Doing FG engines right the first time

#1

Because FGs are mostly made in Japan, and Japanese devs are still getting used to the concept of middleware, every game reinvents wheels and does it badly. I mean, can anyone explain to me why they think the button-check-round-required style of button map UI is acceptable, when we have the press-to-map UIs already in several games as an example of best practice?

Really, if you think about it, 80% of a 2D FG is identical to every other FG. Menus, netcode, control mapping, replays, matchmaking, sprite rendering, backgrounds maps, etc. And its not like 2D FGs are really pushing the envelope in graphics performance.

In FPS land, we’ve seen how games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 are partly technology demos to show off their engine, which is licensed to other game devs. Companies only roll their own engine if they need some cutting edge feature or are too cheap/poor to buy middleware.

There’s no reason this cant happen with FGs too. Imagine a FG engine that ticks all the boxes - cross platform compatible, GGPO/Supercade netcode, good button mapping UI, proper lobbies and matchmaking, replays, easy scripting language, etc etc. Heck, GGPO/Supercade themselves are halfway there already - just bolt on a modern 2D game engine instead of an emulator.

Every time a western developer makes a FG, be it SF2HD Remix, MK, or Skullgirls, and fails to create such an engine for their game (and then sell it to others), its a terrible crime against, I dunno, engineering.

I hope one day a FG developer would wake up and see the light.
Or maybe I’ll write it myself. But first I’m doing an RTS :stuck_out_tongue:

(oh, and inb4 mugen comparison.)

#2

skullgirls engine is not a fighting game engine for the matters, mike already explained how his engine works and how he used it to make a fighting game, he also said that you can pretty much do other type of games besides 2d, its a 3d engine after all, and that if people is willing to to buy a lisence then fine, he will sell it

another thing is that from what i have observed japanese developers usually like to use their own stuff with some exceptions of course, hence why you dont see them selling their engines or other companies trying to buy them, plus some of the companies behind the fighting games, are small and probably see as their best interest, making their owns stuff instead of buying a lisence
one last thing is that we dont know if those developers would sell or not their engines, since so far we dont know if someone has tried it

btw mk9 uses unreal engine 3

#3

Well, thats positive. Hopefully we’ll get more games based on the SG engine then, and we can stop complaining about bad netcode :slight_smile:

MK uses unreal for their rendering, but they would have done the FG specific parts themselves. How is their UI? I vaguely recall it still had the “bad” style of button mapping? What about the other parts of the UI?

#4

on that note, i dont know if ggpo is part of the engine, or that is an aggregated module used specificly for skullgirls

they used ue3 for more than the rendering, maybe the only part of mk that wasnt made using ue3 is the netcode

#5

I’ve been trying to make a dream 2D engine like this. 2.5d to be exact, but I have yet to complete it. At least it’s teaching me the entire process behind it. I haven’t worked on the actual mechanics, UI, and netcode yet due to how time consuming it is…

#6

you mean any joe blow will be able to turn his furry mu-

aw fuck

#7

Good luck! Personally I would focus on:

  • getting a scripting engine in there, so others can easily make games asap.
  • investigating rollcaster, its the only rollback netcode with source available.
  • getting a simple engine polished and usuable asap. features can come later.
  • as with the previous point, UI functions, menus, tools, etc.
  • basic 2D hitboxes, physics, collisions.
  • 2D sprites based on mapping textures onto a 3D flat square. Just as a starting point / placeholder.

The actual game can just be a placeholder for now - have 2 stick figure characters doing basic pre-SF2 gameplay :wink: