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

[Goji]

So, what I dont want in this game, is cheap attacks, I have seen cheap moves in games so I can beat anyone, a cheap move is in.

Are you serious?

This is coming from the guy who only used oxygen balls with Destroyah against CheetoKamper and I in those G:STE Online matches. It's the cheapest projectile in the game, and all your opponent can do is block until they disappear, otherwise you're sent flying. It's the only move you used.

[matrix]

Sorry bout that, I dont do that anymore btw I didnt ONLY use oxygen balls. BTW again lets get back on topic.

[Goji]

I just find it ironic that you of all people are complaining about "cheap moves". We played only a week ago. I doubt anything's changed since then. And actually, the oxygen balls are literally the only thing you used. Unless you count "throwing" as another move..throws which you only caught because of the magnetism the balls create, when blocked. /end rant.

Regarding the heights of the monsters, I think the Pipeworks approach was just fine. A handful of monsters were noticeably bigger than the rest, specifically King Ghidorah and Biollante, but most of the rest were about the same size. I say make Destoroyah the same height as the aforementioned two, and call it a day. Having the other monsters about the same height worked in the past, and it's a liberty that fans are just going to have to accept. Yes, Megalon has never been 100 meters, but I doubt anybody wants to play as a tiny Megalon for the sake of "film accuracy".

One thing I hope Mr. strange can fix is the way that Godzilla 90's and Godzilla 1954 walked. They walk too human-like, maybe make it so they walk like they do when they are charging your energy.

We're never going to fully get away from the anthropomorphic-esqe animations that some of the monsters have. Besides, some moves are going to "look weird" to some people, while others, won't even notice it. Striking a balance to appease all fans isn't going to be easy.

[matrix]

I used combos, and normal attacks, but a lot of balls, but I dont do that anymore. (use balls the whole time) next match ill show you my real skillz

[Goji]

You didn't use any combos whatsoever. I have another witness to prove this. CheetoKamper (one of the best STE players I know, and who won second place at the G-Fest tournament last year) also said that you had a similar tactic with the only other character you played, Mecha-King Ghidorah, where you spammed the tasers, and would simply run away until you could use them again. There isn't any point in trying to cover your ass. You were playing like a scrub.


I forgot to add earlier, that Destoroyah's Katana Horn and oxygen balls need to require a substantial amount of energy to perform in this new game. The inexpensive cost of using the oxy balls, as well as the Horn requiring no energy to use in G:U made Des a real pain in the ass to fight against. To make mattes worse, you couldn't parry it since it was an energy attack. Some monsters were helpless when put into close quarters with Des, it was ridiculous.

[matrix]

I used xxx combo a lot, and no I did not run and use tazers, how do you even do that? You only have 3 unless you get the energy power up, and he got 2nd in g fest? nice job!

[Goji]

You didn't actually catch any combos, this is the point I'm making. Hitting X-X-X in succession against a blocking opponent doesn't count. It's okay to be in denial about this, but I really suggest you stop derailing this topic. I keep responding simply because you keep lying about how the matches went down. Just take anymore STE talk to the topic you made, before a mod comes in telling us to cut it out.

[matrix]

Sorry, ok, so about powerups, I heard you partilly put them in so fast people have advantage, I like that, but a money saver would be to take out stuff like mothra air stike, and MAYBE energy, but have more commen health and rage.

[Oasis_S]

Oh, I should clarify: I don't have any problem with the heights of the monsters in-game. But in the manual or WHATEVER the heights are actually given WITH NUMBERS. And some of them are pretty strange.

Like, Moguera is as tall as Mecha/King Ghidorah, making him tied as the second tallest monster in the game at 120m. Which happens to be his official height, yet Mechagodzilla 1 (and I assume 2) are given as 98m, shorter than Godzilla. Mothra, I can understand as the shortest monster, but 20m is pretty TINY on the 100m scale. Megalon is 88m. Baragon at 60m is taller than the 50m Varan.

It's just pretty obvious these heights don't match up with the actual in-game heights, lol.

If I had access to the models I would gladly figure up all the heights. BDDD

[Mr. Strange]

I'm not very fond of blocking in general - that's a human-level kung-fu concept, and I don't think it translates very well to monster battles.

In G:U I tried a mechanic I called "bracing" - which let you plant your feet to resist knockbacks, and speed up your reaction times. It also reduced damage somewhat, but the main advantage was that you'd take the hit, then be able to counter-hit before they could defend themselves.

