First game I think of is injustice, and I think that game works with a variety of characters because of the focus in their combos, so I would recommend maybe re-vamping your player combat system so each character has different combos each ranging in complexity
I think more variety in the environment is cool, like cooler rooms instead of just plain gray bricks, rooms that serve purposes like a kitchen or a library, also add obstacles
I've been thinking about that a lot. Even if it's not as extreme as that, something like Nuclear throne where the walls and enemies are different based on the area you're in, might be something I do. 🤔 But I've given myself a 1 month deadline, so we'll see what I can manage to squeeze in. 😅
@@HelperWesley in this BenBonk video he just adds like 6 or 7 random grass tiles and it makes a huge different, could be good for inspiration (and a lightweight solution to adding some depth to the environment) :) th-cam.com/video/WzmYQ-Huaq0/w-d-xo.html
the "crap, why didn't I think of that" is exactly why you should playtest. its so easy to think you see it all, but when you're solo, you probably don't.
Risk Of Rain 2 is a roguelike I've been playing a ton of lately where every class feels not only unique but also fun to play, whenever I play any other game with classes I always choose one class and only use that one class till the end of time but with Risk Of Rain even with the classes that feel a bit weaker than the others (though the balance in that game is incredible too) you're constantly switching between them run to run and enjoying each one just as much.
For better hit detection (to prevent wall glitching for example), instead of just checking every frame to see if a player is currently colliding with an object, also check if the space in between the current and previous frame had collided with a wall, since the only way to get from one frame to the next is to travel linearly.
Your game is very cool! For the question you asked, i’d say The Binding of Isacc. That’s because every character has not only unique stats, but also unique mechanics that make you play almost completly differently with each of them. Good luck! 😄
something I want to note with TBoI- I would take more inspiration from the tainted characters, not the normal ones. for instance, maggy, judas, and isaac all feel pretty different at the beginning og the playthrough, but just 3 levels in, and theyre basically all the same. a lot of characters have different starting stats and items, but blend together later on in the run. this is only an issue for some characters though, as pretty much all the tainted characters, and some of the normal characters that were added in later (ie. lost or keeper) are plenty unique.
For the enemy room spawning, I wouldn't shrink the spawn radius in the room as a whole but would just take which door the player will be coming from and spawn away from that. This is coming along great though!
Man, some great progress. Nice to see how the community is helping with your dev. Slay the Spire for unique characters, think that might be a pretty obvious one. Can't wait to see the next chunk of progress. Awesome stuff.
Thanks. 🙏 I haven't played slay the spire to be honest, only seen videos on it, so I don't know it's characters very well. It's another one on the ever growing list of games I want to try out. 😅
The first game that comes to mind with different unique characters is Nuclear Throne. I loved that game and the different selections of characters that made each run feel different.
For the glitching through walls at low framerates, the trick is not to check where they are on the frame, but calculating where they traveled between frames, and seeing if that collides with anything, and setting their position to where they collide. So that way, if they have a low enough frame rate that they can move further then the check area, you can calculate that they passed through the collision, and stop that.
Not an action game (it's a single-player card roguelike), but Pirates Outlaws has a really interesting roster with almost every character feeling completely different and changing how you play.
Although they aren't "characters", I was replaying Ridge Racer recently and I like how the care classes are set up. Each car has 4 stats, each with a range of 0-8 in each stat: acceleration, handling, grip, and maximum speed which the game displays as a diamond spider-web graph. You could have each character have stats for stuff like overall speed, knockback taken, damage taken, dash distance, i-frame length, friction (maybe stronger characters are more slippery), reload speed. Multiple factors could even be lumped into a single stat; a stat like "bulk" could determine speed, knockback taken and more. You could also give them each a unique dash power/ability instead of, or in conjuction with stats, like a dash that lets you dash in two directions, or a teleporting dash, or a dash that emits poison gas that harms and stuns enemies, a dash that harms and scatters enemies by dashing into them, stuff like that. different characters can get specialized equipment, weapons, and abilities that compliment their stats or personality.
Yo. Pretty cool progress all round. About the devlogs, assume that your viewers have never seen any of your videos before. Great reminder + helps building an audience. That means: 2 sentence introduction of what your game is about, where it is roughly (the last time it was this, now it's that isn't really enough to make me understand what's going on) I think if you just do this in the next devlogs, you'd notice a difference for not that much more effort than making your current vids. Keep going! :)
I think for the last question slay the spire is the answer for me each class had 2-3 main mechanics and then you could build your own deck on top of that like the first one which has strength and armour as it’s main synergies
Enter the Gungeon's characters each have a diffrent passive when staring the game (like damage boost when hit or bonus shield health per floor ect.). So maybe some kind of unique passive or starting with an upgrade would diversify the cast?
Great video! It's always a good(but scary) experience when others test your game. Also, a game with a variety of playable characters is Sonic Adventure. All the characters are made off of the same base, but have one or two abilities that make them unique.
