Kick-in
A downloadable game
Kick-in' is a game about punching furries and being punched by furries.
This is Kick-in's fourth public alpha release for /agdg/ Demo Days! In this demo, there's a placeholder tutorial to teach you the basics of how to play, and one opponent for you to fight against.
Changelog:
+Gamepad support added! You can now play through the entire game and navigate all of the menus with X-input compatible controllers, such as an PS4 or Xbox One controller. You can't rebind the controller bindings in this build, but that is a feature I have planned for the future.
+The game new runs in a widescreen resolution by default.
+Many changes to Paahul's AI. Enemy collision has also been completely rewritten from the ground up. Most hit registration bugs have been fixed as a result.
+Many small changes to make controlling the player character feel more responsive.
+New title screen art! Because that's important enough to list in a changelog, I guess!
+Many bugs squashed!
Known quirks/issues/changes in this build:
-There's *still* no audio, sorry. Audio is hard!
-While playing in the tutorial, the rapid jabs and rapid hooks super attacks don't loop correctly.
-Attempting to force the game into fullscreen on windows 10 can cause a hard crash. This is a Gamemaker 1.4 compiler issue I can't fix without porting the game to Gamemaker 2. I'm in the process of porting the game over to Gamemaker 2 for next demoday, but until then please don't try to force fullscreen the game on windows 10.
Comments
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This game has tons of potential, but the character you have provided as an opponent would lose to Glass Joe.
Tutorial is also a little too slow for my liking.
A good proof of concept otherwise.
Oh my god this is awesome.
Paahul despite it being your first opponent and kind of an ease-in to the game should either not succumb to button mashing, or not be forced to cancel his attack startup into a dodge when attacking from the wrong direction(using your included debug interface it should technically whiff and 'grant' a hit on you). I don't know if this one is intended as after the first time you knock him to the ground he prepares a special attack in which you're able to freely mash any button to OHKO him from 70% HP and put him down on the mat whilst if you wait/defend from it he'll either do nothing and you'll be doing normal damage or hit you with a special attack and return to the previous state so please clarify or fix. Other than that I don't believe I've found any bugs, controls seem fine except I'm able to bind every action to a single button and at least you've prevented enter from being selectable as a bindable key. Best of luck on this game.
Thanks for taking the time to write up feedback!
I disagree with the notion that Paahul should not succumb to button mashing. As the very first opponent in the game, he definitely serves as an intro and I'm okay with people buttonmashing through him because when they make it further into the game they're going to get shut down hard by more technical opponents. If the player can buttonmash through the early game, that's fine because it's the early game. I already have plans for things like enemies that damage you immediately upon blocking your attacks, and enemies that cannot be hit at all without counterpunching them first. One of them should hopefully make it into the build for next demoday, but no promises.
Paahul's dodging behavior is a work-in-progress and is probably the first thing on the chopping block in terms of behavior I'm likely to remove. Its old behavior (where he would counterattack immediately upon your punches whiffing) was confusing to new players as something as part of his kit. The dodging behavior is slightly better in that it's much less punishing to the player, but it has animation issues and I'm still not sure if it's appropriate for a first enemy.
I'm also okay with the player being able to mash and OHKO Paahul in the middle of his special attack to interrupt it. That's what it's for. If nothing else, Paahul's special attack exists as an early avenue to teach the player that some opponent special attacks can be interrupted for significant damage or a one-hit knockout. Paahul's special attack also not having a 'laggy' state at the end of it where he's vulnerable to being counterpunched is intended for the moment, but I'm more than willing to change it if doing so would be a positive change. One of the things I'm thinking of changing is so making it so that if you fail the OHKO counterattack Paahul's special the first time he uses it, he'll then use it again when he gets up the second time to give you another shot at it.
Being able to bind every action to a single button is something I've worked hard to try and prevent. The game does have some hard-wired menu controls to stop you from softlocking the game, but I don't do a good job of informing the player that's the case. F5 on the rebinding menu or title screen also resets all of the keybinds to default.
Concerning keybinds, there is an easy fix however and you might want to instead truly prevent it but, a simple check might work that whenever multiple actions are bound to a single key, floating bright text appears on screen warning the player of this and showing the hotkey for resetting all controls.
I thought Paahl getting OHKO in the midst of it initially was a bug and so I'd suggest to at least append an example to the in-game tutorial if else to just prevent confusion. Having no "laggy" state as you said then goes as contrast towards your idea of Paahul being the early-game as the player has no notion of it, you'd be making things too 'easy' and few aspects too 'hard' with it. I also didn't get to verify if I myself am able to get KO'd and get a second wind/rise up (I'll be testing this right now and editing this post if needed - it does have and it does indeed feel balanced out now), for I think it'd be very balanced on that aspect as you, yourself, do not enable any counter-window(?) during a special either. Your idea of multiple opportunities for a punish is very good and you should add it if you feel it weights better. I'll most likely check out if you update as this current difficulty is trivial for me and I personally like a skillful challenge.
This is pretty cool.
Perhaps the greatest game I've ever seen