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

[PopInPicsPresents]

Hey I just thought of something for Kamacuras.

What if whenever the player uses invisibility, they go into first-person like the TF2 Spy, and against other players the screen splits, so the player that's invisible knows where they're going, while the other player doesn't know where they are.

But if you're in a city, how can you tell where you're going if there's buildings all around you? Kamacuras isn't exactly the tallest kaiju.

Well he can fly, and since he's an insect it wouldn't be to outlandish to have Kamacarus walk on buildings.

[Kiryu2012]

^Pretty much. Plus he could also detect his opponents like the Predator everytime he goes invisible.

[Legionmaster]

Hey I just thought of something for Kamacuras.

What if whenever the player uses invisibility, they go into first-person like the TF2 Spy, and against other players the screen splits, so the player that's invisible knows where they're going, while the other player doesn't know where they are.

This doesn't work with local multiplayer. Other players can still see where you are, because they can still see the whole screen. It also doesn't work because a mid-match screen split is jarring and interrupts the tempo of play.

It also is a poor execution choice for online play, as, once again, the perspective change is jarring and there's no need for it when no one is around you.

Invisibility of any kind still works against the basic premise of two monsters fighting each other, not one monster fighting another monster.

People need to leave the whole invisibility thing alone. It's not a good idea.

[Mr. Strange]

Since we're getting into the subject of "how accurate should monsters be to their film incarnations" I thought I'd share some insights.

Original Godzilla & co. were about 50 meters tall. They grew over the years, eventually being about 100m tall.

When we started making G:DAMM, Toho had a very strict rule - all monsters needed to be relatively the same size. So we just kept Godzilla at 100m, and scaled the other monsters (with Toho's supervision) to be proportionately correct. So if King Ghidorah was originally 70m to Godzilla's 60m, we say "ok, so KG is 17% taller than Godzilla - so make him 117m."

Toho has not, in general, been willing to have things exist "as they were" - they have specifically wanted things updated to fit with the lastest monster incarnations.

The "stiffness" of monsters in the older films is a great example of this. Toho thinks of that stiffness as a technology constraint, not a true representation of the monsters. We tried doing some frame-for-frame copies of various monster moves, and Toho did not like it. Then we created Godzilla 2000's uppercut move - and they loved it. Toho told us that THAT was what they wanted all the monsters to be doing - jumping, swinging, and slashing with more freedom that they ever could in the movies.

I'm a bit surprised that several people here have complained about the speed of combat in the last few games - I've only heard people complain about how sluggish things were. I honestly prefer things to be slower and more tactical. We'll definitely discuss that at length early in the development process!

[godzilla898]

I assume that since this game isn't being made under normal terms, Toho won't have quite the power and control over how the game turns out?

[Mr. Strange]

I assume that since this game isn't being made under normal terms, Toho won't have quite the power and control over how the game turns out?

No - Toho will still have absolute control over the appearance and treatment of their monsters. There is no getting around that.

[Legionmaster]

There is no getting around that.

Travel back in time and install sleeper agents. It's the only way.

[Infinity]

You are thinking on the right lines Mr.Strange but it suprises me that Toho wanted all those goofy moves to be implemented in the game.

It certainly wasn't like that in Godzilla: Kaiju Daikessen or Godzilla Battle Legends. They had the basic jumping and dashing but everything else for the most part was pretty accurate to the character they represented. Very few things seemed slapstick and even those made the kaiju still look cool (I won't complain about Super Mechagodzilla's Long kicks as they made him look really badass in contrast to MG's kicks in G:STE or G:DAMM where it was a combination of bad posture and wacky move types that just didn't click with me.

[jdude1996]

can anyone think up a moveset for Kamicuras?

[Mr. Strange]

You are thinking on the right lines Mr.Strange but it suprises me that Toho wanted all those goofy moves to be implemented in the game.

It certainly wasn't like that in Godzilla: Kaiju Daikessen or Godzilla Battle Legends. They had the basic jumping and dashing but everything else for the most part was pretty accurate to the character they represented. Very few things seemed slapstick and even those made the kaiju still look cool (I won't complain about Super Mechagodzilla's Long kicks as they made him look really badass in contrast to MG's kicks in G:STE or G:DAMM where it was a combination of bad posture and wacky move types that just didn't click with me.

