Beat 'em Up Enemy Design 101
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 лис 2024
- A guide covering how to design beat 'em up AI which should be transferable to basically everything from the Capcom style AI it covers to character action games, or even shmups!
This is based on a post I wrote a while back : cohost.org/bog...
Thanks to x.com/pixellicker for some clips, go check his game!
Thumbnail art : x.com/click_bu...
The 3D beat 'em up you're probably looking for the name of is Spikeout
Music is from :
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs
Ninja Warriors Once Again
Armed Police Batrider
Spikeout Battle Street
Mystic Warriors
![Scoring Systems [SHMUP WORKSHOP 06]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hbIrPeuOhlI/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank jesus for this video. Most people (and reviewers) will basically just say any beat em up is good if it's "a mindless but fun button masher" Bonus points if it has rpg elements. This video actually explains why the good beat em ups are the way they are.
“It’s mindless but fun! That’s why I died 50 times in a game that’s a hour long.”
It's rough, their strongest aspect, one which hardly anything ever matched, is also the most overlooked
You have Extra Credits saying nothing and making money, and then you have this guy breaking down a genre in detail. I applaud the Hog.
Thanks for the kind words! And yea I WISH I could make $$$ from these LOL
It doesn't help that they had exactly one designer on the team, he was ousted for being a sex pest, and it's not like he was particularly good at game design either...
@@boghogSTG You never know. I'll keep watching at least.
@@ShinoSarna That would make sense.
What a great video! This is a subject I talk about all the time whenever beat em ups come up in conversation. This is a genre that really lives or dies on enemy design. Beat em ups are like jousting on a belt with different kinds of AI who are jousting in their own ways, using their own tools. Part of why it's okay for the main character to be overpowered as heck in a beat em up (and actually preferred) is because you're fighting a lot of different guys and they all have unique behaviors.
When you play a lot of beat em ups, you tend to see similar AI types across all games and all developers. I think because some of these AI behaviors/types are absolutely necessary to creating a good beat em up.
Most good beat em ups have these types of units:
A Circler, who tries to go around to your back and then combo you.
A Poker, who hangs just out of your range, maybe shimmies a little and tries to jab you with attacks that have longer reach than yours.
A Ranged unit who has a gun, or throwing knife, some kind of attack where the enemy doesn't have to risk being close to damage you.
"Marbin" or "Duffy" aka a fat guy whose gimmick is abusing copious i-frames to charge at you, usually also has a belly slam with i-frames.
An Anti-Air, sometimes combined with another AI type, but this character exists to swat you out of the air with a frame-1 uppercut if you spam jump kicks too much.
A Grappler who frame-1 grabs when you are standing inside/on top of their sprite. This trains you not to be too aggressive with positioning near these guys.
Thanks! Also can't forget the Jumper, the Poison archetype - enemies that rely on jumps to get behind you, King of Dragons practically relies on these guys. Fuckin hate the anti-air lads though LOL
@@boghogSTG I was going to mention the jumpers, but then I wasn't sure if they appear in every beat em up or just some of them. They are common though.
Anti-air guys are huge pains in the ass. The ones in SoR4 are literally frame-1 anti-airing. Not all anti-air boys are true 1frame hard counter... It depends on the game. But it's common enough I figured I'd mention them doing it on frame 1. Same for grappler enemies. They don't all 1-frame you, but there are plenty who do.
Thanks for including my beatemup in the mix. I agree that getting the basic enemy movement down is a huge part of making them interesting. But also keeping them "simple" is important for players to learn what to expect from each AI variant.
Yeah not just that but a certain degree of simplicity is needed for interesting synergy to happen more than once in a blue moon. It's really hard to thread the needle where their behavior is complex/varied enough to create a lot of situation variety but also simple & focused enough taht they have a clear gameplan & compliment other enemies
As a fan of beat-em-ups and such games who doesn't know much about coding: Perhaps this explanation from how the enemies in Kya: Dark Lineage function may be interesting. The game looks a bit like Rayman 2 and 3 in terms of art direction, and is like a platformer/beat-em-up hybrid.
I don't know if this is usually how enemies are coded, but it's worth a shot to share (and make more people aware of Kya)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE : Unarmed Scrawnies have a directory of 2 moves ; Direct punch / Jumping attack.
If the defined sequence for a Scrawny is :
- Direct punch
- Direct punch
- Direct punch
- Jumping attack
- Jumping attack
- Direct punch
- Jumping attack
- Direct punch
- Jumping attack
[...]
If the player goes in a fight with it, don't do anything that can change the position in the sequence and don't abuse the blocking move, the sequence will be played exactly step by step.
If the player hit the Scrawny, X steps will be jumped in the sequence.
For instance, the Scrawny execute the steps 1, 2 and 3 (so 3 direct punches), then the player hit the Scrawny, a jump in the sequence will occur and the next step will not be the 4th, but maybe the 8th (and then the 9th, the 10th etc). Same if the player dies.
How sequences are generated is unknown. However there is rules, such as ; a basic Scrawny can't have more than 3 times the same move consecutively.
Source : reproductible experiment : saving in a spot where an ennemy is immediatly in fighting mode after a reload of that same save, such as Frank and Brazul bosses battles, and making multiple reloadings of that exact save recording the ennemy moves each time. As a result, the moves will ever be the exact same after reloading, and dressing up a list, as long as possible, will make reccurences visibles and predictables. An ennemy full sequence has never been done yet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The enemy move directory list on the Scrawnies
Worth noting is that enemies come in some subtypes denoted by the color of their clothing. This indicate their aggressiveness and the speed at which they learn which uses you use the most, and will block/evade accordingly.
Basic ones are blue, while yellow-clothed ones have access to more impressive options and ones in black clothing are at the peak of their subtype. These have access to all the moves of the blue and yellow-clothed variants.
(Though still with difference between being Armed and Unarmed).
Unarmed Scrawny :
Direct punch / Jumping attack.