Always very scary when play testers get in and start doing things you didn't expect them to. 😅 I'd totally forgotten about Sonic's cast of characters, they definitely play completely differently. 👀
For characters here's some basic concepts you can use if u want : * doing more damage while having less health * doing less damage while having more health * being faster but shooting slower * being slower but having 2 dashes * a character being blind or just wearing an eye patch so you can only see 1/2 of the screen you are facing towards ( only for players that want a challenge or you can use it to unlock certain weapons or perks u do u) *a melee guy so he only weird an axe / sword / mallet and maybe has a shield that can deflect projectiles on a cooldown *a mage but he still uses a gun shoots fiery bullets(takes longer to shoot but once he shoots and if he hits his enemies does .burning damage) *stealth character that instead of dashing can turn invisible for 3-4 seconds and not be targeted for that duration be enemies so she can get behind them and backstab I guess. *a guy that has a pet that helps would be funny (if you like had to dodge with the main guy with the arrow keys because he can't shoot while simultaneously using the mouse for the pet movement to attack) That's all I can think of and now I have to go study for exams gl with the game, hope you can use some of this stuff if any at all.
Something I noticed immediately which I would change is that the movement feels kind of slidey. Not like you're on ice, you can turn around fine and everything, it just doesn't quite feel like you're walking. I think it's partly that the animation of the legs isn't very visible but adding a walking sound effect would probably fix it.
20 seconds till dawn has some interesting abilities that change the way you want to play. For instance some have an ability that procs with high rate of fire, incentivising high rate vs high damage. Others benefit more from summons while others still want big damage numbers.
One of the favorite games I played with different characters was Pyre, a game made by the same studio as Hades. Each character has a unique ability and different stats you can upgrade over the course of the game, which makes swapping between each character almost feel like a completely different game. For example, my favorite character is Rukey, a noble and nimble dog. He is the most mobile character, being able to zip through the map and evade enemies while efficiently scoring goals, but is poor at defense and eliminating the enemy team. Where he lacks in defense, Jodarial, a massive imposing demon, more than makes up for it as she is an incredible defender that can take out enemies and guard goals like nobody's business, but is overall poor at scoring goals and making quick offensive plays
I'm a sucker for Team Fortress 2's variety of characters. Movement abilities have always been a strong selling point for me and in that game you have the ability to shoot behind you to launch, lay traps to send you in a direction, double jump with increase base speed, and one of my favorites is "damage surfing" (the ability to take the explosives shot by enemies and control your own movement to take advantage of the knockback) I have no idea how this would play into your game :p but figured I should add one of my favorites to the list of comments
@@HelperWesley I urge you to play Risk of Rain 2. Not only would it be great reference material for your game, but it is also seriously one of the most fun games I have ever played and you would LOVE it!
Hades doesn't have "characters" but its essentially the same as classes. Hades has a ton of difference in how each weapon feels to play with for the entire run. Enter the gungeon, however, has a few characters that play differently at the start of the run, but once you get going they start unifying because you choose new weapons and such. Depending on what you're trying to go for, either way could work!
@@HelperWesley I think this is a strength for Gungeon. I get to have variety in the beginning, and choose my own path late game. If I want to do something whacky late game, I can because it's in my power. If I want the best build in the game, I can do that. In a game like Hades (ignoring the upgrades for a moment), I have to make a big decision up front which dictates how my run will mainly go. Both can be good depending on what you're trying to achieve
I think for the people who want to play it on extra hard mode make a character that has 1 health but has a sheild that breaks after 1 hit and gets half a second of invincibility when it does. After it breaks make it replenish after maybe 30-60 seconds.
In the past, you've mentioned how you like the "between-run progression" to be story driven and not upgrade driven (like Hades) which I think is great! It would be really neat if each of the characters had a quick three part story or something that you can unlock by doing multiple runs with them. Maybe that could be linked into the unique trait of each character? Maybe they don't get the special ability unless you finish their story, or maybe it gets marginally better by completing their story.
I love the idea, I cringe at the thought of implementing it. 😅 I'm going to add that to the "would be nice to have" list, and see if I can get to it at some point. I do love when there are little story bits dropped as you progress. I just finished playing children of morta, and that's exactly how that game works. It has upgrades and things, but that's just to keep up with enemies, the thing that keeps you going is the story in between runs.
Awesome to see you implementing changes from your play tests. Always a crucial part of a games development. As for unique characters. I'd say Team Fortress 2 does that very well. Each character is unique in both look, personality and play style.
For my Answer to the question, I'd say my answer would be Nuclear Throne. Each character has a passive and an active ability, and two of them have different max health compared to the others. While the default max hp is 8, Crystal has 10, and Melting has 4 hp. Despite Melting being very weak, they're balanced really well.
Games with unique characters I think are done really well: enter the gungeon, deep rock galactic, and tf2. Although two are 3D they definitely can apply to 2d games
Nuclear Throne does a good job at making characters have their own playstyles. They have stuff that sounds ridiculously OP on paper like Crystal's shield + 8 extra max HP with her ultra mut, Chicken's ability to revive if you can get a medkit in time, Melting literally nuking the entire screen constantly with no cost of ammo or cooldown at all, etc. But it all balances out because the enemies are OP on paper as well. This is good because it allows you to get the fullest out of the characters' playstyles and they actually feel different. Wait how did this comment become a wall of text so quickly
Regarding characters: I liked the classes of Destiny with the different abilities (jumping, gliding, barriers when ability is loaded up etc.). Game looks fun, keep up the good work!
the way wall clipping maybe can be fixed is just by removing the collision check and leave the "separate objects" action in a box that as empty conditions, Then it always tries to push the player off the wall, but never when they arent in collision with eachother, and this wont cause lag either since there is only a single player sprite! :D
Hollow knight. There’s quirrel, who helps you beat the game and is a friendly and positive guy. There’s hornet, who comes off as stern and a bit mean but she still is a valuable asset to the game. There’s also zote, who is a comic relief character. And there’s some characters who need saving.
