Weekly report Oct 3/4, 2024

Hello everyone! Thank you as always for your support.
Let's take a look at this week's progress!

Sorry for the delay. This time, I had to redo parts of the main game system as much of the work was related to the overall game flow.

download it from here. The new password is "XePbBk6gwPy4B8g".

# Pause Menu

This week, I revamped the pause menu.

Now, you can configure the volume settings and key configurations.

Upon reviewing the current menu system code, I found it unnecessarily complex and convoluted. So, I created a new system with a simpler structure.

Using the lessons from past failures, I didn’t rebuild everything but instead focused on only revamping the pause menu as a test.

As a result, I was able to make it more user-friendly in a short time.

Feeling overconfident, I started organizing the game objects in the main game scene.

This led to changes in the rendering order and an explosion of null reference errors, breaking the game.

I cried.

Crying doesn't solve anything (especially since I caused the issue myself).

Since Practice Mode was still functioning correctly, I decided to focus on completing the CPU settings work first.

After finishing that, I steadily fixed the bugs by checking the scenes one by one, and I managed to get it done.

Since this was something I’d have needed to do sooner or later, I’m chalking it up as a blessing in disguise.

# Practice Menu

You can now toggle various UI displays in the UI display menu.

In the CPU & Gauge Menu, you can set the gauge status and control CPU behavior.

To implement this, a more precise system for specifying character actions was necessary.

The current state system had many black-boxed areas, and like the menu system, it was complex and redundant.

Adding new elements like Guard Break and Armor made things unmanageable.

In particular, I completely messed up the counter detection, and it wasn’t functioning properly.

Thus, I had to extensively rewrite the main hit detection code for attacks.

Additionally, I’ve added a new feature: Position Reset.

There are no instructions for it in the game, but pressing the Select button will reset you to the starting position.

Originally, I wanted to combine it with the D-pad so that you could switch positions with the opponent or move to the screen's edge, but with the current input system, this would be difficult.

Since I had already done major revisions to the hit detection and menu systems, I decided to skip this feature for now.

However, the next task involves input system work, so I plan to implement it then.

# Practice Features and Patents

Actually, many of the mechanics in fighting games that handle actions on a frame-by-frame basis are patented by Capcom Co., Ltd.

Because of this, fighting games that don’t have permission from them tend to obscure the concept of frames in gameplay.

While it would be incredibly convenient to see startup frames and recovery frames for each action, I can’t implement that openly.

It might even be prohibited to display hitboxes.

While I plan to hide these features for the public release, I’ll sneak them in during development.

# Newly Needed Work

- No knockback occurs when the wall-side character attacks

- If a throw hits during movement other than walking, the character’s coordinates get messed up

- Key config for Player 2 isn’t working correctly

- Position Reset feature

# Next (This Week’s) Plans

- Finish the October comic (if I don’t finish it, feel free to kill me)

- Review the key input system

- Implement key input recording/replay features

(If these can’t be done, I’ll push them to November)

- Find a narrator

- Counter animations

- Command list

- Skip cutscene feature

That's all for this week. Thanks to everyone's support, we can continue development! Much appreciation.
Have a great weekend!