Armed basic Scrawny :
Sweep attack with the weapon, from left to right / Sweep attack with the weapon, from right to left -> combos of 2 or 3 with those 2 moves / combos of 3 : the 2 moves + a third one being a spinning hit with the weapon.
Armed yellow Scrawny :
Sweep attack with the weapon, from left to right / Sweep attack with the weapon, from right to left -> combos of 2 or 3 with those 2 moves / combos of 3 : the 2 moves + a third one being a spinning hit with the weapon / Lever attack.
I hope this has raised your interest. Kya's a unique game that has solid things to offer, yet potential for more.
Here's a link to the wiki page in full:
kyadarklineage.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_system?so=search
I never played beat em ups properly, and honestly didn't really get the appeal at first. But the more I learn about them, the more fascinating they get - and this one is easily the most fascinating video about the mechanics of the genre!
Thanks! They are a lost art
you are doing an incredible service to humankind with these videos
At first I was watching thinking, “ok but where’s the why” then I realized “oh shit, neutral state movement is so under discussed we lack vocabulary to reverse-engineer a why.” So this is a hella valuable resource.
Appreciate the work you and Mark have been doing with arcade game design!
Oh yes it's hard to even begin talking prescriptively because nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about. I've had people literally play games back to back and not notice AI differences while looking directly at them because they didn't know what to look for. Hopefully I can get more prescriptive stuff going later on, combine my Action Games Are Competitive vid with this basically.
@@boghogSTG Reminded me to give a thanks for your other resources! I made a twin stick shooter and for the enemy roster, I watched a DOOM mapper talk about how they use the enemy roster, and reverse engineered a “why” out of it.
Your vid on shmup level design, about how the enemies encourage the player to constantly move to keep flow helped me create a postive/negative pressure model (snipers create negative pressure to rush down, bulls create positive pressure to avoid, pressure is relative) and that helped me to design the enemy roster and levels with intent rather than blind mimicry/trial and error! Thanks, and I’m looking forward to that prescriptive work!
Edit: went to go watch that video, I think that’s the one I was talking about lol
@@SrKing-dm4ku Hell yeah, good to know! Transfering that shit to other genres
@@boghogSTG I've talked a lot with some AAA western devs, they literally have no idea how these systems actually worked in older games. This is why the design is dogshit, they don't even know about frame data, animation locks, hitstun and whatever else!
It's a huge knowledge vacuum out there, it's crazy, pretty much every new release is "reinventing the wheel" (badly).
Thanks a lot for your work!
@@neo-giu That tracks from some ex-AAA devs I've talked to and just the way game design's talked about in the west where there's an emphasis on meta-level systems & structures rather than that pesky low level moment to moment stuff like how to tune a hitbox. And ofc it tracks with the quality of the bmup style games released where quality always feels like a happy accident and successes aren't built upon💀
And np!
2:59 I will defend Souls games slightly and add that the player-type enemies (generally the red NPC invaders but there are others like the nameless enemy hunters in Bloodborne) do have much more dynamic AI. They actually can play footsies and harass & troll the player with their movement.
Non-player-type enemies (the vast majority) generally do just have the basic "walk up to the player and play a random attack animation" AI. This isn't necessarily bad but it does really rely on the level layout and enemy positioning to create a challenge. Later games in the series have defaulted to more open spaces and one-on-one fights where the weakness of fighting simple AI is more apparent. Souls games shine when it is the player vs the level design as a holistic challenge, rather than just player vs enemies.
I agree completely
yes, this is part of why despite the games getting ostensibly more “complex” (they didn’t, just more bloated and confused in their design *cough*elden ring*cough) demon souls and dark souls and yes even bloodborne remain the most interestingly designed games of the series in terms of their actual moment to moment action because of the way action intertwined with level design and enemies actually roughly follow the same rules as the player instead of elden ring being ds3 players fighting bosses that are more anime than your average devil may cry boss (fucking maliketh for example)
Yup and think about what happens when you hit them, unless you're fighting a small handful of dudes with insane poise their ass is getting STUNNED 😩👌 beat em uppy design!
There was a time a couple months ago when taking breaks between souls games where I was like "man, now I wanna play a 3D action game like DMC but so many of them are full of bullshit puzzles or time wasters between them, why isn't there a good modern beat em up that doesn't have the bullshit" before realizing that souls games pretty much are beat em ups without the bullshit.
@@MAYOFORCEdmc5
Excellent write-up! Came here from the Electric Underground and this was a real nostalgia trip for me as I did a lot of similar research and tried to implement a lot of these concepts in my own beat-em-up way back when: the whole concept of enemies orbiting and trying to always go to positions in-front and behind of the player in particular was exactly what I ended up doing!
These are definitely important concepts to explain that can be easily overlooked by developers and I'm glad you're outlining them. Can't count the number of times a dev has the AI just blindly walk towards the player to attack and nothing else beyond that: like you say, it just makes it way too easy for the player to corral them altogether in one spot and take 'em out with one combo! Hopefully this video can reach some devs and I won't have to play as many games with that kinda AI in the future!
Thanks!
Yeah, it's kinda wild that there's basically no good resources on bmup design online. Even shmups have some really solid posts and guides, with bmups it's basically nothing - everyone reinvents the wheel or fails to reinvent it to be more accurate. I really hope people spread this knowledge around cause the genre's in a pretty dire state, more than people might think just looking at the better recent releases.
12:28 Sometimes in Final Fight this can happen in a specific rythm that makes the enemies look like they are doing a wavedash,a Two P. quickly wavedashing across the screen up to your character´s face is one of the most terrifying things i have seen in a videogame , lol.
Beat em ups are a hard genre to get right and even some modern good games struggle to do that and feel driven more by nostalgia instead of love of the genre, like how early SoR 4 ditching the mechanics of BK 3 felt like a step backwards (thankfully, updates had fixed that ) or end up just being ok like Shredders Revenge, Mayhem Brawlers ,Final Vendetta etc. the genre is really one of the last unexplored frontiers in gaming lol, great video.
