New kaiju game from Matt Frank + Simon Strange [Archive]

[miguelnuva]

I have a question, ...but you probably won't like it. And I could use the input from other users as well, please.

Is there any chance at all that this entire thing is a scam by someone pretending to be Simon Strange or Kaijusamurai, and that they are planning to take our money? Call me paranoid, but I think it is important to ask this question before we start donating anything. Mr. Strange, my accusation may be wrong, and for that I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I'm donating to the right person first.

Well the same thing here is posted on kaijusamurai's deviantart.

[Living Corpse]

Considering Chris is talking to the person I think we're in safe hands otherwise he'd talk to him on something like Skype and realize something is up.

[matrix]

How about, Rise of the Kaiju, maybe not perfect but I think we can build of it.

[matrix]

This is a weird question, but what will the menu's look like? I love the menu in Godzilla: Save the Earth because of the awesome godzilla eye, its kinda creepy, and your in a boat, its so cool! can you tell me what your menu plans are? (if you have plans yet) I'm thinking maybe the screen is looking out a window at the city and monsters walk by.

I'll tell Mark you like the eye!

Unfortunately, as I've said a few other places recently, menus and menu systems are a huge difficulty in game development - so we save a LOT of time by streamlining menus and cutting them wherever possible. My inclination will be to use minimal menus, and use the time & money saved to make EVEN MORE MONSTERS.

Of course, my opinion isn't the only one that counts. If, during development people start to say "You know, we have enough monsters - let's work on adding bells & whistles to the menu system" - then that's what we will do.

Speaking of adding more monsters, will there be even more monsters than unleashed? (just on the godzilla copy of the game)

[Chris55]

I have a question, ...but you probably won't like it. And I could use the input from other users as well, please.

Is there any chance at all that this entire thing is a scam by someone pretending to be Simon Strange or Kaijusamurai, and that they are planning to take our money? Call me paranoid, but I think it is important to ask this question before we start donating anything. Mr. Strange, my accusation may be wrong, and for that I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I'm donating to the right person first.

Nah, it's legit.

I'm not spending my time working with scammers

[Godz]

Tricked out menus vs more monsters?

Give me a bare bones Street Fighter 2 on SNES menu system if it gets us more monsters. As long as we have all the options I don't care how they are presented.

[Legionmaster]

Whoa. Guys. Brilliant idea here.

What if...navigating the menus was the game! :O

[GIGAN05]

Space Hunter M Wrote:
How does the Self-Defense Force advancing in the background of some maps sound?

That would be pretty neat ^^.

[UltramanGoji]

Whoa. Guys. Brilliant idea here.

What if...navigating the menus was the game! :O

[Legionmaster]

"Defeat King Ghidorah to toggle power-ups on or off!"
"Battle Gigan to continue a saved game!"
"Wanna download a new monster pack? Gotta beat Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, Biollante, and Spacegodzilla first!"

[Svitska Donkun]

Let's talk about the monster unlocking system, and how skreeonk horrible it was in all 3 console Godzilla games.

[Mr. Strange]

Let's talk about the monster unlocking system, and how skreeonk horrible it was in all 3 console Godzilla games.

Ok, let's talk about it. Please include some examples of fighting game unlock systems you enjoyed, for reference.

[zilla103192]

I am going to agree with what Donkun said there.

I didn't like the unlock systems. Where you had to buy a pack, and then buy each monster in the pack.

I would much rather do it WotM style. Where when you play through, you get points for EVERYTHING (how many buildings you destroy, how quickly you defeated your opponent, etc.) and just take those points and spend them on the ONE monster you want, or whatever.

[Goji]

While I thought it was a pretty tedious in G:STE, what with having to buy the expensive "packs" of monsters, it wasn't quite so bad in G:U, where you could (thankfully) purchase them individually. Actually, on the original Dreamcast release ofMarvel vs. Capcom 2 (which I played religiously back in high school), the system of unlocking characters was extremely similar, so I was already very much accustomed to unlocking characters using a points system.

In the case of G:STE, It only meant that when I unwrapped G:STE on day one, I had to spend a couple of hours to be able to unlock Jet Jaguar.

If anything, the G:U system should be used. Maybe have the monsters cost less points to unlock? That could be a possible solution. Honestly, I like it more than the Smash Bros. route, where you *sometimes* (keyword here, I don't want people trying to correct me on this, I realize not all of the characters were unlocked in this fashion) have to spend a certain amount of time playing multiplayer just to unlock certain characters (at least in the games after Smash Bros. 64, it was like that). That, to me, is much more lame, and tedious than unlocking characters via a points system.

[Mr. Strange]

I am going to agree with what Donkun said there.

