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The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: CaptainCalabaza on September 17, 2012, 08:48:59 PM

Title: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: CaptainCalabaza on September 17, 2012, 08:48:59 PM
yay of nay ?
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 17, 2012, 08:52:48 PM
YAY!!  :D

Ibrought it up in the core mechanics thread just in passing. I picture Golden Axe meets Tecmo Knight.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Phoenix7786 on September 17, 2012, 09:03:12 PM
Hell FUCKING yes. And no weird re-imaginings of characters.

Speaking of brawlers, why wasn't there any kind of co-op multiplayer beat'em up Castlevania during the arcade boom? We DO have HoD, but that's not what I'm talking about (although CV: HoD does look a fantastic game if you have some friends to play with).
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: CaptainCalabaza on September 17, 2012, 09:20:37 PM
i was thinking of it bieng more like x - men. could you imagine 6 player action ?
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 17, 2012, 09:24:50 PM
More is not always better. I'd hate to play with 4 of 5 Joes (one of my buddies who SUCKS at brawlers).
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Neobelmont on September 17, 2012, 09:27:13 PM
Like final fight or streets of rage right? Those are the two I remember most
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: DragonSlayr81 on September 17, 2012, 09:44:00 PM
yay of nay ?
Is this, by any chance, inspired by the recent release of Double Dragon Neon on XBox Life and PSN? I played the demo of it and it's pretty damn fun. It feels a lot like if they took Double Dragon and merged it with Streets of Rage, added a bunch of nods to 80s pop culture(it's really freakin awesome) and a killer 80s-esque soundtrack by Jake Kaufman(damn, the dude works wonders). But yeah, picking up Linda's whip and cracking it about did make me think about a CV brawler. A whole "what if" type deal.

Some people might be against it, though. Purest can't see CV as anything other than platform heavy games(and most Brawlers don't feature platforming).

Personally, I actually wouldn't mind. Hell, a CV3 brawler with choice of either Trevor, Sypha, Alucard or Grant, all with unique fighting abilities and special moves, fighting their way, Golden Axe/Dungeons and Dragons(Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara)-esque through the zombie run town, Mad Forest, clock tower, Ship of Fools and such, that could be fuckin awesome!

And yeah, I don't know why Konami didn't at least try such a thing back in the day. They, like Capcom, made really awesome brawlers back in the day(TMNT, X-Men). Damn, when I think of the games those two companies produced during that time(80s-early 90s), holy hell crap of shit, they gave us some FINE ass titles. Then I look at them now and, well.... What happened. Tough, thinking about the whole brawler thing, I also makes me wonder why Capcom didn't do that with Mega Man. Maybe have a three player arcade game where you could either play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Roll(outfitted in a Mega Girl costume) and go brawler against Wily and his Robot Masters.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Neobelmont on September 17, 2012, 09:54:24 PM
Is this, by any chance, inspired by the recent release of Double Dragon Neon on XBox Life and PSN? I played the demo of it and it's pretty damn fun. It feels a lot like if they took Double Dragon and merged it with Streets of Rage, added a bunch of nods to 80s pop culture(it's really freakin awesome) and a killer 80s-esque soundtrack by Jake Kaufman(damn, the dude works wonders). But yeah, picking up Linda's whip and cracking it about did make me think about a CV brawler. A whole "what if" type deal.

Some people might be against it, though. Purest can't see CV as anything other than platform heavy games(and most Brawlers don't feature platforming).

Personally, I actually wouldn't mind. Hell, a CV3 brawler with choice of either Trevor, Sypha, Alucard or Grant, all with unique fighting abilities and special moves, fighting their way, Golden Axe/Dungeons and Dragons(Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara)-esque through the zombie run town, Mad Forest, clock tower, Ship of Fools and such, that could be fuckin awesome!

And yeah, I don't know why Konami didn't at least try such a thing back in the day. They, like Capcom, made really awesome brawlers back in the day(TMNT, X-Men). Damn, when I think of the games those two companies produced during that time(80s-early 90s), holy hell crap of shit, they gave us some FINE ass titles. Then I look at them now and, well.... What happened. Tough, thinking about the whole brawler thing, I also makes me wonder why Capcom didn't do that with Mega Man. Maybe have a three player arcade game where you could either play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Roll(outfitted in a Mega Girl costume) and go brawler against Wily and his Robot Masters.