Final Fight AI but with wavedashing sounds like the perfect fit for stuff like Punisher 💀
I've been playing Urban Reign a lot and it's a stellar example of how far you could go with enemy AI in beat em ups. The entire cast of characters largely share the same moveset with some minor differences based on one of a few styles, so most of the differentiation comes from how they use those moves and how frequently they use them. Some of them dash at you and slide into you, some of them focus on long range pokes, and most interestingly there are enemies that tend to focus on staying near other enemies to initiate tag team grapple moves. The one on one boss fights tend to have a lot of mindgames going on with lots of dodging, grappling and space control and force you to get familiar with all the game's mechanics. The funniest thing to me is that supers make you fully invincible and can't be dodged, and the smarter AI's answer for that is to spam their own supers to over your s as long as they have meter. It's a real hidden gem of a game
Lol oh yeah Urban Reign's enemies are fucking nuts but it's definitely a lot more in line with a fighting game in how the AI's designed. Hell the game itself very much feels like a party fighting game that was repurposed into a beat em up at some point, wild game
@@boghogSTG Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was developed in a few months using Tekken 4/5 assets but they managed to make a very interesting take on the genre with it. I've been on an off a crusade of trying to play every 3D beat em up type game and it's been one of the more notable ones nobody talks about
This is the kind of video I've been interested in and searching on for years but hardly anybody talks about enemy AI, especially with Beat 'Em Ups. People emphasize things like the impact of punches or sound effects, the mood of the music, and the level locales. While those factors are important aesthetically , what's critical and more important are the interactions of the enemies and bosses in that they feel unpredictable and challenging. Really more so the sweet balance of enemies being predictable yet unpredictable to spice things up. If you have enemies that can come in and just do cheap 1 hit knockdowns or rush you with a repetitive jab where you're stun locked it's just bad design and too many modern Beat 'em Ups are guilty of that. I busted out laughing when you said some enemies tend to slide 'n glide around you with acceleration/deceleration which is so true and remember how that happens with enemies in Final Fight sometimes lol. 😎
It's great to see a video on enemy movement. Something so fundamental that is never really discussed.
Regarding modes, I've been playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the first time and immediately noticed how the soldier enemies operate. There is only one ticket for an aggressive melee soldier, and if that one goes into hitstun, gets knocked down or killed, another soldier immediately runs towards you, indicating that they are now the new enemy in the aggressive slot. However, the interesting part is what enemies do outside of that. They don't do nothing, nor do they move around - they switch to ranged weapons to harass and force the player to move. And I'm sure there are limited ranged attack tickets, too. It's another trick games can employ to make their encounters more intense and dynamic while not overwhelming with multiple melee enemies.
if you’re playing the series i highly recommend against sigma 2, play the OG via xenia or any xbox past a 360 or the NGS2 Black mod.
Yeah and if you play 2 (especially original or Sigma 2 Black as Arisumego mentioend) they start more aggressively throwing out incendiary shuriken. Shit feels CRAZY
Amazing work! Please continue to talk about Beat'em up/Action game! That's the love! Great work! Keep it up!
Thanks to you, it will be more easy for me to program the AI of my enemies in my Beat'em up that I'm working on! x)
Thanks, will do!
Though if you want more immediately I have a whole bunch of posts on my cohost talking about beat em up design & games like God Hand and shit :
cohost.org/boghog/post/4843840-guide
@@boghogSTG Ooooh that's nice! Thanks a lot, really like God Hand! A pioneer in the genre! x)
Video essayist Boghog is a terror to behold. Great video as usual man!
Oh so this is why you were doing those secret bmup research streams, good to see it pay off.
Yeah that stream footage was invaluable, dunno how long I'd spend on the video without it 💀
Even a beginners cookbook is more than most devs are building, good shit Mr Pig
very interesting and more indepth than I expected. I usually look at stuff more surface level when it comes to enemy design. Like seeing two enemies and thinking "this is the one with throws and this is the one with anti airs" lol which is why I really like streets of rage. I really hope more devs explore this genre, I feel like games like SoR4, Sifu and god hand show that we've barely scratched the surface. Plus the old yakuza games had flawed but really awesome gameplay and mechanics that were abandoned by RGG and no one came to pick up the mantle. I hope more indie devs go wild with more 3D beat em ups or 2d games with wild ideas, plus there's that 3D streets of rage game in the works, so the future has potential.
Control the midfield, control the game. I taught 'em all.
Really useful video, considering trying my hand at a Beat 'em Up eventually, and this is solid gold. Thank you!
I absolutely want Beat'em up Workshop!!!!
All is right in the world when I'm enjoying a Bog Hog gameplay mechanics breakdown! Thank you!
Happy to hear you're diggin that shit! Gotta add a bmup dynamic or two to your shmup😎
media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/01/14/this-is-fine_custom-b7c50c845a78f5d7716475a92016d52655ba3115.jpg
Also who knew that he was watching one of my vids just off-panel
@@boghogSTG LOL, that made my moning dude! Fuck yeah... Double Dragon AI enemies coming to a shmup near you! The hyper knee action never felt this good... shit you can know tell I've been playing Astral Gunners and improving on landing those dodge/block/reflect mechanics. :)
I wonder if these concepts are well documented in Japanese or French or something, considering pretty much every competent bmup uses these principles and even try to fix it's issues
Considering the devs of Streets of Rage 4 showed that they had CRTs with SoR1 or 2 beside them while fune tuning their game is probably a sign that they don't have much documentation on how these systems are implemented, but now you have me curious about a SoR4 post mortem!
There's not much in French afaik though it's still better than the resources we have in English (Kriegor wrote a bunch of french bmup articles after all so that alone elevates their writing :^) ), dunno about Japanese but we almost never get new JP bmups anymore. The ones we did get like Dragon's Crown came from industry vets who worked on D&D games at Capcom, so no doubt they learned a lot of stuff directly from the best.