I didn't like the unlock systems. Where you had to buy a pack, and then buy each monster in the pack.

I would much rather do it WotM style. Where when you play through, you get points for EVERYTHING (how many buildings you destroy, how quickly you defeated your opponent, etc.) and just take those points and spend them on the ONE monster you want, or whatever.

In G:U, you got points for everything (building destroyed, winning melee and vs matches, destroying military, beating chapters in story mode).

And when buying packs, you got one monster free - in fact, that initial monster was the cheapest monster you could buy.

I think the more controversial unlock mechanism in G:U was the fact that so many monsters (10, or 11?) were locked completely until you did certain strange things in the story mode. There were some great discussions on the boards right after release, where people tried to figure out each unlock system - but there is a very good argument to be made for the case that those tasks were too hard, or weird, or complex for most players.

[Grayshot954]

Okay got everyone above and I would like to note I added Glacies into the other section. If there is one user monster I would like to see its that monster.

[Legionmaster]

If anything, the G:U system should be used. Maybe have the monsters cost less points to unlock? That could be a possible solution. Honestly, I like it more than the Smash Bros. route, where you *sometimes* (keyword here, I don't want people trying to correct me on this, I realize now all of the characters were unlocked in this fashion) have to spend a certain amount of time playing multiplayer just to unlock certain characters (at least in the games after Smash Bros. 64, it was like that). That, to me, is much more lame, and tedious than unlocking characters via a points system.

See, I prefer the unlocking mechanism that makes you explore all the aspects of the game. That's what the game is there for. If I was going to spend all this time on all these parts of a game, I would want people to actually experience all those parts, not just grind through a 1P mode with their favorite character. They can do that later.

[Mr. Strange]

See, I prefer the unlocking mechanism that makes you explore all the aspects of the game. That's what the game is there for. If I was going to spend all this time on all these parts of a game, I would want people to actually experience all those parts, not just grind through a 1P mode with their favorite character. They can do that later.

In my opinion, a mulitplayer game with a content unlock system NEEDS to allow players to unlock by simply playing mulitplayer games. (This doesn't necessarily contradict what you say)

I think forcing one player to play through the game several times before the characters are all unlocked leads to a terrible skill deficit between that player and their friends.

Then again, that might be because I grew up in an era where "multiplayer" meant people sitting next to one another, playing the same copy of the game. Much of the world now thinks of multiplayer as two people in different locations, each with their own copy of the game. If everyone has their own copy, then a story-based unlock system makes more sense - you are matching available characters to more practiced players.

In other notes - I, too played the Dreamcast version of MvC2 A BUNCH. (As in, unlocked everything from scratch 3 times) so that was probably a significant influence on me. (My best record was unlocking everything in just under 50 hours of play-time.)

[Goji]

Haha, I too would delete my MvC2 save, and start over "just because".

I think the more controversial unlock mechanism in G:U was the fact that so many monsters (10, or 11?) were locked completely until you did certain strange things in the story mode. There were some great discussions on the boards right after release, where people tried to figure out each unlock system - but there is a very good argument to be made for the case that those tasks were too hard, or weird, or complex for most players.

You see, this didn't bother me, personally. I rather liked that aspect. The problem is, you have all of these players who want instant gratification, and want everything unlocked from the get go. That's just not "fun" to me. I like having additional reasons to play the story mode, other than just the story itself. When I first booted up G:U, my first thought was "Okay, I need to find out how to unlock Biollante asap. I've waited too long!". Turns out, I found the building covered in vines by complete accident on the Tokyo stage, (which was the second level I played on, I believe), and ended up unlocking her by complete accident. It was a nice touch, and I'd like to see more stuff like that in this new game.

See, I prefer the unlocking mechanism that makes you explore all the aspects of the game. That's what the game is there for. If I was going to spend all this time on all these parts of a game, I would want people to actually experience all those parts, not just grind through a 1P mode with their favorite character. They can do that later.

Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. Now that I think of it, I think Smash Bros. Melee (or maybe it was Brawl? Idk, haven't played either in ages), gave you multiple options to unlock certain characters/content. I think that could also work, for this new Godzilla brawler.

[hammysammy59]

With monsters being created and doled out over a period of time, is an unlock system even necessary? The monsters will be "unlocked" when they're available for download. It might be frustrating to download sets of monsters, and then have the game tell the player that they're not available yet.

On the other hand, like Legionmaster said, unlocking content is a good way to get players to explore every aspect of a game... and when it's done right, it's pretty fun and rewarding too.

And yeah, Melee and Brawl offered different ways to unlock content, which was AWESOME. Having a Brawl release party the weekend it came out, I had the majority of the characters unlocked in less than 24 hours because so many people were playing so much multiplayer.