Creating a fighting game

How difficult would a 2D StreetFighter 2 type game be to code?

Has anyone here attempted one or have any experience as to what goes into creating one? The graphical content is obviously a biggy for this genre but I`m just interested in the actual engine mechanics.

Anyone have any good links on the creation of such games?

Many thanks for any help,
Jason.

I don't think that an engine for this type of game is too difficult.

The most important is to make a box for players collision ( ex : the body ) and another one for the hit impact ( ex : the kick ) for each animation frame ( RectsOverlap of blitz ).

;)

Wasn't there a demo here a few months ago? I recall someone was writing a very fancy graphic fighting game a while back in Bmax or something...

yeah he sent me a demo it was really good. theres a shot in the gallery somewhere.

EDIT

Erik Thon made it, he will prob be able to help you hes a nice guy. his blitz name is T-Rek

Yes I remember this, it was great. What I really nead though is a small code example to start me off.

Jason.

For my game "machine gun karate" I used the technique Réno mentioned like this:

That image contains 3 series of frames; first the visible picture, then the hit-area (where the player can be hit), then the attack-area (where the player can hit others). For every move (including walking) I created such an image strip.

Then I defined for every move some characteristics (in data statements) such as which keyset would activate them, which characters could use them, their direction, whether the last frame could be "freezed" by the player holding the keys down (as can be done for a punch but not for a flying kick), whether the attack could be canceled mid-way by releasing the keys (as can be done for a punch but not so easily for a flying kick since you're already flying), and a few more.

Something which took some thinking was how to detect "keysets". When a few keys need to be pressed at once to activate a move, it would be very difficult for the player to press them all at once. So instead, there's a short period in which keys are being collected, then when the time is up the collected keyset is returned.

I think the hardest part is creating the graphics.

OK thanks for the tips guys, I`m going to give it a go and see what happens. Should be fun...

Jason.

You should make a scrolling beat-em-up! They're much more fun than one on one fighters.

i dont know ENAY, final fight was one of the best scrolling beat em ups and id still much rather play street fighter 2.

You guys need to start in the begining of it all - even before there was a Final Fight (which I must say is the main reason why I made my dad buy me an SNES in the first place). Two arcade games I can recal from my early childhood was Double Dragon, which has got to be one of the first typical "beatem-up" genre and then there was Bad Dudes, which was probably the first platform beatem-up. Actually, I think Kung-Fu was the very first platform one....but I dont quite remember if it cause quite the stir that Bad Dudes ever did.....

I half finished a scrolling beat-em-up in Blitz2D, they're actually far easier to make than a one on one because a one on one requires complexity and with Street Fighter II and Tekken being almost unbeatable works of art, you can get away with a lot more in scrolling beat-em-ups, plus you can also make it so there are platform game bits. Ie Double Dragon.

There is one aspect Enay which is more difficult with a scrolling beat'em up is the level background/appearance. The playfield is much bigger. Although regarding the technical side of things I'd agree that something like Tekken/Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat is much more difficult to achieve than Final Fight/Double Dragon.

There is no better scrolling beat 'em up than target renegade, period. None better. Not one. Nuh uh.

Although goldenaxe wes pretty good fun.

Hello.

My tuppence would be to say go for a SIMPLE scrolling beat 'em up with just a couple of moves: one kick, one punch, a jump and a crouch.

That way you develop the understanding to move onto more complex, multi-key combos while providing something that is at least playable straight away.

Oh, and always, ALWAYS, implement a Shift-G cheat.

Goodbye.

Well I'd still say a 1 on 1 is tougher in almost every way to create. Whilst you may technically need more backgrounds, you still need to make considerable scrolling backgrounds in 1 and 1 beat-em-ups. You need less gfx for a scrolling one, especially for each character, on a 1 on 1 you need loads to make a decent arsenal of moves. Then you've got to implement AI, much harder on 1 and 1 and then do all those complex fireball style directional spins.

I'd say scrolling beat-em-ups are more fun too cos you can play coop :)

I will definately be going for a 1 on 1 as I have always be facinated by the games mechanics. I`ve yet to play a scrolling fighter that has as much depth as say SF2.

Jason.

one word combining BOTH ideas... KARATEKA (probably misspelled but a great idea form my Atari 800 days!!!) once you get the basic 2d fighter... then you can advance it into a plotted fighter... cool!

I used the saem technique as above in Iron Fist, and also years ago in an amiga beat 'em up.

QuickSilva - I think the only way you could play a scrolling fighter that has as much depth as SF2 would be to have the enemies take you on 1 at a time one after the other as you seamlessly move from one fight to the next..(I'm probably not too clear here but hopefully you get what I mean).