I also disagree, very few bmups use these principles very effectively aside from Fight N Rage, the dev of that know his shit to an impressive degree!
Thank you for the video and the resources. I've made a very barebones prototype of a beat 'em up a few months back but found little info on how to design one!
@@morunaga No problem, happy it helped! Yeah exactly, nothing is documented in this genre, its crazy. Every dev basically has to reinvent the wheel
"...because all the big, amazing developers have left [this genre] behind, it's up to indie developers to figure something out. So good luck..."
Please and thank you.
God Speed o7
Was expecting the enemy flora troupes explained but surely didn't mind this. Having played a lot of the games it is things I've thought of just in passing. Interesting to hear from a deep dive.
great stuff, especially for novice designers. not much new here for me but excellent presentation nonetheless. Also, regarding 10:27, "ticket systems" and their execution are a great example of the importance of "holistic" game design: having a bunch of enemies "go offline" as you put it may (in some cases) work on a pure systems/gameplay level but will (usually) fall flat on the presentation level. There's a near infinite amount of possible solutions to this issues and it's depressing how games like AC seem to not even see the problem. I guess this kind of disjointed incoherency is an unfortunate side effect of AAA production scale (although some games clearly show how this can be mitigated by competent project management)
I think as far as the west goes, basically all devs should internalize all this shit because nobody here can make good action game AI. It's INSANE, modern 2D bmups can't even match stuff Double Dragon & Final Fight did in the 80's, 3D bmups can't even match their 2D counterparts. I think there's this idea that low level bmup design has been "solved" because conventions are kiiinda known, but if you step back, where are our results? They aren't there. Even the good stuff like Fight N Rage is *mostly* following in Capcom's footsteps rather than advancing the genre.
Also yeah the incoherency is a big problem especially matched with less abstract visuals. Makes me think of Spiderman 2 combo vids where you can feel every single person on the animation team fighting each other in real time. In AssCreed's case I think it's kind of a lost cause. They can't exactly have enemies blast you with ranged attacks Ninja Gaiden 2 style or do anything too threatening. The combat's supposed to be simple so they can't even access the available solutions for the problem of offline AI 💀
This "neutral state" is integral to why original Doom feels so good to play. There's a timer before enemies make any decisions and as FPS games got more complex this was kind of forgotten for whatever reason so you get ridiculously punishing games like Blood or Return to Castle Wolfenstein where as soon as you aggro an enemy they light you up even if they're facing the wrong direction.
Oh yeah, though I think that's a bit more akin to inactive/alert states from stealth games, but in general FPS games definitely benefit from having a bit of a beat em uppy attack design where they have startup & recovery frames. As fun as Blood is, I don't trust any other game to borrow its unhinged ass cultists & do a good job with them personally
This video is amazing, man.
Great job!
Thank you!
Its a good day when bog releases a video 🙏
Busy with a fan made beat em up project based on Street fighter, glad to see people share similar thoughts to my own with regards to enemies, I always thought of the genre combat base puzzle game, figuring out how to tackle enemies etc.
Ok this is rude & uncalled for but I'm gonna say it anyway - please break out of the fangame space and make a stand alone bmup asap. I'm so tired of all the devs who have a solid grasp on fundamentals getting sucked into the fangame vortex never to return! Meanwhile the new games/IPs are handled by people who don't care, if not outright have contempt for the genre 💀
@@boghogSTG Appreciate the honesty, fortunately I'm in a space where the engine can be used to support IP and the people are cool and knowledgeable.
What I'm working on is something I always wanted, a Street Fighter beat em up and learning things in the process,I should be done sometime next year after that I might work on something original. In terms of scale think of Sor Remake or FightnRage.
@@GRIT_27 Hell yeah, hopefully you get an original bmup going eventually then! Also good luck on your current project
@@boghogSTG You earned a sub, will reach out when I'm done with the fan made and start on the original project.
Oh SHEIIT!! i was just watching you and Mark's beat'em up stream nd i was waiting for you or Mark to talk bout how pacman is straight up beat'em up Ai and here you are lol
Pacman's enemy AI is crazy well designed
Great vid!
I don't think I can unsee this stuff now when I play a beat em up again. I'm not a game dev, but for sure it'll help me understand and beat more games in the genre.
Yea that's what I was hoping for! Gotta do some guides/breakdowns of your fav bmups
great video!
It will help me to create concept for cool enemies. I think that good beat em ups have enemies that aren't just simple minions, and take Streets of Rage as an example, I want to create a game with a lot of different enemies and different actions/reactions. Not only with counters, wake up animations, dodging, but also something like being punched and going into berserk status or being hacked and change the behavior completly for some time.
I was just thinking it's ironic that back in the day it was mainly eastern developers making arcade beatem ups ( i can only think of two Western arcade beatem ups Super Battletoads and Batman Forever). In the indie space it's mainly Westerners now.
Yeah besides Vanillaware which have links to Capcom there's basically nobody left in Japan now. I'm kinda curious how the new Double Dragon will go because it's been so long that the west might be better at bmups at this point...
very interesting. is there gonna be series on beat 'em up design?
Yea most likely, though I'll offload some of that stuff onto Mark like a shadowy puppeteer
Well jesus jumped up Christ on a chariot driven sidecar!! That was very informative Hog. Subbed!
hell yeah I been waiting for this one. thank you a lot
Bog hog is in my same mindset i feel like beat em ups can be more than just mash and rinse and repeat gameplay it has more potential than we think
The endlessly frustrating thing is that the potential has already been properly explored in the late 80's and 90's and yet modern devs still struggle to catch up, much less build on it. Stuff like Final Fight, while mashy, is also very difficult and tactical. But then you get to some of these new games and they straight up feel like the average credit feeder's idea of what a beat em up is 💀 There's no reason why Final Fight and SOR2 should still be the GOATs since we had decades to refine the genre, yet here we are.
