I'm designing a dream platform fighter for fun, and I'm brainstorming about weapon mechanics

[Bean Yak]

Discussin time? Hypothetically, I'm wasting my time designing a standalone, dream platform fighter a la melee, where I fantasize that I can actually code this when I get older, sell millions, and make nice competitive fighter. I've been designing characters, and I'm conflicted: should weapons be prevalent, or should few characters have weapons, like in smash? It's an important question, I think, because in most of smash, there are like 1/5 of characters with weapons, and when the character has a weapon the hitboxes are seperated from the hurtboxes. If more characters had disjointed hitboxes due to weapons, how much does that change up the gameplay and balance?

I was thinking of weapons from swords to staves to daggers to nunchaku, so not every character would have marth's range. Still, with weapons, most characters would have a decent amount of disjointed hitboxes.

 

[Grizzmeister]

You should make your platform fighter the spiritual successor to the old arcade game Joust. Your characters would be knights carrying lances riding giant flying ostriches. So yeah, it'd be weapons based but different enough from traditional fighters and Melee clones to stand out. Here's a picture to get your creative juices flowing and to help you establish a design aesthetic.

 

[Aninymouse]

I've done projects like these my whole life, @ Bean Yak . Each and every time I plan out a game or story or whatever, I start to realize towards the end, "wow, I have wasted my life." I look on most of it now with contempt.

Maybe you're a different kind of person, I dunno, but my advice is not to do this unless you are actively taking steps in your life to pursue a career in game design.

 

[Bean Yak]

I've done projects like these my whole life, @ Bean Yak . Each and every time I plan out a game or story or whatever, I start to realize towards the end, "wow, I have wasted my life." I look on most of it now with contempt...

Like I said, it's for fun

 

[Grizzmeister]

Why don't you make a brand new fighting game featuring Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom posse and then submit it to Nintendo? Here's my suggestion.


Super Mario Kendo

What happens when Mario and friends take to the dojo to practice their wooden sword fighting skills? Well whacky hijinks in the form of Super Mario Kendo, of course.

Picture the game as kind of like Bushido Blade but with a much less violent and much more whimsical approach. The game would feature the traditional tried and true Nintendo formula of being easy to pick up and play while at the same time offering deep meta-strategies which would keep the game interesting to more skilled players. This is a game that would probably work well with either Motion Controls or the GameCube pad so Nintendo would probably love it.