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I thought this was pretty solid > In many games, your character will play an animation before actually performing the action you requested. However, on a twitc

I thought this was pretty solid > In many games, your character will play an animation before actually performing the action you requested. However, on a twitchy action-based game, this will frustrate players – DON’T DO THAT! You should still have leading animations for things such as jumping and running, but if you care about how the game responds, make those cosmetic only, with the action taken immediately regardless of the animation. Interesting take. I feel like there’s an unexplored niche of 2D action platform era that do the opposite of this. Yeah a jump startup anim wouldn’t work well for Mario. But a more combat heavy one could be cool. Especially if you had quite a few jumping options. Somewhere between a sluggish super smash bros and dark souls. Something with deep character state management and directional parrying / dodges. Salt and sanctuary is an interesting title that tries to do 2D dark souls but I feel like it’s just an over simplified outcome. Iframe dodge rolls work well in 3D because you have a 360 range of directions and need to pick between getting out of range for follow ups or dodging into attacks to avoid lagging hit boxes. In 2D you get just 2 directions and it seems a bit too easy imo.

uxp100 4y ago
Prince of Persia is what I can think of that has (sometimes huge) wind up animations for jumping. And it feels ok once you get used to it, but really feels very different than any other platformer. But there is more than just a big animation there, I think the jumps are also quantized to a grid in some way, such that a range of button press timings will all result in the same on screen behavior.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Yeah it’s the first type listed in the article. Prince of Persia has your location tracked discretely by fairly large tiles. The animation may suggest otherwise but your location isn’t actually smoothly tracked at all.
  - uxp100 4y ago
    Ah right, with some particularly large tiles.
  - AlecSchueler 4y ago
    See the first Tomb Raider also for a 3D version of this. She only ever moves by full tiles. Makes it quite cool once you get used to the grid as you can reason logically about certain jumps etc.
    - gzalo 4y ago
      Even the DOS version allows smooth continuous motion: https://youtu.be/EC_8ljpgySM?t=914 https://youtu.be/EC_8ljpgySM?t=914 Are you talking about the map elements is composed of elements aligned to a grid? It's likely that was done on purpose to simplify computing collisions
      - AlecSchueler 4y ago
        I'm not seeing the smooth continuous motion you're talking about in that video. Every motion leads to hear being placed onto a specific tile, she can never be between tiles. You can see the developer talking about the design in this video, as well as additional comparisons from the narrator on the PoP influence: https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY?t=2040 https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY?t=2040 Prince of Persia was one of the main influences in the game's mechanics and the grid system is an intentional emulation of the grid system from the earlier game. The animations are smooth but they are always tied to the grid.
        gzalo 4y ago
        The climbing and jumping animations are tied to the grid. But not the walking ones. This is not what happens in other games like Prince of Persia or Oddworld. I agree that she is only in one tile at a time (her position is defined one position in the middle of both feet) But she doesn't just move by full tiles. You can perform step that are fractions of tiles, and combining that with the rotation angles (which are continuous), that must mean that you can be in any place of a specific tile (I.e, each square of the grid has infinite positions). Just tested it in TR1 demo, by rotating and walking backwards slowly, you can go to any place of the grid, and even have some feet in the air. See for example: https://imgur.com/a/0YLbV6C https://imgur.com/a/0YLbV6C
- teddyh 4y ago
  Both the movement and control scheme of Prince of Persia was copied exactly by a little-known 3D platformer called… Tomb Raider. It’s too bad that not many modern games follow these movement and control schemes, and odd too, since both games were hugely successful. Even Assassin’s Creed was originally envisioned as a Prince of Persia game, IIRC.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
makecheck 4y ago
Not limited to games, either; “pre-animation” makes regular software feel sluggish too. Having actions taken immediately is critical.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  For sure. It’s also worth noting you can do gameplay timing mechanics without locking behind animations. Many fighting games feature characters with charge archetypal control schemes where you need to hold certain inputs for a time but they don’t necessarily have any visible effect on the character while they’re held. But on the other hand some start up lag can make a game feel very tense which can be great. Elden ring subtly does this thing where bosses react to taking damage, so if you hit them with a light attack it will appear as though their attack patterns have no openings because they respond quickly. But in reality many of them are open for a good few seconds if you just wait and charge up a satisfying blow. Not many good examples of start up jumping lag… maybe… SSX Tricky comes to mind?
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    I think the biggest thing with start up lag on animations is that it has to be communicated very clearly to the player that it's happening, and have a reason to happen. Otherwise people will blame it on the input device, or their system hardware, or just plain think it's a buggy or poorly designed game. I think that winds up making it a lot harder to pull off.
pjc50 4y ago
Reminds me of the extensive discussion of "animation cancelling" in Genshin Impact. You can't accelerate the start of an attack, but you can cancel the animation between that and the next one, and this is apparently quite important for some characters.
- hakmad 4y ago
  For Claymore characters it's usually quite helpful to hit either 3 or 4 times (I don't exactly remember) and then dash to the side to prevent waiting ages for the animation of the final attack to complete, otherwise you wouldn't be able to start attacking again.
- rednab 4y ago
  Genshin [borrowed that mechanic from/was inspired by] another genre, namely fighting games¹). And you got to admit, some (boss) fights in Genshin feel like they could come straight out of Soulcalibur. So yeah, leading animations can definitely be a fun and interesting gameplay element, especially if you throw in cancels. ¹) https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Cancel https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Cancel
danielvaughn 4y ago
For sure. From Software games are the antithesis of this rule and they work great. I love how you have to wait until the exact right time to dodge or block, otherwise the character will adjust their attack, just like in real life. The wind up animation turns the combat into a dance.
hakmad 4y ago
> Somewhere between a sluggish super smash bros and dark souls. Something with deep character state management and directional parrying / dodges. While it doesn't feature jumping and is a Metroidvania with some character customisation (not too deep though), Unworthy [0] is a pretty good fit for the 2D Dark Souls genre. The animations come out a lot quicker than the actual attack but they feel really heavy and powerful. A lot of people complain that it's relatively easy because you can just dodge/roll behind and enemy and smack them but I've found it to be fairly hard (I'm not good at these kinds of games but they're really fun :D). [0] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/613190/Unworthy/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/613190/Unworthy/
Pulcinella 4y ago
Out of This World/Another World and Flashback both have pretty heavy “animation priority” platforming. I like them, but they are rather sluggish to the point where they make Dark Souls look like Devil May Cry.

