating an entirely accurate term for all of this; the groundwork is still being laid.
Can someone please tell me how Mark made the effect at 1:03? How did he so precisely mask out the "points" on the top? Then did he simply apply a keyer to get rid of the background? And lastly, how did he get rid of the foreground to show just Mario???
Looks like keying would easily strip the background given the simple colors and pixel-perfect edges. Isolating Mario must be masking to catch the colors that can't be keyed (like black). For the score, since the screen is not moving during that effect I'd guess the background was cloned over using a different portion of video.
Most SNES emulators have the capacity to turn off layers, including the background and such.
You can do that with any SNES game really.
During the "stripping" the game stands still, so it could be easy to just mask it.
Nice summary.
Great Video!
I really enjoy your videos, just wanted to say.
surprised you didnt mention the way mario bounces off of enemies. it embodies literally all of this, it adds to his movement, gives your attacks immediate and satisfying feedback and can be strung together in new and interesting patterns
Thanks! This video really helped...
Good videos mate.
This video opened my eyes by what every game I made was missing.
3:44 PEGGLE! Was not expecting that! Unironically played thousands of hours on this game
You can feel its an old video in his voice, but I still like it^^
things like that are why I love Broforce and Crypt of the necrodancer
I think of "game feel" as sort of making up for the missing senses--since games can only deliver on visual and auditory feedback (And some tactile), your connection with the world is incomplete, so, to me, game feel is necessary to fix that connection. I put a lot of importance on tactile feelings--especially in games about moving around the world. I try to use sounds to help you feel what you're touching and the space around you. That stuff is huge to me, because in order to really feel the space around you and develop a close relationship with it, you need to be able to connect with it on more than just a visual and auditory level, so I do my best to deliver those in indirect ways--turning off music and focusing instead on making good, natural-feeling ambient sounds helps
"Like electricity is surging through your xbox". Quick someone explain to mark how electricity works
Jk mark I love your shit
Explain to him how *electr* onics work
There are a few objectively good tips you could've mentioned for this:
All Mario games map the controller so your fingers are able to rest on every button and analog stick you need. Super Mario 64 has 4 commands: move, jump, punch, and crouch, and all of these commands flow with each other to perform other combos. Your left thumb and pointer control moving and crouching while your right thumb controls jumping and punching. You can perform any one of those moves at any time, and the game encourages mixing those commands into bigger moves and combining those moves into complicated combos.
Now obviously it would be difficult to design a game to use as few buttons as possible if you need stuff like camera control and mode switching, but it is handled brilliantly in some games. Metroid Prime 3 does an excellent job using a motion controlled camera with lock-on, morph ball, shooting, and jumping mapped to the hot buttons A,B,C,Z. You'd think a game that has scanning and hypermode as such important elements to the gameplay would put those functions on a hot button, but the final game's layout emphasizes Samus' mobility, and not her mode-switching. Switching visors is a bit more complicated on purpose to make it clear that you're entering a new mode. Anything related to movement/camera and shooting is easy. Anything related to mode-switching is more difficult.
The weird thing about Random Heroes in my opinion is that this series was created after the League Of Evil series (same developer, Ravenous Games), which has MUCH more juice and is MUCH more enjoyable! In League Of Evil, the controls are tighter, the speed is higher, and the feedback from explosions and hits is far greater.
Oooooooooooh man! Guacamelee! is such a great game. Combat is so fluid and visceral.
Love the feels of this vid
I will definitely keep this in mind in my side-scrolling sci-fi-horror survival shooter. The character's guns are tools like in Dead Space, so I'm thinking perhaps these can somehow have lasting effect once I get ambitious with the animations. Maybe shooting a zombie thing with a rivet gun (a glorified giant nailgun) will leave nails poking out of its torso, zapping a robot with an electric arc-welder could perhaps cause them to appear like their circuits are frying, and shooting at something with a gigantic laser beam could perhaps carve them in half. I will definitely have to think on it.