On paper it worked well, but the visual / audio feedback just wasn't good enough. Since damage didn't go to zero, people thought that bracing "didn't do anything" - so they wouldn't use it. It reminded me of StE, where a few monsters would gain 0.2% of their health when blocking Rodan's beam attack, and the community went nuts about "some monsters heal when hit by beams!" I knew that the healing # was essentially zero, but since it was positive and not negative the feedback system confused the issue.

[Mr. Strange]

No he doesn't want it to be broken like it was in GU. In GU there was a weird glitch where if your energy is empty it used both the stron and weak version at the same time. I've beaten the game in 19 minutes doing nothing but using his Horn Katana on everyone.

The knockdown system in G:U worked like this:

1 - Light attacks cannot knock down.
2 - If a Heavy attack takes away the last of your life in the current health cell, you are knocked down.
3 - If a Heavy attack his you while you are already staggering from a heavy attack, you are knocked down.

#3 was a pretty awesome way for 2-on-1 battles to just dominate opponents. That was the intent. It was generally impossible to land 2 heavy blows during one stagger reaction (not if you used certain power surges...).

When Destoroyah was out of energy, he switched from his regular Horn Katana to a low-damage version. It was still a heavy attack, but it dealt almost 0 damage.

Unfortunately, due to a script bug (probably my fault) when his energy was low he would file BOTH versions of his Horn Katana. This means he would hit you with 2 heavy attacks on the same frame - causing instant knock-down. Every time.

A terrible, terrible bug.

Oh, I should clarify: I don't have any problem with the heights of the monsters in-game. But in the manual or WHATEVER the heights are actually given WITH NUMBERS. And some of them are pretty strange.

I might not be certain about this - I thought I wrote all the manual text, but I would never have given MOGUERA's height as 120m...

This is actually a great example of a simple thing that we can get EXACTLY RIGHT in this new game. Just mention that someone cares about exact heights, and we'll make sure they are exact. Boom.

Also, Anguirus used length, not height. Obsidius (and other monsters) used the height of the head in idle - if he stood up straight he'd be closer to 110m.

One thing I hope Mr. strange can fix is the way that Godzilla 90's and Godzilla 1954 walked. They walk too human-like, maybe make it so they walk like they do when they are charging your energy.

This is another fantastic example of the sort of feedback I want to hear. Walk cycles are difficult to animate, and once set they have to match up with all of the other moves - so it's generally not reasonable to change them once the game is fully in-progress. Can you put together some video clips showing the steps you want, and maybe some examples of the step-style you object to? This is a perfect topic for the community to discuss and reach agreement on.

I'm a little confused on how all the "packs" will interact with each other. Lets just suppose for this question's sake here's what we have:

Toho Pack: Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus, Ghidorah, Gigan, MechaGodzilla
Daiei Pack: Gamera, Gaos, Guiron, Barugon, Zigra, Legion
America Pack: King Kong, Rhedosaurus, Cloverfield, The Blob, US Godzilla

Yes, shitty rosters, I know. Now. Will each pack have their own independant story line? Could Anguirus do the Daiei storyline? Will monsters only be able to fight outside their "packs" in a versus mode? Or am I just way off completely?

Each game is composed of 3 parts:

1 - the story / fight sequence of the single player game.
2 - the monsters
3 - the locations

When you start up Kaiju Combat, you'll use a launcher screen. (Check out NC Soft's launcher for a good example.) On that screen, you'll select the game you want to play. Item #1 is fixed by the game you select. But there will be boxes to include monster / location content from other games.

So, if you play story mode StE and include the Gamera pack... you'll still get the same monsters battles, in the same sequence. The only change will be that you can play through the StE story as one of the Gamera monsters.

If you choose multiplayer, you'll be able to use any monster you've purchased against any monster your opponent has purchased.

[CheetoKamper]

I used xxx combo a lot, and no I did not run and use tazers, how do you even do that? You only have 3 unless you get the energy power up, and he got 2nd in g fest? nice job!

Actually you did exactly that too me with MKG the funny thing is that if Ps2s online STE had a legit Versus mode where when you lose your health it's over you would've lost in the first minute but instead you'd shot the tazers then beam and repeat that 3 times until you ran out and then I beat the crap out of you then you died and spawned back with 3 more tazers. This went on till the last 30 seconds of the match and up till this point I could say at least you didn't try to run away like a scared little school girl the second to got a lead but then you went and did just that, you knocked me down one more time and got 100 points ahead of me then spent the last 30 seconds running away like a bitch. I love how you come on here a week later and just lie about everything that happened when we played...good luck finding other people to play with now kid.

