Preliminary Fighting Game Design Observations, Research & Resources

Tackling a Fighting Game as a student project is a hefty undertaking, coming with many advantages such as heavier focus on individual character models, meaning more development time that can be dedicated to character design and variety, but just as many challenges in terms of the sheer amount of assets required for a single character to be considered functional.


Taking a look at game devs who have broken down the costs tied to making a high quality fighting game will show the costs that go into just one character's art assets alone can be quite high, checking out 1:03 of this video from popular indie fighter Skullgirls' crowdfunded campaign to expand its roster, they breakdown the costs for developing a single character, from audio and programming to the grueling process of drawing thousands of frames of animation by hand.

For this reason, my scope for the project may very well be limited to 1-2 characters, providing just enough to make a functional mockup of my animated character in action using animations that could potentially be brought over to Unity and used to create a prototype fighter (though I will not be focusing on that aspect of the project during this semester. To my advantage, I don't yet need to consider many of the costs related to normal industry game development, this project will serve as part of my education. Also to my advantage, it may surprise some that 3D modeling for a fighting game is very possibly a less intensive process than that of 2D sprites or hand-drawn graphics. A 3D model need be made only once, rigged, and from there can be animated without much complication. Rigged skeletons for character models can even be reused by characters with similar stature without complication, so I have several shortcuts by nature of my approach.

Article on advantages of 2D vs. 3D for Fighting Games: https://indiewatch.net/2017/04/11/wanna-make-fighting-game-practical-guide-beginners-part/

Nonetheless, fighting game characters and the consideration of building their movesets around mechanical functionality are amongst the most technical possible forays into art-oriented game development. Hitboxes, frame data, strategic applications and more are all ingrained in how a fighter will animate, how fast or slow, what their posture is, the purpose of the move they're doing. It takes a deeper, under-the-hood understanding of existing fighting games. In this case, high level play of the genre actually does informs good game design, and vice versa, as experienced players are intimately aware of the safeness of attacks based on their frame data, hitbox properties and other advantages that might not be immediately obvious for a beginner.

For demonstration purposes, this video covers aspects of animating a fighting game character.

There's so much more to discuss in terms of designing a fighing game around unique systems to set it apart from the rest, implementation character archetypes and hybrids of those archetypes, taking measures to increase accessibility for what is normally considered a genre with one of the higher bars of entry to begin understanding and playing (tutorials, alternate control schemes, etc.) and the dreaded balancing act and pitfall of creating frenetic, fun combat without edging too far into overpoweringly strong characters and infinite combo territory. I'll leave it at this and say that for those who are interested, there's a bevy of fighting games out there, all with their own systems to learn and appreciate. You don't have to be an expert player to understand good design, and the more deeply you understand the genre, the easier it is to begin to see why it is so popular among competitive gaming communities, and start to enjoy them yourself!