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

[UltramanGoji]

Children's Land? Is that another name for a lunatic asylum?

The place in Gigan with the Godzilla Tower.

He knows.

He was quoting a line from said movie.

Ah, I haven't seen that movie in a long time so I didn't recognize the quote.

Thanks, mate.

[miguelnuva]

World Children's land

Were the keep and destroy the enemies of peace.

If that level did get made it would be cool if the Godzilla tower attack monsters randomly expect Gigan and King Ghidorah and everyone else would have to destroy to even up the fight.

[Goji]

Children's Land? Is that another name for a lunatic asylum?

Tyler's best post ever.

[Godz]

World Children's land

Were the keep and destroy the enemies of peace.

If that level did get made it would be cool if the Godzilla tower attack monsters randomly expect Gigan and King Ghidorah and everyone else would have to destroy to even up the fight.

I think stage hazards are a neat idea, and this might get around Toho's rule that I THINK Simon mentioned of "Only a monster may seriously injure another monster" or something along those lines.

But that'd be somewhat game breaking to allow Gigan and Ghidorah complete immunity, could see people abusing that.

[miguelnuva]

World Children's land

Were the keep and destroy the enemies of peace.

If that level did get made it would be cool if the Godzilla tower attack monsters randomly expect Gigan and King Ghidorah and everyone else would have to destroy to even up the fight.

I think stage hazards are a neat idea, and this might get around Toho's rule that I THINK Simon mentioned of "Only a monster may seriously injure another monster" or something along those lines.

But that'd be somewhat game breaking to allow Gigan and Ghidorah complete immunity, could see people abusing that.

The tower could only work if a monster wandered to close to it as a way to keep the monsters close to fighting and then it could be destroyed easy if a monsters targeted it.

[Supergeon]

What do you guys think the character select screen should look like?
A) Square Icons with small picture, shows a larger illustration of the character to the side when highlighted (most games)
B) Using the engine to render the monsters (GDAMM) with the monsters either running on/off screen, burrowing from underground, flying in when they are highlighted

[Gyaos]

I'd like square icons, but the rendered, animated monsters would be a nice treat as well.

[CheetoKamper]

What do you guys think the character select screen should look like?
A) Square Icons with small picture, shows a larger illustration of the character to the side when highlighted (most games)
B) Using the engine to render the monsters (GDAMM) with the monsters either running on/off screen, burrowing from underground, flying in when they are highlighted

I think it needs to look like a screen......where you select your monster......I don't think what the select screen looks like is going to make or break this game or any game for that matter nor do I think it ever should.

[Goji]

I couldn't care less about the character select screen. I just care about the gameplay.

[PopInPicsPresents]

For the character selection screen it would be cool to have kaiju icons be the kaiju stamps from the films. They could be placed in a square pattern around the screen. To select a different incarnation of character the player must press a button, like L or R to switch incarnations. For the arena selection screen maybe have post cards be the icon for the cities.

[CheetoKamper]

I couldn't care less about the character select screen. I just care about the gameplay.

Exactly that kind of stuff needs to come last, gameplay, monster renderings, stages, stage mechanics, and music needs to come first evverything else is secondary.

[CheetoKamper]

Anguirus can't block with his shell anymore?

I'd imagine he could be an exception since it's almost more of a counter attack than a block. However in the previous games an attack directed at his shell blocking or not usualy deals damage to the attacker so it's not even a block it's just a part of Anguirus' gameplay.

[Mr. Strange]

Interestingly, UI screens are actually some of the most important things to consider first.

The primary consideration with this new tool is to make something which is infinitely expandable. That's the primary consideration. Since screen size is not infinite, that means some sort of infinitely scrollable list, or possibly a two-tier system.

[Oasis_S]

I've always thought a sort of "blend" of the character and stage selection screens would be clever. The bottom of the screen would have the monster icons, and above that there would be... flames as a placeholder. Behind the monster selection and flames, the monsters would be rendered like they were in DAMM. IT'S ALL VERY DAMMY AT THIS POINT. Once the selection is done, the monster selection would be replaced with the stage selection. For this, the flames would be replaced with the skyline of the stage highlighted. It would appear as though the monsters are looming over the city. Though if there aren't a lot of cities, I'm not sure how useful this would be, lol. If the sky was visible behind the monsters, and you could switch between day and night stages, then switching the sky in the background would be a nice touch too.

One big problem would be the lack of space to show monsters' stats and type charts. I guess the monster and stage selection areas could have arrows above and below them to scroll between packs?