Well, movies don't have to worry about realism in some of the ways a video game does. Film Ghidorah can't kick his legs - they simply don't bend that way. So nobody bothered to make his legs long enough to kick effectively. Since we are dealing with ridgid skeletons and meshes, we can't arbitrarily change the proportion of his body to make things work - so when he kicks, we have to twist and contort his body to get his feet out away from his body to the point where they can actually connect.

2D games can simply draw bigger limbs during the attack frames - to get around this issue easily.

Before G:U monster couldn't stack on top of one another, so moves like Ghidorah's big stomp attack were really hard to get working. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes cheating on that attack, as I recall!

Anyway, none of you should be worried about this sort of technical detail. Let's try running a list of attacks, and we'll let people weigh in on which ones they like or don't like. That would be useful data to have.

[PopInPicsPresents]

I have a question, would it be possible for the bigger kaiju like Godzilla to be able to actually walk through buildings like in the films? Or when a monster like Ghidorah lands from flying to have him just crush the buildings under his feet if there are any?

[godzilla898]

I have a question, would it be possible for the bigger kaiju like Godzilla to be able to actually walk through buildings like in the films? Or when a monster like Ghidorah lands from flying to have him just crush the buildings under his feet if there are any?

I second this. One of the most annoying things in StE was the ankle-high buildings-you couldn't jump over them or quickly destroy them.

[Oasis_S]

Since we're getting into the subject of "how accurate should monsters be to their film incarnations" I thought I'd share some insights.

Original Godzilla & co. were about 50 meters tall. They grew over the years, eventually being about 100m tall.

When we started making G:DAMM, Toho had a very strict rule - all monsters needed to be relatively the same size. So we just kept Godzilla at 100m, and scaled the other monsters (with Toho's supervision) to be proportionately correct. So if King Ghidorah was originally 70m to Godzilla's 60m, we say "ok, so KG is 17% taller than Godzilla - so make him 117m."

Toho has not, in general, been willing to have things exist "as they were" - they have specifically wanted things updated to fit with the lastest monster incarnations.

The "stiffness" of monsters in the older films is a great example of this. Toho thinks of that stiffness as a technology constraint, not a true representation of the monsters. We tried doing some frame-for-frame copies of various monster moves, and Toho did not like it. Then we created Godzilla 2000's uppercut move - and they loved it. Toho told us that THAT was what they wanted all the monsters to be doing - jumping, swinging, and slashing with more freedom that they ever could in the movies.

I'm a bit surprised that several people here have complained about the speed of combat in the last few games - I've only heard people complain about how sluggish things were. I honestly prefer things to be slower and more tactical. We'll definitely discuss that at length early in the development process!

That's all really interesting. Though I guess now my spreadsheet of monster heights scaled to be proportionate to Godzilla is useless now. I'm glad Toho feels that way about their monsters' movements. Definitely makes for a better gaming experience.

I wish I could comment more on the speed of these games, but I only have StE to play. I wish I could compare it to DAMM, because I remember DAMM feeling really great in general. Hopefully it's not just the nostalgia. I just seem to have it in my head that StE was a step down. Wasn't it slowed down from DAMM? Can't play Unleashed again either, but I remember enjoying it more than StE. Thought the way the health worked was pretty clever.


Also, about attacks, no one monster had two attacks that acted in the same way, did they? Whether they were slow or fast; hit high or low; didn't phase the opponent, stunned them, or knocked them down completely; or had the same "elemental" type to them, right? I mean, that's a lot of variety there. Each move is designed to be useful in at least SOME situations?

[ゴジラ]

You are thinking on the right lines Mr.Strange but it suprises me that Toho wanted all those goofy moves to be implemented in the game.

Its not really all that goofy,

Toho does not want the restrictions of their films to be in the game, and they love the freedom within the games. When you have Godzilla vs. Megalon, Hedorah, Revenge, and MechaGodzilla, (along with Megaguirus and Final Wars) then I'm positive that no one should really be surprised by the "goofy moves" in the games. Beyond that you have to remember, this is a game, a game is suppose to be entertaining and fun. Toho most likely enjoyed the games and had a great time, allowing the "goofy moves" to be packaged in the games.

Now a few new moves can be given to replace the "goofy moves" that some people do not like, so long as they are reasonable. Before going too far in giving thought with this idea...

Are their any listing of moves that people do not like, but would like to be changed or replaced? Make any responses clear like:

Example:
Monster: Godzilla 90's
Disliked Move: Foot Volley (Grapple in G:U)
Reason: It seems really out of place and kinda weird.
Replacement Move and Why: Nuclear Pulse, it could be the new grapple move like in the Godzilla Super Nintendo Game. Plus its a decent way to implement it.


