OKIZEME - a minimalist fighting game

[TonyTheTGR]

Setting up the draft/design doc for, what in my heart is, a logical predecessor to Hi-Fight's "Footsies" or Divekick; but still basic/minimal enough that it can (HOPEFULLY!!) be broken into managable chunks and chipped together in tiny hour-long dev chunks somewhere a day or two per week during a fairly busy schedule. I'd estimate I have 2-4 hours per average workday outside of jobs, parenting, and fundamental responsibilities to work with; and unfortunately, they're still wildly unpredictable/unstable at this point.

Conceptually, Okizeme is a 2D grounded footsie-based FG, not too distant from Footsies, with seven attack options across two attack buttons, Fast and Hard. It has crouching as normal, but jumping is only used in relation to jumping-attacks, in order to help newer players to fighting games minimize execution/timing errors on jump-ins.

- Standing Fast is the quickest move, hits mid, range goes a little high to beat jumping attacks.
- Standing Hard is the second-slowest move, hits mid/high, and scores a hard knockdown on counter hit or against airborne opponents.
- Crouching Fast is a nice ranged low poke, similar to the c.MK used in Footsies. It's primarily used to counter Standing Fast or poke from a greater distance, but has more cooldown and is consequently more susceptible to jump-attacks.
- Crouching Hard is a footsweep. Hits alternate between a direct knockdown in place, and one that knocks the opponent away (think "third sweep" from SF2).
- Jumping Fast is a short-hop overhead that evades low attacks and blocks. It's possible for this to cross up against downed or nearly point-blank characters, but it must be clearly deliberate if the player intends to use it this way.
- Jumping Hard is a mid-hop, side facing kick attack that kicks in both directions at once. This is intended to cover distance (specifically Crouching Fast/Hard) and to provide cross-up opportunity, even against standing opponents; but it is also the longest animation in the game to make up for that distance coverage. This does NOT overhead, but it does offer left-right mixup instead.
- Pressing both buttons together will give the Super Fireball - the only projectile move in the game - and you can only use it once per match. It scores 3 hits, no chip damage. This is mainly due to the elegant simplicity of such a move, and it can be evaded entirely (and punished!) by both jumping attacks. I may consider a "recharge" function by holding these ala KOF '94-'96, but this is feature creep territory.
* Back-jumping/Neutral-jumping movement variations of jump attacks are also being considered for air-to-air purposes; but forward-moving ones are the core gameplay priority; and likely wouldn't otherwise be too different apart from the horizontal movement element.

So far, every hit does 10% damage and can be linked, typically Jump > Fast > Hard ...but not necessarily *cancelled* like a Gatling, except into Super Fireball because input priority basically necessitates this and it's usually how you'd WANT to capitalize with meter anyhow. I like how Footsies used player archetypes in it's AI/Arcade lineup and I think following suit with that kind of approach would be smart in the single-player domain; and clearly multiplayer with local and online support should be a no-brainer to consider. If I can at least get as far as a playable prototype executing, there's a number of modes I'd like to eventually explore; but that's way down the pipeline.


Honestly, I'm a bit apprehensive to post this today, since I'm still very busy and struggle to balance my time and energy enough to get back into dev/creative space and I've got some years of rust growing on me and it's looking unlikely that things will be "slowing down" anytime soon - but I also don't wanna just hold this for 3-5 years until "the perfect day" either, because that won't be happening soon enough.


I guess I should start just by asking:

1. Is this something you'd be interested in playing?
2. Do you think this is a managable scope to execute in a reasonable time frame? Provided intermediate-level competence, I mean.

[knorke]

It is difficult to judge what a random internet stranger can do.
Generally I agree, the "perfect day" will never come. So just go for it.
There is no deadline for hobby projects so it does not matter how long it takes.