@@boghogSTG i was playing street of rage just now the first one im playing them by order in the sega genesis collection and final fight i have it in the capcom beat em up collection i havent played final fight yet so i cant say much on it but streets of rage is amazing for its time 1 and 2 are great i like how every enemy has a personality because of how their AI works this is something i think most people discussing games dont talk about but some AI also are used to tell how this people react to stuff around them for example like the pac man explanation you dont even need characthers to talk to tell their personality look at the yello dude with a mohawk he stays in a distance analizing when the opening is just right to slide kick you while your taking care of the green dudes who usualy attack so you focus at them while buying time to yellow dude to do his thing its small details like this that makes me think their was more tought to this games than just punchy kick and we done but yeah i noticed most modern type beat em ups empower the player and make the enemy easy and dumb with no actual strategy or ideas in how they work or function together in fights their AI is just attack and be done with it without trying to think before fighting like street of rage where if you have a bar to hit them they try to distance themselves to not get hit and look for a way to get you and try to distract you with many allíes to get you back to make you Drop your weapons my fav modern adaptation to a beat em up that sticks True to classics is tmnt shreders return its everything i loved from the OG but more and street of rage 4 i havent got in to that one as im going trough order but man i miss beat em ups they dont make them like they use too and theirs no new modernasation of it also higly recomend oblix and asterix its ps2 game beat em up in 3d obsecure but super fun
You showes spike out. Liked and aubcribed.
Another banger from the bog
Great video bog!! Entertaining and informative as always
Thanks man!
Go Boghog, go! This is amazing stuff, not much out there like it.
Thanks a bunch! Yea it's a nightmare. There's a meme in the CAG communities that there's 2 types of action games - simon says or juggle sims & I think even if people say it's a joke that's how the genre's treated. Where the more preprogrammed elements like enemy attacks/states are explored, the combo systems are explored, but the more continuous fuzzy stuff like movement is neglected
Great Video, Beat em ups, arcade style gameplay and enemy design is the stuff I wanna here more about. look forward to the next video
Thanks! Prob gonna take a while before I get to the next one but it'll happen
@@boghogSTG all good, I’ll catch more when they eventually drop
masterclass in kinography
@boghogSTG are you still working on Mechanical Star Astra?
It's on hold, will def get back to it once I finish Decobot & some other stuff I'm working on atm
how do you feel about the tekken force modes? the one during that one T8 story mission is a bit too dynasty warriors for my taste but T3 and T4 feel really legit
Tekken Force modes are fun esp T4, still just side modes so unbalanced, low enemy variety, etc. but you could def see how they could turn them into a proper beat em up with some tweaks
Great work, video + content! Props!
12:40
Activate Windows Bog
Never
fantastic 👾
jonh romero positioned himself agaisn't ticket systems. maybe the ticket system is a thing that can better flourish in environments where the player has much more limitation, and thus more for the AI to exploit? because in FPS i can't see how that could even work.
FPS games don't have a concept of whiff punishes for the vast majority of attacks, so one of the things that this system helps alleviate (baiting & punishing groups) just straight up doesn't exist, and since the enemies are ranged, they have more agency in where they move to begin with, unlike bmups where players can more actively lead enemies around. I guess you could have tickets for stuff like melee/kamikaze/special attacks though.
Another thing is, some ticket systems just suck because they are too "authored" in a way, adn that might be what Romero's speaking out against. Where you have this really clear meta list of enemy attack order & set of commands and stuff, devs dictating the pace of combat. That shit definitely sucks. I tend to like these systems where they're more chaotic, where there's a basic check enemies have and that's it - lets things get nice & chaotic
Great video! I've been playing Gun.Smoke as my first attempt to 1CC a shmup and currently only been able to 1 credit up to beating stage 3 (can't do it consistently though, especially stage 3). Would like to develop a game with similar gameplay as Gun.Smoke at some point. By the way, what do you think about DFO? It's probably the most popular game with a beat 'em up style perspective.
@@BeamCoder Gun.Smoke's a pretty tough one to start off with but hey if youre digging the game then its just a matter of time! Havent played DFO, from everything Ive seen of it, it looks a lot more boss oriented
Great video 👌
Haven't watched the video yet, but I wanted to share an analysis of the combat in one of my favourite PS2 games, a kind of 3D beat-em-up/platformer hybrid called Kya: Dark Lineage. Looks a bit like Rayman 2 and 3 in style. Curious to your thoughts on this!
Enemies (Wolfun) come in different types and subtypes: Scrawnies, Grunts and Kronos are the main types and subtypes are denoted by Blue, Yellow and Black clothing. Wolfun have access to more dangerous attacks and "learn" at different speeds based on their type and subtype. How often you use particular combos or moves, and will block accordingly-- or break your own block with a grab or Unblockable. They can use quick sidesteps as well.
Scrawnies and Grunts may have access to a weapon which can give them extra reach and different animations.
When the Wolfun block more, you've got a few options to bypass their defenses, once you've unlocked all combat bracelets.
(These bracelets are like movesets. Think like how in Ratchet and Clank you buy different weapons, but instead you buy expansions to your melee moveset.)
- Grab. Hard counter to blocks. (Can be a bit distance-sensitive at times). There's a normal grab that leads into three kicks, and a "pull backwards" that has Kya kick the enemy over her.
- Moving to their sides with the quickstep, or jumping over them, to attack/grab them from the sides and behind.
Side-grabs are pulling their left or right arm respectively and digging the knee and elbow into their side.
The backwards grab is grabbing their tail, from where you can use them as a living shield, kick them into something, or spinning them around like a flail and letting go.
- Jumping *onto* them to ride their shoulders into their friends or a wall.
The enemy will try to throw you off: you can hit their head three times to disrupt their "throw you off" animation before they collapse and Kya automatically gets off. This isn't an auto-win: the enemy gets back up if they still have health.