You need to make the combat more satisfying! Right now, the you don't get much feedback when you shoot at an enemy. Try adding: Hit flash, more particles, better sound effects. Stuff like that! Also, some footstep sounds would be nice!
Nomad Survivals... That games has lot of unique characters... i love the one that lost they own movement but become ivunerable and does some damage time to time
animal crossing: new leaf, all of the character characters are very expressive and fundamental have a social system and a daily routine (which you probably won't need). they all felt very human, they could be your enemy or your best friend depending on how you active to them which I think would be very interesting to see in a roguelite game like yours.
Diablo's character choices where always fun. Something else that came to mind was Golden Axe. I'd say using existing boosts as base's for character variation is a good start. 1 that starts off with a speed boost, 1 starts with armour boost etc.
I was going to say rooms should be smaller to feel less empty, but actually I think you should have different room sizes not only it is less repetitive for the player, some enemies would mechanically profit from tighter spaces
while looking at the "hub" of the game, I get vibes of maze runner. so, I am wondering if you can add some survival aspects like: 1. resources (stones, gems, books, meat etc)which you can use in-between runs to add advantage 2. retrieve missions from NPCs like: bring this and that 3. if you can make the "hub" morphable through buildings I believe this idea can flow into this quite nicely
I have found that once you get all of the upgrades, getting more points feel meaningless. Sooo.... maybe that will be the way I could go with that. 🤔 Revita has an excellent cosmetic system for the base area, which encourages you to blow in game points to add light posts and other pieces of furniture.
I think the best way to have different characters is for them to be just slightly differently but still useful in their own ways like in mario Luigi jumps a lil bit higher but is more slippery
A game called soul Knight, its a mobile game which i really enjoyed since the abilities were balanced with the upgrades you could take. I loved some of the upgrades, so you could also look into them
I dont know the dash mechanic, but cant you jsut dash constantly to avoid all damage? Or is there a recovery phase betweend dashes? If not then a stamina meter for the dashes could do. As long as there is a bit of stamina you can dash, but when it is depleted fully, it recovers slower and you cannot dash at all until full recovery
There's a recovery phase between dashes, it's brief, but there. With spikes and so many things flying around in different rooms, dashing constantly can end up with you running in to other things while trying to avoid something else. So I'm pretty happy with how that works.(Just not the whole, breaking the game by dashing through the wall thing.😅)
You could give your characters the elemental powers, like earth/wind for the naked crazy jungle guy, water/ice for the focused girl, electricity for the robot (duh) and fire for the demon. Or you could create a storyline
also one of the best characters from "it takes two" where each character completes the other in each chapter and each playthrough with a different character (may or Cody) felt like a very unique experience, and if you want to try the game out -my wishing you have friends instead of being forced to play with my younger siblings- Also the classic RPG states "mage, attacker, defender, etc" is the best I've tried so far, game examples: Omori, deltarune. -Also- maybe different shooting points? (cuphead is the best examples for shooting guns)
To make characters different from each other, I like games that take one of their main mechanics, and then just say "but what if we did the complete opposite of that?" There's the Inventor in Dicey Dungeons, that in a game with permanent equipments decides to just throw away random equipment after every fight. There's Tainted Magdalene in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, whose main gameplay is running face-first into enemies and taking damage, which of course would never be a working strategy for any other character. There's Agon in Brutal Orchestra that has more HP than every other character combined, but can never be healed. There's the Horror in Nuclear Throne that uses its own experience points as ammunition. But then again, even something like stats can be a meaningful difference between characters if those are stats that you can't just upgrade inside the run itself with other characters, and leave a big enough impact on the gameplay.