Oh yeah, and I hope the slow panning from one menu to another doesn't return from STE. That was really annoying.

[Mr. Strange]

I can 99% guarantee that the "slow panning" won't return from StE. That was a 3D-rendered environment which contained all of the menu screens - very complex, lots of work, and lots of $$.

I'm actually thinking that, for vs matches, I might eliminate the location select screen entirely.

When setting up a multiplayer game, the host can set various parameters - and location selection could be part of that.

[Lenbo]

Interestingly, UI screens are actually some of the most important things to consider first.

The primary consideration with this new tool is to make something which is infinitely expandable. That's the primary consideration. Since screen size is not infinite, that means some sort of infinitely scrollable list, or possibly a two-tier system.

What do you mean by two-tier system?

I very much liked StE's selection screen, which had nice big stills of the monsters. G:U had a horrid character select screen. You couldn't even tell what the monsters looked like. Nothing like that again please.

Perhaps something like scrolling left and right to the edges of the icons would then reveal the next 20 or so monsters, with the icons of the expandable slots slightly darkened to show they're "on the next page" (like how you selected a different mode in DAMM, but horizontally) until you "expand" to them. So very much like this: http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/31Y9TfSKwMI/hqdefault.jpg, but with darkened monster icons on either side of the screen, then scrolling left or right (by tapping the shoulder buttons or something) would "turn the page" to the next set of 18-20 monsters.

With Matt Frank on the team, I'd love to see him possibly taking the in-game renders and enhancing them, or simply just have him make stills similar to the IDW comics Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters covers he did, but maybe just from the torso up, in high-resolution art:

Like these:
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/327/5/f/godzilla_spotlight_covers_by_kaijusamurai-d4h2yj4.jpg

[Oasis_S]

Would the stage selection parameters be something like: always x, random (maybe with the ability to turn off some stages from this, but this isn't Smash so I don't know how useful that would be), winner picks, and loser picks? Maybe... rotation as well. Would allow first player to pick, then second for the next match, then third, etc.

[Mr. Strange]

Would the stage selection parameters be something like: always x, random (maybe with the ability to turn off some stages from this, but this isn't Smash so I don't know how useful that would be), winner picks, and loser picks? Maybe... rotation as well. Would allow first player to pick, then second for the next match, then third, etc.

My thinking is - the level you fight on doesn't make a difference in most games. And when it DOES make a difference, it's sort of unfair to have one player select it. Just forcing all fights to be on random stages seems pretty reasonable.

I could imagine that players could weight their favorite stages in a preference file, and then the random rotation could take those preferences into consideration - but I'm not sure if anyone would really care.

[PopInPicsPresents]

Would the stage selection parameters be something like: always x, random (maybe with the ability to turn off some stages from this, but this isn't Smash so I don't know how useful that would be), winner picks, and loser picks? Maybe... rotation as well. Would allow first player to pick, then second for the next match, then third, etc.

My thinking is - the level you fight on doesn't make a difference in most games. And when it DOES make a difference, it's sort of unfair to have one player select it. Just forcing all fights to be on random stages seems pretty reasonable.

I could imagine that players could weight their favorite stages in a preference file, and then the random rotation could take those preferences into consideration - but I'm not sure if anyone would really care.

What about having certain monsters have a default arena or two? Say whenever you fight Anguirus you fight him in Osaka or the island where he first appeared.

[Oasis_S]

I was going to suggest only allowing random stages in multiplayer, but I don't like the idea of eliminating options... It's true the stages make little difference, but I think even Street Fighter allows you to select stages online? All of its stages have exactly the same effect on fights, which is 0%, lol.

And some time ago I mentioned it would be neat to see a more polished implementation of using buildings as weapons in the game, but I realized that's a major imbalance to the gameplay, isn't it? Since the weapons are automatically generated from the start, always in the same place, then it will always be the monster who is fastest that will reach it, yeah? And I guess to make up for that, the weapons themselves have to be weak, to the point of them not making a difference anyhow. If there was a reason for their removal in Unleashed aside from TIME AND MONEY, would it have been that?

IF THEY WERE TO RETURN... perhaps they should only be usable ONLY once the building they're attached to is destroyed...? And there should be a random factor to whether or not the weapon itself will "drop" from the building. More like, stick out of the rubble I guess.

Not that I want to turn this into Smash. I get into arguments on Smashboards with people who want to turn Smash into Street Fighter, lol. Maybe I'm becoming one of THOSE GUYS on here.