Alternatively, you can simply jump off them and kick them away.
- Wait until they wind up an attack, and attack during their wind-up animation.
Or sidestep when they're doing a combo to attack/grab them from the side.
There's a groin kick move to stun a Wolfun for a few seconds too.
- Use the weird counter spell which lasts half a second, places a yellow magic shield in front of you for the duration of it, and the enemy that hits it will move like they're in slow motion for a few seconds.
The highest-tier type, the Kronos, have cut off their own tail and can teleport at short range, meaning they are immune to being grabbed from behind and cannot be jumped onto. Plus, they attack very quickly with quite a wide reach. They don't really have subtypes it seems and there's only eight of them in the entire game.
Has rough spots yet t's a fun combat system all in all, with potential for more. To this day there's no 3D platformer/beat-em-up like it.
Here's a link to the Wiki page on how the combat system works, where it explains how the AI functions and includes the move directory.
There's an entire list of the moves for all the enemy types and subtypes. The fanbase for this game is small but seemingly very dedicated.
kyadarklineage.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_system?so=search
Here's also a video of all the moves possible in the game. Many combos are not preset but seemingly created by mixing up the different moves.
ua-cam.com/video/lUiUgy51NS4/v-deo.html
Hope you find this interesting. The game really deserves more attention.
Very curious thought experiment from the programming point of view. I wonder if devs usually prefer to have every individual unit make decisions "on their own" or have a global "director" entity that shuffles units around
I wonder how devs approached this when the hardware was very weak compared to modern machines
I'm 90% sure it's enemies acting on their own, if you look at 11:20 the way enemies switch who's attacking and when is so insanely chaotic that it makes me think the individual enemies are accessing whatever ticket system is in place on their own. You also often get exceptions where, even if only 2 enemies can attack at once, sometimes you get 3 can get attacks in because 2 of them attack at the same time & other similar weirdness like proximity overriding ticket systems. But yeah I dunno for absolute certainty, and I imagine it's different in every game
@@boghogSTG I could make a point for a director approach, actually! The director defines that only two enemies can attack and should also define "which" units should attack. If every unit were to decide on their own, they would have to ask every other unit for how far they are and if nobody is closer, then the current unit would attack. This function would run for all units at every cycle, so it doesn't seem lightweight enough to be run so often. But I understand that programmers can provide a function with a "context" object, where all unit positions are listed, so every unit would not have to negotiate everything. But that could be a more modern approach, perhaps back in the day they used much more clever tricks :)
@@bohdanherasymenko7569 I think it could actually be a lot simpler. The way I handle it myself is that when an enemy decides to attack, they simply check a global attack cooldown timer and see if it's 0, if yes then they attack & set a short cooldown timer, if not then they skip their "turn" and go back to neutral. That way you don't actually need enemies to be aware of each other at all, and because their behavior is RNG driven and asynchronous, their states will almost never directly sync up & it'll be really chaotic in general. The proximity code is independent
@@boghogSTG that's a great approach, I didn't think of that, that's for sure :) Timer is a lightweight, global variable, perfectly ok if you need to support 1-2 attacks and don't want too many exceptions 👍 That's exactly the cleverness I'd expect out of old games where every byte counts
@@bohdanherasymenko7569 Yea I love that aspect of arcade games - simple hands off solutions within a game full of really strict tight restrictions. Really matches Shinji Mikami's "find freedom within restrictions" ideal
Fantastic video.
Thanks!
I've anyways been a fan of beat em ups since I played Double Dragon 2 as a kid. My brother and I played that and later Final Fight 2 and 3 on the SNES. Getting a look under the hood is a cool perspective. Also, what game is at 8:51? Never seen it and it looks cool
Thanks! That's Blade Master
God bless the work you do, brother o7
Awesome video mate!
We are so back
Do you know what kind of calculation is needed for the orbiting part? Is a constant orbiting position around the target slot or does it take into account of where the enemy is? I keep watching the clip over and over but can't figure it out. Great video as always.
Like I said in the vid I dunno the exact implementation these games used, but what I'm guessing they do is basically pick an x/y location on the screen to orbit (either the nearest player's location, the position slot's location, or a target slot/random x/y). Then they have another, second point orbit that first point (you can just convert radius/angle into x/y coordinates to do this easily) and enemies go for that second point. Then you increase/decrease the radius of the orbit as needed.
As for when they update it - that really depends on what sorta enemy/game you're making. Personally I like continuous movement so I'd update the the first x/y coordinate every frame. But you can make the enemies more static too and only get that first x/y coordinate once, at the start of their movement. Also another choice is the direction of the orbiting - whether they'll switch it, when they'll switch it, etc. That's up to you
@@boghogSTG Thanks, I think I understand the implementation a bit better now. I really want to make a beat em up since I used to be a DFO addict. I was trying to implement everything mentioned in the video here the other day while tearing my hair out trying to figure everything.
The AI is definitely a huge challenge for in beatemups or action games in general. The other is figuring out how to bring something new to the genre in enemy design, I feel like the limitations and focus on spacing and ground combat really limits the depth of what you can do with the bosses, most of the fights in DFO just boil down to sneaking attacks in after the boss whiffs and bullet hell dodging /mmo style combat.
You can't really implement an emphasis on timed dodges since you can just dodge melee by moving up and down since most melee attacks have horizontal hit boxes. Having adds helps alot with adding depth but I wonder if players will find it repetitive if it's used for every boss fight even though beatemups revolve around crowd control and spacing.
That being said I dont think people care that much about depth if you look at the newest beatemup style games like Rotwood and Lost Castle. I looked at the gameplay and the enemies kind of just stand there and wait for you to hit them, this bugs me alot but people dont seem to mind since these games did incredibly well.
In relation to the locked Y axis pathing where there's no curve. Is the target Y axis dynamic? Let's say the enemy is routing and the player just happens to move up on the Y axis, does the path change or does the enemy continue routing that way?