I don't know how this would be, but I think the robot could be like mul-t from risk of rain 2. Could make the robot slower (around 75 or 70), but make the gun fire faster than the base gun. Also could be a little tankier and have an extra health point. There can be a glass cannon archetype where the player dies in 1 hit or 2, but make them STRONG can have a shotgun that shoots 3 to 5 pellets randomly. I think this can be fun and over powered to VERY experienced players
Vampire Survivor is really good with picking characters before you play. They all start with different weapons and stat boosts which changes up gameplay and can make it feel less repetitive 👍🏻
tboi has a lot of characters tho i don't think they would work with leaderboard (perhaps multiple leaderboards like one global and one per character?). but i think that a character like T-lost that really hard but (theoretically) rewarding if you're skillful enough could be cool
Soulknight (best character is rouge, be sure to dodge roll every time before you shoot and switch weapons each shot [btw you can only dodge roll as rouge, and the game is pay to win but it doesn't really matter since you can get rouge as a free to play])
here are some stat change ideas, similarly, in enter the gungeon, they have different guns and passive/active abilities! gun dude: basic, but maybe a faster shooting gun compared to every other character robot: robot should have a charge shooting type gun, possibly? if you are looking for items then maybe some sorta electricity attack that chains would be unique, also with one extra health than other characters starting off gun dudette: similar to gun dude but has a shotgun maybe rather than a faster shooting gun other character idk the name of: the weird alien thing lol, should have maybe a fast shooting pistol with a general speed buff
Only games i can think of is enter the gungeon, the bindi g of isaac and if you count a weapon class as a character choice then terraria is really good at that
A game that is kind of similar to this that I would recommend is Enter The Gungeon, it's a bullet hell rouge like that has most enemies based on bullets and guns
If you are going to give each character advantages and disadvantages than keep the first one as it is so if a player will want just a normal character he could choose it
Borderlands had unique characters with tweaked stats and each had a unique ability on a cooldown timer? You could have a heavy area of affect move, slow time, berserk that i can think of that would all be very easy and quick to code in to fit in your time window
Oh yeah, I hadn't played borderlands in a while, but that's definitely a good example of characters that are mechanically similar with some abilities tacked on. 👍 I hadn't thought about a slow time effect. 🤔Maybe that would be a neat one.
to find ideas in 2D games, id say "The Binding of Isaac", but if you wanna check also 3D games for ideas, you can check either "Risk of Rain 2", or "Warframe".
I'd say Dead Cells. Although, it's the same character, the weapon variety adds a totally fresh experience, the fact that weapons could be combined in various ways also allowed players to develop their own tactics when defeating bosses and enemies. Mine were the spartan boots and nutcracker😅 Another example I could think of that had unique character variety and stats would still be enter the dungeon although it was a more simple approach. :-) Looking forward to playing this again and hopefully crushing the leaderboard.😁
New to the channel so I have no history but I gotta ask, was this game based on James Doyle's "Learn to make a Rogue Like Game" class on Udemy? The resemblance is striking. Of course... a Rogue like bullet hell game can only have so many "looks".
Nope, I made the base game over the weekend to make my own tutorial for work, and then I just started building on it from there. But I'm not surprised they look similar, if we both originally built our games to mimic other games for tutorials, that makes sense. 😅
In the Venn Diagram between games with unique-feeling characters, games I play, and games whose character mechanics overlap in any way with this roguelite is a single game: HoloCure. Which you've probably heard of if you're familiar with VTubers or Vampire Survivor, and have almost certainly played if you're familiar with both.
@@HelperWesley As someone with a few hundreds of hours on that game I must say - yeah, they do. If I remember correctly, there is like 19 normal characters + 4 legendary ones. Normal characters can be earned via achievements, ingame currency, or for some real money (1-2 euros). Legendary ones are characters that you must craft at first and then there is some probability that they will spawn in your lobby sou you can pick them for your run. And about stats and weapons - there is health, armor, energy (used to fire weapons), and skill (like double damage for some time, invincibility etc ... just examples), each character have different stats that suits their playstyle and each character have their own unique starting weapon, but that dont really matter because in Soul Knight there is like 400 weapons (yeah, really, and some of them are really funny, like that one really long sword named "40m long blade" lol) so you are changing that starter one as soon as you find better one during the game. Hope this might give you some ideas and inspiration
I still believe the game lacks enough unique floors, biomes and enemies that fit those unique biomes with more impactful visual response from killing enemies Along with alternative bosses would be amazing and items to increase replay ability making every run feel unique. I feel like tiny rogues does this very well
I would take inspiration from gungeon when designing characters. Most of them have something unique for the early game and something for the late game.
I think that some of the Yakuza games have pretty good playable characters with their own special properties, like one of them is slower, but higher damage and health, and then another character is way faster but does little to no damage and has low health.
Cool video, one question though, why release it onto newgrounds? I’m new to game development so I’m just curious on why not to release it to maybe itch, crazy games, or even steam?
I'll be honest, it's a personal score I want to settle. I keep getting silver trophies on Newgrounds, so I wanted to drop something big there to finally get the gold one. Some great devs from the early Newgrounds Era that have successful indie games released today, have gold trophies, and I want to be part of the "cool kid club". 😅 But..... If the game does really well, I'll likely come back and work on it more to make it a commercial release.
@@TheTragicTruth No. 😅 I've tried a couple of times to make it, but it's scope keeps getting away from me. This is just a fun game I'm enjoying working on.
@@HelperWesley understandable, I thought this was your dream game, which is why I had so much confusion on why you were uploading it onto newgrounds, hopefully it gets the gold metal! Once it’s released I’ll go support it!
Please comment with the name of a game with a variety of great playable characters. 🙏
Binding of isaac
soul knight
brotato maybe
Risk of Rain 2
First game I think of is injustice, and I think that game works with a variety of characters because of the focus in their combos, so I would recommend maybe re-vamping your player combat system so each character has different combos each ranging in complexity
I think more variety in the environment is cool, like cooler rooms instead of just plain gray bricks, rooms that serve purposes like a kitchen or a library, also add obstacles
I've been thinking about that a lot.
