References and testing

Hello, I’m working on a fencing game called Parry-Strike. Here I’ll share some insights I had so far.

                Now that I have a prototype and with it – the possibility to see the gameplay come alive, I wanted to see how the current design works and what should be improved. I’ve done one thing differently compared to the last games, and spent considerable amount of time looking at references for the game.

                There were a few significant ones, among the others. The closes game to Parry-Strike I found was Sclash, a samurai styled fighting. It is surprisingly similar to my game in terms of available actions, and succeeds at creating the dynamic I want to achieve, so I’ve decided to analyze it closely. One major difference between the two is that in Sclash any strike is fatal – that creates more tension and raises stakes. Whereas in my game this moment of tension only happens after a player reaches critical focus (has low “stamina” and can be killed). Another difference is that in Sclash, actions that consume stamina can’t be used when stamina is zero. This limits the player’s action space and makes it more difficult to react – which creates a spike of tension when one player is vulnerable. This made me think of adding something similar. I don’t want to limit the player’s action space (yet), but perhaps I will make timing windows shorter for defensive moves when the focus is critical.

                I’ve also looked at Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice posture system to see how it’s balanced. Mainly, it made me realize that the attack action in Parry-Strike might be too overpowered. At least, it doesn’t appear to have major downsides so there’s no real trade off to attacking. The only problem is the short moment of vulnerability after the attack, but with the timings as they are now this window is not enough to get a hit. So I’ll have to balance the attack action.

                I started testing the game with my siblings, which might not be the best way, but in the state the game is now I wouldn’t like to throw it out there – I believe it’s too unpolished to notice any real problems. So that way of testing was more reliable since I could see the action for myself and understand it better. One thing I’ll totally have to work on is clarity, or player feedback. Right now the results of an action, whether it was successful or not are unclear, and the game generally feels confusing. The other thing was about focus balance. Probably I made the game too punishing, since very few actions reward the player with focus – and the defensive actions almost put the defender at a disadvantage (don’t give any benefit besides defense and consume focus), even if successful. I’ll probably try to experiment with adding more buffs.

Right now I’ll continue the work on adding more benefits as rewards for successful defense, and will play around with the focus dynamic.