I'm designing a fighting game that I need to decide on controls for. I will have the combat with the sword and dagger be like Prince of Persia, but my character also carries a crossbow. I don't know if I should switch from POP view to something like Gears of War view when you switch to the crossbow. Or something else. Thanks.

Depends on what you're aiming for with the gameplay. If you want battles to seamlessly move from sword to crossbow mechanics mid-fight, it would be wise not to make too-radical switches in camera angle, controls, &c. What exactly did you have in mind?

What exactly do you mean by "fighting game"? If you mean something like Tekken, Soul Calibur, or Street Fighter 2, I would also not advise changing the camera into any kind of first-person or third-person over the shoulder view. These types of games play best from a side perspective, and any fast camera/control/mechanic changes mid-fight are usually disorienting and take away from the twitch gameplay.

Seconded what jackolantern1 said about fighting games.

But if you mean something more of an action/platformer (which PoP style fighting seems to point to) then a couple of good games to look at for inspiration would be Devil May Cry or Fable 2. They both make use of blades and guns pretty seamlessly.

But they both essentially boil down to auto-aiming at the enemy you are mostly directing your character towards (or just facing if you aren't doing anything with the analogue stick).

If you were wanting to have a more FPS style to it then you would need to be careful about the sudden camera changes and the very different feel between the 2 combat modes, which might break the flow of a fight if not done correctly.

Well to be fair, Soul Calibur got along nicely with changing camera angles. To a certain level I feel like they added nicely to the design. I only played it for about a week when I rented it when it came out, but I remember in Soul Calibur 2 for the Gamecube link could shoot arrows and when appropriate the game would change the camera angle to be over the shoulder (which it would also do for many other combos, so it wasn't at all disorienting).

But indeed, 3DMM should clarify what he means. I suspect more than the average twitch-fest.

If you switch to a GOW view, you won't be able to have local multiplayer without doing it with splitscreen.

It's actually an adventure brawler, kinda like Prince of Persia except that there is going to be less platforming... I guess the closest would be God of War. It's gonna be skewed more towards the hardcore audience than the casual, but I still want some acessibility.

Well that's been done, although generally the melee aspects are secondary to the shooting mechanics (Unreal Tournament, Halo, Conker Live). Just as long as it's clear where the player is aiming and it isn't too jarring to switch between melee and ranged combat.

Sorry all but whats the POP view stand for?

Quote:

Original post by Robert-Glen Sorry all but whats the POP view stand for?

Prince of Persia [wink]