Even if it's not as extreme as that, something like Nuclear throne where the walls and enemies are different based on the area you're in, might be something I do. 🤔
But I've given myself a 1 month deadline, so we'll see what I can manage to squeeze in. 😅
@@HelperWesley in this BenBonk video he just adds like 6 or 7 random grass tiles and it makes a huge different, could be good for inspiration (and a lightweight solution to adding some depth to the environment) :) th-cam.com/video/WzmYQ-Huaq0/w-d-xo.html
For game with a variety of characters look at Valerent or Overwach notice that every character has special abilities.
the "crap, why didn't I think of that" is exactly why you should playtest. its so easy to think you see it all, but when you're solo, you probably don't.
Exactly!
Risk Of Rain 2 is a roguelike I've been playing a ton of lately where every class feels not only unique but also fun to play, whenever I play any other game with classes I always choose one class and only use that one class till the end of time but with Risk Of Rain even with the classes that feel a bit weaker than the others (though the balance in that game is incredible too) you're constantly switching between them run to run and enjoying each one just as much.
For better hit detection (to prevent wall glitching for example), instead of just checking every frame to see if a player is currently colliding with an object, also check if the space in between the current and previous frame had collided with a wall, since the only way to get from one frame to the next is to travel linearly.
Your game is very cool! For the question you asked, i’d say The Binding of Isacc. That’s because every character has not only unique stats, but also unique mechanics that make you play almost completly differently with each of them.
Good luck! 😄
something I want to note with TBoI- I would take more inspiration from the tainted characters, not the normal ones. for instance, maggy, judas, and isaac all feel pretty different at the beginning og the playthrough, but just 3 levels in, and theyre basically all the same. a lot of characters have different starting stats and items, but blend together later on in the run. this is only an issue for some characters though, as pretty much all the tainted characters, and some of the normal characters that were added in later (ie. lost or keeper) are plenty unique.
For the enemy room spawning, I wouldn't shrink the spawn radius in the room as a whole but would just take which door the player will be coming from and spawn away from that. This is coming along great though!
nuclear throne has some unique characters with different abilities that I really like. It's also a rouge-like so I guess it gets extra points.
The idea of an enemy just walking away on you is absolutely hilarious and would be nice as a one-off gag at some point.
Man, some great progress. Nice to see how the community is helping with your dev. Slay the Spire for unique characters, think that might be a pretty obvious one. Can't wait to see the next chunk of progress. Awesome stuff.
Thanks. 🙏
I haven't played slay the spire to be honest, only seen videos on it, so I don't know it's characters very well. It's another one on the ever growing list of games I want to try out. 😅
The first game that comes to mind with different unique characters is Nuclear Throne. I loved that game and the different selections of characters that made each run feel different.
For the glitching through walls at low framerates, the trick is not to check where they are on the frame, but calculating where they traveled between frames, and seeing if that collides with anything, and setting their position to where they collide.
So that way, if they have a low enough frame rate that they can move further then the check area, you can calculate that they passed through the collision, and stop that.
Yeah, I was thinking of doing something along those lines. 👍
Not an action game (it's a single-player card roguelike), but Pirates Outlaws has a really interesting roster with almost every character feeling completely different and changing how you play.
Although they aren't "characters", I was replaying Ridge Racer recently and I like how the care classes are set up. Each car has 4 stats, each with a range of 0-8 in each stat: acceleration, handling, grip, and maximum speed which the game displays as a diamond spider-web graph. You could have each character have stats for stuff like overall speed, knockback taken, damage taken, dash distance, i-frame length, friction (maybe stronger characters are more slippery), reload speed. Multiple factors could even be lumped into a single stat; a stat like "bulk" could determine speed, knockback taken and more. You could also give them each a unique dash power/ability instead of, or in conjuction with stats, like a dash that lets you dash in two directions, or a teleporting dash, or a dash that emits poison gas that harms and stuns enemies, a dash that harms and scatters enemies by dashing into them, stuff like that. different characters can get specialized equipment, weapons, and abilities that compliment their stats or personality.
That's great, you're getting closer and closer to release.
Closer to release, tighter schedule, and more corners to cut. 😅
@@HelperWesley gotta get that thing out 😆
"How underrated do you want this to be?" Him: yes.
😅
Yo. Pretty cool progress all round.
About the devlogs, assume that your viewers have never seen any of your videos before. Great reminder + helps building an audience.
That means: 2 sentence introduction of what your game is about, where it is roughly (the last time it was this, now it's that isn't really enough to make me understand what's going on)
I think if you just do this in the next devlogs, you'd notice a difference for not that much more effort than making your current vids.
Keep going! :)
I think for the last question slay the spire is the answer for me each class had 2-3 main mechanics and then you could build your own deck on top of that like the first one which has strength and armour as it’s main synergies
Enter the Gungeon's characters each have a diffrent passive when staring the game (like damage boost when hit or bonus shield health per floor ect.). So maybe some kind of unique passive or starting with an upgrade would diversify the cast?
Great video! It's always a good(but scary) experience when others test your game. Also, a game with a variety of playable characters is Sonic Adventure. All the characters are made off of the same base, but have one or two abilities that make them unique.