[Oasis_S]

Maybe that's why I enjoyed Unleashed more than STE. I could actually LAND HITS in Unleashed, but in STE it felt like the computers just constantly blocked every attack, which made fights really boring and frustrating.

It was like the only SUREFIRE way to attack was with the get-up attacks, lol.

[Showa Gyaos]

Sorry, I have only just begun reading these threads today. Why don't Toho like reskins? They reskinned Godzilla his whole LIFE!! So each instance of Godzilla will have to be paid for? Godzilla's moves should not be far different, it will also cutdown on production/testing times.

I say, they select the top 4 of the tallied "non-core" monsters and run with that. Maybe releasing one new monster a month will help keep gamers interested.

Each incarnation has its differences. Giving Showa abilities to a Heisei incarnation wouldn't fit, or vice versa. They would need to be individual characters. Heisei is a tank, whereas Showa can be agile and loose.

[jamezilla]

First of all, giant dinosaur. Second, is this totally for real? This is actually going to happen?? Lastly, assuming this does happen, will there be a website where we can track it's progress and eventually buy it? Other than Steam I mean.

[matrix]

WE GET IT, I beat you in 3/4 battles, can we get back on topic please!? PS I already moved the tv back, I cant even play online. And at Simon, couple things from your post that just made me confused, Is the game gunna be called Kaiju Combat? Cause thats awesome! 2 Are you saying if we got the gamera pack in the new game we could play as gamera in save the earth? Or was that a example?

[Grayshot954]

^Thank you Showa Gyaos. But for more information on the game Zentenk check out the main forum at the link bellow.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9145&start=1995

[Oasis_S]

Oh, I should clarify: I don't have any problem with the heights of the monsters in-game. But in the manual or WHATEVER the heights are actually given WITH NUMBERS. And some of them are pretty strange.

I might not be certain about this - I thought I wrote all the manual text, but I would never have given MOGUERA's height as 120m...

This is actually a great example of a simple thing that we can get EXACTLY RIGHT in this new game. Just mention that someone cares about exact heights, and we'll make sure they are exact. Boom.

Also, Anguirus used length, not height. Obsidius (and other monsters) used the height of the head in idle - if he stood up straight he'd be closer to 110m.

Hmmm, I guess the heights were only given on the website then, which has been shut down. They aren't in the manual, I just checked. I got my information from the Godzilla wiki, so MOGUERA's height is probably their mistake then.

BUT I WOULD APPRECIATE KNOWING THE EXACT HEIGHTS (PROBABLY THE ONLY ONE THOUGH). I remember being so annoyed at the old StE site for listing Orga's height as "unknown," lol.

I've always wanted to know what the monsters' heights would be if they were all in the same scale as each other. Had I known Toho was involved in the scaling of the monsters for the games, I would have taken those heights more seriously, lol. And thanks for that Obsidius tidbit! That is critical information. Measuring to the height of the head while idle IS probably the best method.

[Mr. Strange]

First of all, giant dinosaur. Second, is this totally for real? This is actually going to happen?? Lastly, assuming this does happen, will there be a website where we can track it's progress and eventually buy it? Other than Steam I mean.

Did you read the first post of this thread? That has all your information.

[Mr. Strange]

Ok, bit of breaking news on Kaiju Combat (no, the name is not set in stone. I'm using Kaiju Combat as an in-progress name) and my situation.

As of last week, I've started working on-site for Pipeworks again. It's a contract job - I've done several contract jobs with Pipeworks since I originally left in 2007.

The difference now, of course, is that I was going to get some help from Pipeworks on technical aspects of Kaiju Combat - I've arranged to license their technology. Working in the same office facilitates communication.

The official plan is that we'll start the Kickstarter campaign on Kaiju Combat in about a month, and it will finish up around the time that my contract here is winding down. No overlap.

But.... it might be possible and/or desirable to create a more lasting relationship between Pipeworks and Kaiju Combat. I don't know exactly what that would look like. This is all speculative. But I wonder, would more official involvement from Pipeworks be seen as a good thing? A bad thing?

I'm going to make the decision which is best for the game, period. But I care about public perception, so I'm interested in the community's thoughts.