Artist, gamedev, enigma. Freelance art direction.
https://oldmanofthefire.com
oldmanofthefire
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now I feel confident about my dev approach, I'm interested in pushing dynamism further. Smash Bros is a big influence—and the latest Prince of Persia was eye opening, felt like Dark Souls reimagined as Smash Bros. So starting more from what feels epic and fluid, and building the system around that
mm, forgot about this one. Not so much a combat system, but exploration into the kind of poses / movement / feeling that was missing from earlier prototypes
Dark Thicket was great in terms of figuring out a pretty solid, modular approach to enemy AI. I was interested in "how it feels to dodge and strike in Wind Waker", which I more or less achieved. But overall it felt too rigid, not dynamic and playful enough to move and strike
additional context here that's maybe interesting
I've made a few combat prototypes before but never been totally satisfied with them. This concept sits on top of those, is meant to really get at the thing I want
first real prototype was in Dark Thicket (more in thread)
since I kind of know where I'm headed in terms of enemy AI, I'm starting Abyssal Fugue's combat from poses and player motion. My thought is if it feels awesome to move and strike, then I can build these known systems around that
oldmanofthefire
next prototype was named nothing more than "little zelda" and was mostly an exercise in rewriting the dark thicket code after all those learnings. Thinking more rigorously about timing, pacing, knockdowns, combos, etc. And the result felt more fluid and dynamic—but still not enough.