Always very scary when play testers get in and start doing things you didn't expect them to. 😅
I'd totally forgotten about Sonic's cast of characters, they definitely play completely differently. 👀
For characters here's some basic concepts you can use if u want :
* doing more damage while having less health
* doing less damage while having more health
* being faster but shooting slower
* being slower but having 2 dashes
* a character being blind or just wearing an eye patch so you can only see 1/2 of the screen you are facing towards ( only for players that want a challenge or you can use it to unlock certain weapons or perks u do u)
*a melee guy so he only weird an axe / sword / mallet and maybe has a shield that can deflect projectiles on a cooldown
*a mage but he still uses a gun shoots fiery bullets(takes longer to shoot but once he shoots and if he hits his enemies does .burning damage)
*stealth character that instead of dashing can turn invisible for 3-4 seconds and not be targeted for that duration be enemies so she can get behind them and backstab I guess.
*a guy that has a pet that helps would be funny (if you like had to dodge with the main guy with the arrow keys because he can't shoot while simultaneously using the mouse for the pet movement to attack)
That's all I can think of and now I have to go study for exams gl with the game, hope you can use some of this stuff if any at all.
Something I noticed immediately which I would change is that the movement feels kind of slidey. Not like you're on ice, you can turn around fine and everything, it just doesn't quite feel like you're walking. I think it's partly that the animation of the legs isn't very visible but adding a walking sound effect would probably fix it.
20 seconds till dawn has some interesting abilities that change the way you want to play. For instance some have an ability that procs with high rate of fire, incentivising high rate vs high damage. Others benefit more from summons while others still want big damage numbers.
One of the favorite games I played with different characters was Pyre, a game made by the same studio as Hades. Each character has a unique ability and different stats you can upgrade over the course of the game, which makes swapping between each character almost feel like a completely different game.
For example, my favorite character is Rukey, a noble and nimble dog. He is the most mobile character, being able to zip through the map and evade enemies while efficiently scoring goals, but is poor at defense and eliminating the enemy team. Where he lacks in defense, Jodarial, a massive imposing demon, more than makes up for it as she is an incredible defender that can take out enemies and guard goals like nobody's business, but is overall poor at scoring goals and making quick offensive plays
I've played Bastion and watched enough on Hades to claim I've played it, but I haven't given pyre much thought before. I'll check it out. 👍
I'm a sucker for Team Fortress 2's variety of characters. Movement abilities have always been a strong selling point for me and in that game you have the ability to shoot behind you to launch, lay traps to send you in a direction, double jump with increase base speed, and one of my favorites is "damage surfing" (the ability to take the explosives shot by enemies and control your own movement to take advantage of the knockback)
I have no idea how this would play into your game :p but figured I should add one of my favorites to the list of comments
risk of rain 2 fits the bill for unique characters perfectly! seriously picking a different character can feel like you're playing a whole other game!
yes
Haven't played 2, but 1 felt like that and I seen gameplay of 2 so I believe it. 👍
@@HelperWesley I urge you to play Risk of Rain 2. Not only would it be great reference material for your game, but it is also seriously one of the most fun games I have ever played and you would LOVE it!
Hades doesn't have "characters" but its essentially the same as classes. Hades has a ton of difference in how each weapon feels to play with for the entire run. Enter the gungeon, however, has a few characters that play differently at the start of the run, but once you get going they start unifying because you choose new weapons and such. Depending on what you're trying to go for, either way could work!
Yeah. That's an interesting point. Gungeon mostly just effects your start, not the late game so much. 🤔
@@HelperWesley I think this is a strength for Gungeon. I get to have variety in the beginning, and choose my own path late game. If I want to do something whacky late game, I can because it's in my power. If I want the best build in the game, I can do that. In a game like Hades (ignoring the upgrades for a moment), I have to make a big decision up front which dictates how my run will mainly go. Both can be good depending on what you're trying to achieve
Enter the gungeon has a few characters, but each of them have different starting weapons and abilities
I think for the people who want to play it on extra hard mode make a character that has 1 health but has a sheild that breaks after 1 hit and gets half a second of invincibility when it does. After it breaks make it replenish after maybe 30-60 seconds.
Very interesting video! It’s neat to see the problems you ran into and how you fixed them.
Lots more to fix/get working properly. 😅
Do you know what app is he using to make this game ?
@@theolgrj7717 I use GDevelop to make my games. 👍
@@HelperWesley Thank you ! :)
In the past, you've mentioned how you like the "between-run progression" to be story driven and not upgrade driven (like Hades) which I think is great! It would be really neat if each of the characters had a quick three part story or something that you can unlock by doing multiple runs with them. Maybe that could be linked into the unique trait of each character? Maybe they don't get the special ability unless you finish their story, or maybe it gets marginally better by completing their story.
I love the idea, I cringe at the thought of implementing it. 😅
I'm going to add that to the "would be nice to have" list, and see if I can get to it at some point. I do love when there are little story bits dropped as you progress. I just finished playing children of morta, and that's exactly how that game works. It has upgrades and things, but that's just to keep up with enemies, the thing that keeps you going is the story in between runs.
Awesome to see you implementing changes from your play tests. Always a crucial part of a games development.