One of the things I'm surprised wasn't discussed more is *why* juice is important. It's about feedback; removing ambiguity when the player performs an action. Hit-pause and flashing lets you know that your hit has connected and caused damage, dust puffs when you character lands from a jump lets you know you're now working with ground physics rather than air physics, large death explosions let you know that you can stop firing at that target now.
This also means that there's a delicate balance between 'not enough juice' and 'too much juice'. Not enough and you start to lack information about what's going on and lose confidence in your actions, while too much clouds the feedback and it becomes tough to determine if that screenshake is from you successfully hitting an enemy or one of any of the billions of explosions currently on screen.
Often, taking your best effect and only using is sparingly can be far more effective than spamming it everywhere.
I honestly feel like this is the first youtube channel I've seen that actually mentions Nuclear Throne by name
The impact pause when you hit an enemy is a very good way in giving feedback.
Something similar is also used in good movies.
There is streamlined to death american movies with fighting scenes that are so fast you cannot see a damn thing and then there is honk kong movies like alot of Jackie Chan movies that also give a similar kind of feedback.
You see the normal fight and then occasionally a punch that hits the face etc. Then you see the same scene again. You again see the whole punch and again hitting the face but this time from a different camera angle. By showing it twice it makes the hit feel impactful and hard compared to "so fast half of the hits were not even noticed by the viewer and the other half was blurry" offered by hollywood movies.
Good job on that Video Mark
Would be nice to see a video about use of color in games vs grey brown.
Also, a lot of bad action movies aren't really about the action. Many have so many rapid-fire camera cuts that even seeing _what the heck_ is going on is nigh impossible.
Fight scenes in good action movies, like some of the Hong Kong movies you mentioned, very often only have a few camera angles and they switch between them quite rarely, only breaking from that and zooming close in when somebody takes a grievous wound. The actual fighting is in the spotlight.
Yo, this is some good shit. I really wish I had this type of analytical insight on videogames.
liked if only for the Miyamoto tip to play test as much as possible on a blank screen. what a great idea!
I think the key to the game feel is the verisimilitude. There are so many examples ... I will put some, like the weapons of Killzone 2. Each weapon has its own weight and aim is slow and hard with heavy weapons and with assault rifles is a little less slow but feels just as hard, you feel that You do not carry a toy weapon but a real assault rifle. The colossal fights in SoTC against the Titan of Final Fantasy XV. In one you feel the weight of your steps, your weight with the states of Wander as stumble to be near when they move and details as the camera shaking when they carry their weight against the floor to attack, makes me believe that I fight against giant beasts. In FFXV there are no tremors on the floor or in the camera or anything just one more boss in the pile ... And the one I like most is the mechanics of stamina with the shield above Demon's Souls. When attacking your stamina drops but recovers with time. With the shield up it takes longer to recharge and it makes sense since you are lifting a heavy shield that requires energy and work you can not recover in the same way as with shield down. Amazing!
Well said!
Game juice is something Grapefrukt (Martin Jonasson) talked about a lot when I was a student of his.
Basically, the more feedback a user receives when doing something in a game, wether by cool visual effects or sound effects, the more responsive the game will feel, and it'll start to build a certain character in the players mind.
People should watch Vlambeer Screen Shake presentation, it is really great at illustrating all this!
Almost a dark video... Like "if you wouldn't mess up I wouldn't have to get angry." But even so it taught me a lot about this stuff and helped me make the game for my girlfriend's birthday 1000 times better.
The closing line was hilarious.
Another great video. If you'd like some constructive criticism, I think it'd be valuable to see more old-school games put into the mix. A lot of the old SNK titles had amazing juice and achieved it with technological limitations that don't exist for today's indie darlings.
Really makes you *feel*
I just remembered Luftrausers exists. Such a fun game!
I like how in the Arkham games all of the punches remind you of classic Batman cartoons and the cheesy "kapow" sounds, but still reduced enough to feel real at the same time. Also the enemies shut up mid-sentence if you hit them as they're insulting you, which gives good feedback for your ass-kicking. :)