uxp100 4y ago

Prince of Persia is what I can think of that has (sometimes huge) wind up animations for jumping. And it feels ok once you get used to it, but really feels very different than any other platformer. But there is more than just a big animation there, I think the jumps are also quantized to a grid in some way, such that a range of button press timings will all result in the same on screen behavior.

oneoff786 4y ago
Yeah it’s the first type listed in the article. Prince of Persia has your location tracked discretely by fairly large tiles. The animation may suggest otherwise but your location isn’t actually smoothly tracked at all.
- uxp100 4y ago
  Ah right, with some particularly large tiles.
- AlecSchueler 4y ago
  See the first Tomb Raider also for a 3D version of this. She only ever moves by full tiles. Makes it quite cool once you get used to the grid as you can reason logically about certain jumps etc.
  - gzalo 4y ago
    Even the DOS version allows smooth continuous motion: https://youtu.be/EC_8ljpgySM?t=914 https://youtu.be/EC_8ljpgySM?t=914 Are you talking about the map elements is composed of elements aligned to a grid? It's likely that was done on purpose to simplify computing collisions
    - AlecSchueler 4y ago
      I'm not seeing the smooth continuous motion you're talking about in that video. Every motion leads to hear being placed onto a specific tile, she can never be between tiles. You can see the developer talking about the design in this video, as well as additional comparisons from the narrator on the PoP influence: https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY?t=2040 https://youtu.be/eeMFdrIrdZY?t=2040 Prince of Persia was one of the main influences in the game's mechanics and the grid system is an intentional emulation of the grid system from the earlier game. The animations are smooth but they are always tied to the grid.
      - gzalo 4y ago
        The climbing and jumping animations are tied to the grid. But not the walking ones. This is not what happens in other games like Prince of Persia or Oddworld. I agree that she is only in one tile at a time (her position is defined one position in the middle of both feet) But she doesn't just move by full tiles. You can perform step that are fractions of tiles, and combining that with the rotation angles (which are continuous), that must mean that you can be in any place of a specific tile (I.e, each square of the grid has infinite positions). Just tested it in TR1 demo, by rotating and walking backwards slowly, you can go to any place of the grid, and even have some feet in the air. See for example: https://imgur.com/a/0YLbV6C https://imgur.com/a/0YLbV6C
teddyh 4y ago
Both the movement and control scheme of Prince of Persia was copied exactly by a little-known 3D platformer called… Tomb Raider. It’s too bad that not many modern games follow these movement and control schemes, and odd too, since both games were hugely successful. Even Assassin’s Creed was originally envisioned as a Prince of Persia game, IIRC.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