Sounds all kind of awesome but I still need to beat the first two by my self  :P
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: X on September 17, 2012, 11:19:07 PM
Quote
Is this, by any chance, inspired by the recent release of Double Dragon Neon on XBox Life and PSN? I played the demo of it and it's pretty damn fun. It feels a lot like if they took Double Dragon and merged it with Streets of Rage, added a bunch of nods to 80s pop culture(it's really freakin awesome) and a killer 80s-esque soundtrack by Jake Kaufman(damn, the dude works wonders). But yeah, picking up Linda's whip and cracking it about did make me think about a CV brawler. A whole "what if" type deal.

Some people might be against it, though. Purest can't see CV as anything other than platform heavy games(and most Brawlers don't feature platforming).

Personally, I actually wouldn't mind. Hell, a CV3 brawler with choice of either Trevor, Sypha, Alucard or Grant, all with unique fighting abilities and special moves, fighting their way, Golden Axe/Dungeons and Dragons(Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara)-esque through the zombie run town, Mad Forest, clock tower, Ship of Fools and such, that could be fuckin awesome!

And yeah, I don't know why Konami didn't at least try such a thing back in the day. They, like Capcom, made really awesome brawlers back in the day(TMNT, X-Men). Damn, when I think of the games those two companies produced during that time(80s-early 90s), holy hell crap of shit, they gave us some FINE ass titles. Then I look at them now and, well.... What happened. Tough, thinking about the whole brawler thing, I also makes me wonder why Capcom didn't do that with Mega Man. Maybe have a three player arcade game where you could either play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Roll(outfitted in a Mega Girl costume) and go brawler against Wily and his Robot Masters.

I would love to see a CV game done it the Final Fight-Streets of rage-D&D-Beat 'em ups style too. And I do believe Capcom did make a Mega Man fighting title for the arcade. Mega Man: The Power Fighters they called it.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Phoenix7786 on September 17, 2012, 11:25:07 PM
I also makes me wonder why Capcom didn't do that with Mega Man. Maybe have a three player arcade game where you could either play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Roll(outfitted in a Mega Girl costume) and go brawler against Wily and his Robot Masters.

The closest they gave us were the 2 Power Fighter games, but that wasn't much. Makes me wonder if Serio got inspiration from it.

MegaMan 2 Power Fighters Co op Pt 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHUzODPPYvs#)

and

★ Megaman the Power Battle (All Perfect) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1yyCq7j9ss#)

Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 18, 2012, 05:38:55 AM
Yay, I would like to see that, if possible with online multiplayer xD
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 18, 2012, 08:20:18 AM
I think it would work out well. The combat systems would honestly translate well if done right.

There was a very basic and interesting Castlevania inspired fan brawler I played once. It was very chibi and such, so definitely not the atmosphere you'd expect. However, it was a nice proof of concept none the less. I honestly cannot recall the name or developer though.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 18, 2012, 09:09:00 AM
There's no reason a brawler can't be a platformer as well. Tecmo Knight had minor platforming elements. Double Dragon and River City Ransom had death pits. Fuck the purists, a brawler would be closer to classicvania than Symphony of the Night if done right. And at least it's not a slot machine.

All the programmers and spriters here should get together and make a CV3 brawler. Four playable characters! Just like the arcade classics!
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 18, 2012, 09:13:21 AM
Fuck the purists

Quoting myself in case the irony of that statement gets missed by anyone.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: DragonSlayr81 on September 18, 2012, 09:21:20 AM
There's no reason a brawler can't be a platformer as well. Tecmo Knight had minor platforming elements. Double Dragon and River City Ransom had death pits. Fuck the purists, a brawler would be closer to classicvania than Symphony of the Night if done right. And at least it's not a slot machine.
Playing the demo of Double Dragon Neon, yeah, it has some platforming too(limited, most definitely not in the vein of many platforming games, but it's there nonetheless). Like the other DD games, it does the switch from a depth field(where you could move all around) to some pure 2D walkways.