@@bnguyen68 You can implement timed dodges just fine, or even parries, look at Knights of the Round's implementation or Punisher's roll s, all that you need to counter vertical movement is making the Z check area wider. But even then why counter it? It's good when players have several responses to an attack, some might rely on spacing, others on the simon says mechanics. There are also a bunch of other things you can do like a proper wakeup game (Slisaurs in Cadillacs & Dinosaurs), more emphasis on ranged attacks (final boss of Armored Warriors), multiple non-enemy targets you have to manage (2nd boss in Battle Circuit), high low hit distinctions (you can jump over Slisaurs's horizontal slice), etc. Timed dodges themselves are garbage tho and turn boss fights into simplistic timing tests, making the movement & spacing game more interesting and adding more asynchronous objects/targets is almost always better. Hell even using resources like AvP's final boss could open up some interesting room for boss design.
The way the targets change depends on game (& enemy) but usually it updates in real time or semi real time (they take some short breaks to re-check the player's position).
@@boghogSTG What do you think would spice up the genre? To be honest, I dont have much experience with the games besides DFO and some of the ones on older consoles/emulators that i played in my childhood. As much as I want to make one, I personally don't have any ideas to bring to the genre that isn't gimmicky. Things like perfect timed hits to make it more engaging and customizable movesets like godhand. One thing I would add for sure is a mode where you're forced to fighting two different bosses (at end of stage) at once and randomized stage hazards so the player has to adapt. What I want to prioritize is player expression and feeling good about adapting to unique situations and having randomized elements helps with that alot, at least for me.
DFO uses a skill cooldown system which I dislike but its necessary since there are so many skills, I would instead use a meter system where the player can build it up by playing well and spending them on whichever skill they want.
What are your thoughts on 3D beat em ups?
@@bnguyen68 Go through Capcom's library and 1cc at least a good chunk of them, that's basically a pre-requisite for any beat em up dev IMO without that you're just flailing in the dark, especially since console beat em ups are mostly kinda shitty. Same with ideas - you'll get a lot more ideas as a reaction to playing these games since there are many many things that were left unrealized and underdeveloped. Something I personally want to play around with down the line is terrain-movement-attack integration where you build/stop momentum and said momentum affects the properties of your moves. But really even the simplest things can make a huge difference, for example the genre doesn't really have much pushback when you hit enemies - simply adding it and integrating it into combat would give a game unique identity. Then there's other stuff like Punisher's contextual gun mechanics, Tower of Doom's slower more methodical style, etc.
I think it's a mistake to think in terms fo "player expression" because expression is a natural byproduct of certain elements of a game - a lot of them being bad ones. If you have several viable moves that require specialization from the player (usually execution, or decision making branches), playstyles will naturally emerge. Then if your game fails at providing a good level of challenge & optimization systems like score, "player expression" will emerge because players will feel like your game's too easy so they can start fucking around.
3D bmups are good but tricky to design. Having a lot of attack directions makes it harder to design nice feeling crowd control (enemies will bounce off each other unpredictably). The ability to circle strafe is a massive problem. And the fact that enemies can't clip into each other without it looking insane means that by default, the subgenre trends towards divide & conquer rather than group & crush (I wrote about the types here : cohost.org/boghog/post/6755067-wtf-is-crowd-control) so they need really good mechanics for working around it like Spikeout's and God Hand's charged attack/kick launchers
Hey Bog Hog, have you seen this game called "Kings of Hell"? I am not really sure if it got a the element of a good beat em up. It got demo on steam though but I am still piled-up with demo backlogs.
Looks cool but isn't this more of a party fighter like Power Stone?
@@boghogSTG why is there a generic enemy and bosses on some if its just a power stone pvp? I also dont see any pvp
@@boghogSTG I think we should try this more than look at it on video. It feels like we are not looking at the same game, hehehe. Or maybe its just me.
It's finally here! 🔥 🔥 🔥
Took a while but it's FINALLY here
Great stuff
I hate how people these days treat old games like they didn't have any design philosophy to them
Yup, these games are smarter than the """critics""", so by underestimating them they end up just looking like clowns. And it makes sense anyway, a lot of these devs went on to make more modern mainstream games that even the dumbass critics think are brilliant
@@boghogSTG Yeah. I hated how everyone gave the RE4 remake just praise. I mean, sure, the overall experience felt better, at least to me, but c'mon, the complete removal of invincibility frames when getting up? The weird priority on the prompts mid screen. I don't know, it felt like in the OG if you pressed the prompt on the screen it would always trigger, but now it seems like it's camera based? And as I mentioned I like the game but to critics to not bring that up at all? It is sad because I feel like games are not appreciated as art by their own you know? People praise visuals, narrative, but the actual nuance of the rules and how they allow people to interact with them is severely under appreciated. It is like playing chess and saying "what a beautiful board, or look at how beautiful the wooden pieces for the queen and king are"
@@PauloCesar-oz6dy It felt like absolute dogshit to me as an overall experience on almost every level tbh, even the visuals are bland dark & lifeless. The only good thing about it is that it's more difficult but we have RE5 for that which is vastly better designed and more difficult, and has a mercs mode that isn't ass
@@boghogSTG Yeah, even if the visuals don't bother me I can see and understand your point. All the resident evil remakes have a more "cliche" art direction. I really missed
being able to light the whole r.p.d in RE2 remake like you could in the original. The only reason I give them a pass is because even if OG4 is great gameplay wise it didn't fit the tone of older resident evils. But you know what's funny about that? Even PS1 resident evils, which are not exactly arcady games, had better gameplay than RE4 remake. At least the games felt responsive and not wonky.
Got recommend by electric
Great Video, BogHog!
What's the game at 8:52?
I don't think I've ever seen it before.
Thanks! It's Blade Master, King of Dragons style game
@@boghogSTG thank you for the fast reply
Yes... Good, GOOD.
Great video, thanks.
4:59 couldn't help but notice sifu here. what do you think of the game overall?