I've read some pages back that Monsters grabbing other monsters to execute attacks are difficult things to program, so anyone with a grapple move idea keep that in mind.

[Mr. Strange]

I have a question, would it be possible for the bigger kaiju like Godzilla to be able to actually walk through buildings like in the films? Or when a monster like Ghidorah lands from flying to have him just crush the buildings under his feet if there are any?

Sure. The monsters just walked through buildings in all three G games.

Of course, I suspect your question really is "can they just walk through the buildings which, before, were so big that they wouldn't just walk through them?"

Let me ask you - if the buildings offer no resistance, then what is the purpose of having buildings at all? Why not just leave open spaces? It seems like a lot of time and trouble to make buildings which offer no resistance.

Also, about attacks, no one monster had two attacks that acted in the same way, did they? Whether they were slow or fast; hit high or low; didn't phase the opponent, stunned them, or knocked them down completely; or had the same "elemental" type to them, right? I mean, that's a lot of variety there. Each move is designed to be useful in at least SOME situations?

Yes, every attack had unique properties - designed to be useful in some situations and pretty weak in others.

Now a few new moves can be given to replace the "goofy moves" that some people do not like, so long as they are reasonable. Before going too far in giving thought with this idea...

Are their any listing of moves that people do not like, but would like to be changed or replaced? Make any responses clear like:

This is half useful. First, attacks need to be listed by how they were triggered (Ghidorah's "Down + A in StE"). Second, it is not useful at this time for people to talk about what they would like to replace those moves. Let's just list the attacks people liked (that is - moves they felt were true to the spirit of the character) and which attacks they did not like.

[Blackout286]

If I remember correctly, some buildings in the films never just collapsed away whenever Godzilla encountered them, sometimes he had to tear away at them before finally going through.

A.K.A Resistance? O.o

[PopInPicsPresents]

I have a question, would it be possible for the bigger kaiju like Godzilla to be able to actually walk through buildings like in the films? Or when a monster like Ghidorah lands from flying to have him just crush the buildings under his feet if there are any?

Sure. The monsters just walked through buildings in all three G games.

Of course, I suspect your question really is "can they just walk through the buildings which, before, were so big that they wouldn't just walk through them?"

Let me ask you - if the buildings offer no resistance, then what is the purpose of having buildings at all? Why not just leave open spaces? It seems like a lot of time and trouble to make buildings which offer no resistance.

Buildings really shouldn't be a resistance to a giant monster, maybe the smaller ones like Baragon and Anguirus but the larger ones should be able to walk through them like in the films. Beams should go through buildings, not get stopped by them. Buildings should just be there to be destroyed.

[godzilla898]

I have a question, would it be possible for the bigger kaiju like Godzilla to be able to actually walk through buildings like in the films? Or when a monster like Ghidorah lands from flying to have him just crush the buildings under his feet if there are any?

Of course, I suspect your question really is "can they just walk through the buildings which, before, were so big that they wouldn't just walk through them?"

While I can't speak for PiPP, what if they could walk through the buildings, but would be significantly slowed or unable to use certain attacks?

[Berzerkgodzilla]

I always wanted to be able to do that. What about making it so they can go through buidings when doing the rush thing they could do in GU? Like they crash through the building if they charge into instead of just stopping?

[Oasis_S]

While not a moveset, I think Kamacuras should feel like... a scheming sort of character. He wants to hurt you, but he knows he has to wait for the right time to strike. So he might seem kind of cautious and careful too. When he CAN attack you, it'll probably hurt pretty bad.

I see him as a character that tries to lure his opponent into attacking so Kamacuras can find an opening to exploit. He might have some moves that, at the beginning or end of their animation, will cause Kamacuras to move away from his opponent. Such as backing up to allow the opponent to miss, only for Kamacuras to follow it up (in the same animation) with a strong attack. His weaker attacks would probably be pretty fast and string into one another easily.

To keep from exploiting his quick and COMBO-Y moves, Kamacuras himself would probably have to be pretty fragile. Biding his time would be to his benefit. Preying on the vulnerable - very Kamacuras-like, yeah?



Oh yeah, and Gabara's grab animation should be kind of over-the-top. That is, if he misses, he should hop on one foot a short distance, leaving him vulnerable.