Also, now that I think about it, there never be a more ample opportunity for the "break anything" mantra, which usually comes with the brawler genre. You wanna break as much stuff as possible because sometimes there's power-ups and health hidden in those objects. CV, itself, would always relish itself at the fact you could break walls and knock down lamps and candles to get power-ups. Even in games like SotN, you're breaking everything you can. I could see playing a CV brawler, and when low on health, wail on a stone statue to reveal some good old wall meat!
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: X on September 18, 2012, 10:04:14 AM
You could also smash up a weapons stand for either whip power-ups or subweapons.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: DragonSlayr81 on September 18, 2012, 02:24:11 PM
You could also smash up a weapons stand for either whip power-ups or subweapons.
There could be special attack orbs(maybe like the ones you get from bosses) or glowing hearts that once you collect enough(kinda like the magic jars in Golden Axe or the transformation orbs in Altered Beast) you can unleash your Item Crash special abilities. Damn, the thought of a CV brawler's working my imagination into a frenzy! The possibilities are ridiculous!
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 18, 2012, 03:52:06 PM
What about add ropes too? They can be static like in GB or swinging, so the others players without a whip can complete these stages too, if swinging mechanics be implemented. Also a moving stage like in a ship or a horse could be cool too. (yeah, yeah, I know that Im wanting too much things, but ideas doesnt hurt anyone right? :) )
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 19, 2012, 02:52:31 PM
 Well, this is not a brawler, but have nice concepts for multiplayer and enemy placements, also it never gets old to me:
Castlevania Online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTTGkHvfLqw#)

 I think it would be 10x better than HD, but I could be wrong since I never played this, since I didnt have a PS3/360.

edit: Sorry for the randomness, but since I remembered of this I want so much to show everyone this:
Resident Koopa Outbreak (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u53D5_bPPlE#)

I have one time tried to do this Resident Koopa become true in MMF1, but since it doesnt support "layers" its very difficult to do a 4 player game beat'em up, but now with MMF2 its possible, maybe I will try again someday...

If someone liked this RE Koopa, you will want to check the other 2 videos that exists in this serie.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 19, 2012, 08:46:25 PM
Layers? You just use x and y for a brawler. Don't need depth or anything like that, although it does help.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 20, 2012, 06:06:06 AM
Any good brawler would be coded to keep track of actual 3D space, even if the rendering is strictly 2D.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 20, 2012, 05:24:56 PM
Any good brawler would be coded to keep track of actual 3D space, even if the rendering is strictly 2D.
Exactly, so it can keep track of which sprite appears in front and which appears behind, in a 1P brawler its can be done in a more easy way, but when we are talking about a 4P the things change and turns into a mess.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 20, 2012, 06:20:01 PM
Not always for that though either. You have to track 3D space for terrain mostly. Take "Mighty Final Fight" and "River City Ransom" for example. Their sprites on the NES didn't always match their coordinates. I'm not sure if this is a console limitation though, as I recall specific layering of sprites in the Megaman games.

What they do however, is have uneven terrain; Holes, stairs, layered terrain, platforming, etc. These all need strict 3D coordinate processing. It's pretty amazing if you think about it. Those games were using basic 3D processing, even if they didn't have 3D rendering.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 20, 2012, 06:59:46 PM
Yeah, now that you mentioned that, its true! If they not did it the game will have terrain flaws like in Cheetahmen.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Johnny Alucard on September 25, 2012, 09:02:58 PM
Depending on how MoF turns out, it could come pretty close since it's a combat oriented platformer on a 2D plane.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheouAegis on September 26, 2012, 09:05:51 AM
Wouldn't be too hard. Every instance would have a variable for x, a variable for y, and a variable for jump. When you press left or right, change x. If you press up or down, change y. If you press jump button, increase jump and y, next step process jump flag, increase jump and y, next step process jump flag, increase jump and y, next step process jump flag, decrease jump and y, next step process jump flag, decrease jump and y, next step process jump flag, decrease jump and y, clear jump flag if 0. That's all there is to it for an NES brawler. But yeah, you need more than x and y, you're right, but it's just a simple variable you'd process separately. Castlevania 3 was actually already coded to allow this if they had wanted to. The method should have been pretty common in the 90s.

RCR probably "messed up" by using the wrong y-differential allowance. You would think logically you'd just check if two instances have the same y, but this isn't realistic and would make handling very difficult, so you allow for some flexibility by letting the player/enemy attack opponents at different y levels.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheCruelAngel on September 26, 2012, 09:22:24 AM
Sounds like a pretty awesome idea. I'd be down on a fan developed project too to fill the niche. I'm not super amazing at programming but skilled enough to do it professionally with a software giant.

Though like with the post earlier by Johnny Alucard, MoF sounds like it may head in this direction (reading through your guy's enormous thread on it and seen it come up multiple times as a negative point, so I find it interesting that everyone here sees it possibly being positive). Regardless, I think the concept is sound and could be incredibly fun.