As for unique characters. I'd say Team Fortress 2 does that very well. Each character is unique in both look, personality and play style.
For my Answer to the question, I'd say my answer would be Nuclear Throne. Each character has a passive and an active ability, and two of them have different max health compared to the others. While the default max hp is 8, Crystal has 10, and Melting has 4 hp. Despite Melting being very weak, they're balanced really well.
I kind of feel like melting is there for people who like something quirky. 😅
@@HelperWesley Truee haha
Games with unique characters I think are done really well: enter the gungeon, deep rock galactic, and tf2. Although two are 3D they definitely can apply to 2d games
Nuclear Throne does a good job at making characters have their own playstyles. They have stuff that sounds ridiculously OP on paper like Crystal's shield + 8 extra max HP with her ultra mut, Chicken's ability to revive if you can get a medkit in time, Melting literally nuking the entire screen constantly with no cost of ammo or cooldown at all, etc. But it all balances out because the enemies are OP on paper as well. This is good because it allows you to get the fullest out of the characters' playstyles and they actually feel different.
Wait how did this comment become a wall of text so quickly
That's a really good take on Nuclear throne. I've played it, and definitely like to think I take some inspiration from it. 👍
Regarding characters:
I liked the classes of Destiny with the different abilities (jumping, gliding, barriers when ability is loaded up etc.).
Game looks fun, keep up the good work!
I might have to get in on this, I’m amazing at looking at things for them to just explode on the spot.
Risk of Rain2 is the obvious roguelike that has unique and fun and interesting players
The classic would be Isaac. THe items your character starts with can shape a run entirely differently from character to character.
the way wall clipping maybe can be fixed is just by removing the collision check and leave the "separate objects" action in a box that as empty conditions, Then it always tries to push the player off the wall, but never when they arent in collision with eachother, and this wont cause lag either since there is only a single player sprite! :D
Hollow knight.
There’s quirrel, who helps you beat the game and is a friendly and positive guy. There’s hornet, who comes off as stern and a bit mean but she still is a valuable asset to the game. There’s also zote, who is a comic relief character. And there’s some characters who need saving.
Hollow Knight is great, but I meant playable characters. 👍
@@HelperWesley oh right. Oops 😅
You need to make the combat more satisfying! Right now, the you don't get much feedback when you shoot at an enemy. Try adding: Hit flash, more particles, better sound effects. Stuff like that! Also, some footstep sounds would be nice!
Risk of Rain 1 or 2, both roguelikes, 1 is 2d, 2 is 3d, but both have a good variety of characters that encourage different playstyles and builds
I'ved played the first one, but not the second yet. Enjoyed it and definitely think it's a good case to look at for this. 👀
Nomad Survivals... That games has lot of unique characters... i love the one that lost they own movement but become ivunerable and does some damage time to time
animal crossing: new leaf, all of the character characters are very expressive and fundamental have a social system and a daily routine (which you probably won't need). they all felt very human, they could be your enemy or your best friend depending on how you active to them which I think would be very interesting to see in a roguelite game like yours.
Diablo's character choices where always fun. Something else that came to mind was Golden Axe.
I'd say using existing boosts as base's for character variation is a good start. 1 that starts off with a speed boost, 1 starts with armour boost etc.
Oh, I hadn't thought about Diablo in forever. I definitely had a favorite in all of those games.
Stat tweaks would be an easy addition. 👀
A game with characters, and many at that would be The Binding of Isaac, the variety is quite staggering and it gives you something to unlock
This video is so valuable, thank you man!
I was going to say rooms should be smaller to feel less empty, but actually I think you should have different room sizes
not only it is less repetitive for the player, some enemies would mechanically profit from tighter spaces
The binding of Isaac has very cool different characters that change somewhat the more you win/play them
Risk of Rain/Risk of Rain 2 has many awesome and unique characters
Thanks for your videos. I learn a lot from them.
while looking at the "hub" of the game, I get vibes of maze runner.
so, I am wondering if you can add some survival aspects like:
1. resources (stones, gems, books, meat etc)which you can use in-between runs to add advantage
2. retrieve missions from NPCs like: bring this and that
3. if you can make the "hub" morphable through buildings
I believe this idea can flow into this quite nicely
I have found that once you get all of the upgrades, getting more points feel meaningless. Sooo.... maybe that will be the way I could go with that. 🤔
Revita has an excellent cosmetic system for the base area, which encourages you to blow in game points to add light posts and other pieces of furniture.
@@HelperWesley yes that will be cool
I think the best way to have different characters is for them to be just slightly differently but still useful in their own ways like in mario Luigi jumps a lil bit higher but is more slippery
Mario & Luigi are great examples. 👍
A game called soul Knight, its a mobile game which i really enjoyed since the abilities were balanced with the upgrades you could take. I loved some of the upgrades, so you could also look into them
I've heard of the game, but I've never played it. One day, one day I will. 😅
The binding of Isaac and gungeon has that with the characters aswell
I dont know the dash mechanic, but cant you jsut dash constantly to avoid all damage? Or is there a recovery phase betweend dashes? If not then a stamina meter for the dashes could do. As long as there is a bit of stamina you can dash, but when it is depleted fully, it recovers slower and you cannot dash at all until full recovery
There's a recovery phase between dashes, it's brief, but there.