It's not bad, I'm not a huge fan of how much of it is kinda built on the Arkham/Sleeping Dogs combat model (a shit ton of suck to target, prebaked multidirectional responses, generally slippery/slidey) but it's by far, by FAR the best game of that style
12:24 What game is this? I'm pretty sure the character is Mai Shiranui but I cannot name the specific game. (Ironically I actually recognized Spikeout but not this one).
It's Fight N Rage with the Final Fight 2 character mod installed :
gamebanana.com/mods/464225
good video thanks Mr Hog
Good stuff man
Cool to see
Who up boggin they hog rn?
Ooooooooooooooooooh shxt, new boghog drop!!
What's the name of the last song in the video? That bangs.
One of the tracks from Mystic Warriors arcade, you're gonna have to find out which by listening to the whole awesome OST :^)
What are the BMUPs to play if you haven't played BMUPs?
Ninja Warriors Once Again, Fight N Rage, Streets of Rage 4, Punisher, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Alien vs Predator. Pretty much in that order I think
If you don't mind BMUP-type combat in a game that's not an outright arcade-y, BMUP, i can recommend Kya: Dark Linage and Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. Perhaps Charlie Murder too.
Clash is a Zeno Clash prequel, though with a third person camera this time. Action/adventure title with exploration where you can find different martial arts styles that all have their own unique animation movesets. Came out in 2023
Kya is half 3D platformer resembling Rayman 2 and 3 a bit for the PS2 in terms of art direction. Surprisingly in-depth solid combat for a game of its type, while the platforming consists of running, jumping, climbing, board sliding, wind gliding, skydiving and animal riding.
It's got its rough spots for sure and it's probably not as amazingly complex/in-depth in combat as the greats in the genre-- but it's worth spreading the word about.
Charlie Murder may be more fun with friends. I just like that one.
Do you think "musou games" like Dynasty Warrior failed to inherit the good aspect of arcade beat em ups?
Yup Musou is basically what people who don't play bmups describe bmup combat as + a strategy layer. I think only Ninja Gaiden properly evolved beat 'em ups by matching enemy speed to player speed which even Capcom's later games like Punisher couldn't do.
@@boghogSTG that sounds like the beat em up element is stagnant(not sure if its the right term). I guess we won't be getting a good 3d fast action games in the future.
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Yup, bmups had a bit of life injected into them with the rise of CAGs but now CAGs themselves are very stagnant as well and the only potential way forward is ARPGs like Souls which is :/ gotta find another way...
@@boghogSTG that sounds awful. Ok I will just keep playing something I hate instead. *plays NieR Automata.
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 It's all the more important to shed light on the beat-em-up like titles that *are* in production. As much as one may want a genre to push the limits of what's possible, there is no less value in supporting things as they are, look at them on their own merits, shortcomings and whatever they have, or want, to offer. The little guys, so to speak, have to find their way as well. They may not know what we know, or what specific groups want-- they have their own journey and growth to experience.
-In terms of CAGs, there's Soulstice from 2022. Personally I love it, warts and all, and there's potential for more.
- 2023 had Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, a Zeno Clash prequel that went more in-depth with its combat options and an optional way of changing things up in encounters with sapient enemies.
- Currently in development as far as CAGs are concerned are Enenra Daemon Core and Genokids.
-There's a Hindu Mythology-inspired beat-em-up roguelike named Immortal and the Death that Follows in production with a 2D perspective.
- A 3D four-player beat-em-up in production is Kings of Hell. Cartoonish style but rather spicy. Folks who have played it seem quite positive about it gameplay-wise.
- More difficult to assign in a specific genre would be Yasuke: A Lost Descendant and Gori: Cuddly Carnage.
Yasuke because we have seen so little of it, and Gori because it's like a mix of a skating platformer and a... hack-and-slash, i guess. Your method of movement is your method of attack.
nice man
Really nice information. What are the games at 1:25 and 1:38 they look cool.
Thanks! Spikeout (new Yakuza has a port) and Blade Master (idk where to play it, not that great but looks awesome visually)
What is the GDC talk in 6:17
ua-cam.com/video/hE5tWF-Ou2k/v-deo.html
@@boghogSTG Thank you, this is what I need for my Enemy AI System
what işs thath ninja game????
Ninja Warriors Once Again or Ninja Gaiden 2/3RE
Excelente, graciass
Bog content best content
What's the side-scrolling ninja game?
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors
@@Peck_FGC Thanks.
What's the game at 1:41 and 10:09? The 3D one?
Spikeout
@@boghogSTG Thank you!
play SILHOUETTE MIRAGE
I will some time but any reason in particular?
@@boghogSTG cuz it's SILHOUETTE MIRAGE
so an interesting thing in this game is how, obviously there's the polarity system with how shyna faces left or right--
The main complaint a lot of people have is the same thing I heard often about god hand, that it doesn't have good crowd control options-- its gimmick is a bit cumbersome, but this game actually has rly emergent tools. You can launch with the crouch dash attack, or throw enemies that bounce off eachother to stagger them, and then juggle them with bullets, and they act as shields for enemy fire when in a counterhit state.
And those are just a few things you can do
Treasure really kept the soul of Konami when they left to form the company, they know their stuff
Oh dang, that's a very little-talked about game. Cool mention!
Take SHMUP WORKSHOP videos and combine them into 1 video. (UA-cam maxing)
Could you be mocking tim Rogers ???
LOL no it was meant to parody the typical retrospective, but I think that's what Tim Roger often does himself, so it ended up sounding similar
@@boghogSTG tim rogers talked for about 3 hrs about PAC man
@@LowKeyTired-q7d Video games have come a LONG way since Pac-Man!
Moral of story: play zone of the enders 2(ok it isn’t that relevant for some of the points here maybe but fuck it imma shill it nonetheless)
Important video.
great video! shoutout to gun.smoke
Thanks! Gun.Smoke gang