And for those talking about 3D spaces, TheouAegis has it right. It's a faked 3D space, your characters are still only moving up and down on the y-axis (no z-axis here folks!). You'll find a lot of the games back then were a lot of smoke and mirrors to make it seem like the hardware was doing something awesome.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 26, 2012, 10:06:23 AM
@TheouAegis

That's over-thinking it really. Just keep track of XYZ for a brawler. X is your left and right, Z is your up and down, and Y is for your jumping and other applicable functions.

renderPositionX = X
renderPositionY = (Z * 0.5) + Y

'* 0.5' is arbitrary, presuming you're rendering the scene with the viewpoint that it is at an angle to give it 'depth', and thus Z movement wouldn't be the same visual 'speed' as X.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 26, 2012, 11:45:13 AM
When I tried to do that in the past, the colisions are handled by the character shadows lol
I only made the char always be in the right position of the shadow, since it game not have jumps its much easier, my only problem at the time is that these layers things that doesnt existed in MMF1, so I cant adjust it correctly. :)
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 26, 2012, 06:40:27 PM
There was a layer object that arranged active objects. Just always arrange by their Z and you're set. You'd have to use Alterable Variables to get all three X Y and Z though.

In this way you can use Alterable Variables A, B and C as X, Y and Z in ALL of active objects for consistency, and have them layer accordingly.

Although, I will admit that MMF, with any version, wouldn't be all that good at making any sort of 3D space enabled brawler.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: X on September 27, 2012, 10:05:23 AM
What about using the Beats of Rage engine? I've played many a good home brew beat 'em ups with that.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 27, 2012, 06:31:01 PM
I've lready said about that too, some people aready did CV in openBOR, I never tried to use it but I have seen great games that have been made with it. The bad part is that it doesnt support online.

And thanks for the help uzo, if I return to this project someday it will be useful to me.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheCruelAngel on September 27, 2012, 10:48:36 PM
Oh, you guys were talking about hacking an existing engine and using it as the base for a brawler?

I'm so used to the idea of building game engines from scratch now that the idea hadn't crossed my mind to use an existing engine.  :-X Well then! That's a bit of a relief and kind of a let down at the same time. Regardless of all that, I think Lelygax is right thinking online/LAN support would be nice (since we all could play together!) for something like this project. I think XNA has easy libraries that can be used to implement online/LAN support (I don't really know for sure since I've never used XNA, but I hear good things).
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: Lelygax on September 27, 2012, 11:09:24 PM
I know that MMF and GM can make online games, Adobe Flash and Java can do it too (see Dofus and RuneScape), also this new thing called Unity can even do 3D online games.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 28, 2012, 07:23:46 AM
Honestly the typical Castlevania sprites wouldn't be well suited for this. If you really want a proper and well designed adaptation, you'd need to have completely new sprites with combos for the whip and such.

That said, you could be pretty diversified. Take Castlevania The Arcade for example. Have different types of characters. One Belmont type, one mage type, one perhaps traditional hunter (like Vincent from CV64), one firearms hunter (depending on the time period), one pirate hunter, Alucard style hunter, etc.

I would recommend 3 characters total. 4 at most. You could even do a Dracula's Curse adaptation, given it's diverse array of characters. I think some original characters would be nice though.
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: TheCruelAngel on September 28, 2012, 09:17:21 AM
Yeah, I was thinking a lot would have to be built from scratch, and at that point, why not the engine too?

I think initially starting with 4 unique characters (as in doesn't exist in previous CV iterations) is a way to take things with unlockable throwbacks to other CV characters (I imagine Cornell would be fun, mandatory Simon, and probably Alucard). However, the most at the same time would be 4 players on screen (easier to balance difficulty, scale, etc.).

I mean, we could do a CVIII adaption, but that seems too easy (come on, let's challenge ourselves here peeps!) and limits what characters we can use and the environments (face it, fans here would rip us apart if we were 100% faithful to the original source material).

With a unique time period, unique setting and unique characters we'll be able to express ourselves, ideas and creativity more easily without being chased down by angry mobs. Thoughts?

Oh, and definitely need a Belmont type character (hell we can explore that 400 year span between LoI and CVIII and use a real Belmont no one's heard of yet), and vampires!  ;D
Title: Re: CASTLEVANIA BRAWLER
Post by: uzo on September 28, 2012, 10:25:51 AM
I didn't endorsed nor scorned the use of an existing engine. I always promote doing them yourselves really. However, I realize no one here is capable of it, so I didn't bother harping on it.

A basic one could be done in MMF, but as far as a really good or unique one, you'll need to go it alone and make your own engine.