makecheck 4y ago

Not limited to games, either; “pre-animation” makes regular software feel sluggish too. Having actions taken immediately is critical.

oneoff786 4y ago
For sure. It’s also worth noting you can do gameplay timing mechanics without locking behind animations. Many fighting games feature characters with charge archetypal control schemes where you need to hold certain inputs for a time but they don’t necessarily have any visible effect on the character while they’re held. But on the other hand some start up lag can make a game feel very tense which can be great. Elden ring subtly does this thing where bosses react to taking damage, so if you hit them with a light attack it will appear as though their attack patterns have no openings because they respond quickly. But in reality many of them are open for a good few seconds if you just wait and charge up a satisfying blow. Not many good examples of start up jumping lag… maybe… SSX Tricky comes to mind?
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  I think the biggest thing with start up lag on animations is that it has to be communicated very clearly to the player that it's happening, and have a reason to happen. Otherwise people will blame it on the input device, or their system hardware, or just plain think it's a buggy or poorly designed game. I think that winds up making it a lot harder to pull off.

pjc50 4y ago

Reminds me of the extensive discussion of "animation cancelling" in Genshin Impact. You can't accelerate the start of an attack, but you can cancel the animation between that and the next one, and this is apparently quite important for some characters.

hakmad 4y ago
For Claymore characters it's usually quite helpful to hit either 3 or 4 times (I don't exactly remember) and then dash to the side to prevent waiting ages for the animation of the final attack to complete, otherwise you wouldn't be able to start attacking again.
rednab 4y ago
Genshin [borrowed that mechanic from/was inspired by] another genre, namely fighting games¹). And you got to admit, some (boss) fights in Genshin feel like they could come straight out of Soulcalibur. So yeah, leading animations can definitely be a fun and interesting gameplay element, especially if you throw in cancels. ¹) https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Cancel https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Cancel

danielvaughn 4y ago

For sure. From Software games are the antithesis of this rule and they work great. I love how you have to wait until the exact right time to dodge or block, otherwise the character will adjust their attack, just like in real life. The wind up animation turns the combat into a dance.

hakmad 4y ago

> Somewhere between a sluggish super smash bros and dark souls. Something with deep character state management and directional parrying / dodges. While it doesn't feature jumping and is a Metroidvania with some character customisation (not too deep though), Unworthy [0] is a pretty good fit for the 2D Dark Souls genre. The animations come out a lot quicker than the actual attack but they feel really heavy and powerful. A lot of people complain that it's relatively easy because you can just dodge/roll behind and enemy and smack them but I've found it to be fairly hard (I'm not good at these kinds of games but they're really fun :D). [0] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/613190/Unworthy/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/613190/Unworthy/

Pulcinella 4y ago

Out of This World/Another World and Flashback both have pretty heavy “animation priority” platforming. I like them, but they are rather sluggish to the point where they make Dark Souls look like Devil May Cry.