With spikes and so many things flying around in different rooms, dashing constantly can end up with you running in to other things while trying to avoid something else. So I'm pretty happy with how that works.(Just not the whole, breaking the game by dashing through the wall thing.😅)
colt canyon, i have a favorite character to play as in the game so it probably good ref meterial
The binding of Isaac, newest dlc also added a diffrent version to each character.
Nuclear Throne is crucial to check out for your character difference ideas
Played it, loved it, definitely a great game for inspiration. 👍
You could give your characters the elemental powers, like earth/wind for the naked crazy jungle guy, water/ice for the focused girl, electricity for the robot (duh) and fire for the demon. Or you could create a storyline
also one of the best characters from "it takes two" where each character completes the other in each chapter and each playthrough with a different character (may or Cody) felt like a very unique experience, and if you want to try the game out -my wishing you have friends instead of being forced to play with my younger siblings-
Also the classic RPG states "mage, attacker, defender, etc" is the best I've tried so far, game examples: Omori, deltarune.
-Also- maybe different shooting points? (cuphead is the best examples for shooting guns)
Love the game so far I think more variety would add a lot more replayability
To make characters different from each other, I like games that take one of their main mechanics, and then just say "but what if we did the complete opposite of that?"
There's the Inventor in Dicey Dungeons, that in a game with permanent equipments decides to just throw away random equipment after every fight. There's Tainted Magdalene in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, whose main gameplay is running face-first into enemies and taking damage, which of course would never be a working strategy for any other character. There's Agon in Brutal Orchestra that has more HP than every other character combined, but can never be healed. There's the Horror in Nuclear Throne that uses its own experience points as ammunition.
But then again, even something like stats can be a meaningful difference between characters if those are stats that you can't just upgrade inside the run itself with other characters, and leave a big enough impact on the gameplay.
I don't know how this would be, but I think the robot could be like mul-t from risk of rain 2. Could make the robot slower (around 75 or 70), but make the gun fire faster than the base gun. Also could be a little tankier and have an extra health point.
There can be a glass cannon archetype where the player dies in 1 hit or 2, but make them STRONG can have a shotgun that shoots 3 to 5 pellets randomly. I think this can be fun and over powered to VERY experienced players
Games that have unique characters for me are:
Enter the gungeon
Binding of Isaac (apart from the basic few like Maggy, Cain)
Voidigo
Nuclear throne
Vampire Survivor is really good with picking characters before you play. They all start with different weapons and stat boosts which changes up gameplay and can make it feel less repetitive 👍🏻
tboi has a lot of characters tho i don't think they would work with leaderboard (perhaps multiple leaderboards like one global and one per character?). but i think that a character like T-lost that really hard but (theoretically) rewarding if you're skillful enough could be cool
Soulknight (best character is rouge, be sure to dodge roll every time before you shoot and switch weapons each shot [btw you can only dodge roll as rouge, and the game is pay to win but it doesn't really matter since you can get rouge as a free to play])
here are some stat change ideas, similarly, in enter the gungeon, they have different guns and passive/active abilities!
gun dude:
basic, but maybe a faster shooting gun compared to every other character
robot:
robot should have a charge shooting type gun, possibly? if you are looking for items then maybe some sorta electricity attack that chains would be unique, also with one extra health than other characters starting off
gun dudette:
similar to gun dude but has a shotgun maybe rather than a faster shooting gun
other character idk the name of:
the weird alien thing lol, should have maybe a fast shooting pistol with a general speed buff
Only games i can think of is enter the gungeon, the bindi g of isaac and if you count a weapon class as a character choice then terraria is really good at that
I'll be honest, I didn't realize the binding of isaac characters were actually different. I thought they were just skins. 😅
@@HelperWesley yeah, most of them start with their own stats, items and sometimes with a completely new mechanics
I know I'm a little late on this. But some games I played that had unique feeling characters were risk of rain 2, and nuclear throne.
A game that is kind of similar to this that I would recommend is Enter The Gungeon, it's a bullet hell rouge like that has most enemies based on bullets and guns
If you are going to give each character advantages and disadvantages than keep the first one as it is so if a player will want just a normal character he could choose it
Highly recommend HoloCure for different characters feeling unique. Huge cast of characters and none of them really play the same.
Hey! I would love to see tutorial how you added the power ups & upgrades to this game. Also making weapons etc, would be nice to see too.
Do you know what app is he using to make this game ?
Your doing something most game companies are ignoring
What's that?
@@HelperWesley Playtesting
enter the gungeon, I love that games characters
A game whit unique characters is nuclear throne, it's also a rouge like and it's pretty good
Borderlands had unique characters with tweaked stats and each had a unique ability on a cooldown timer? You could have a heavy area of affect move, slow time, berserk that i can think of that would all be very easy and quick to code in to fit in your time window
Oh yeah, I hadn't played borderlands in a while, but that's definitely a good example of characters that are mechanically similar with some abilities tacked on. 👍
I hadn't thought about a slow time effect. 🤔Maybe that would be a neat one.
Nuclear throne has very interesing characters
Binding of Issac has great characters
to find ideas in 2D games, id say "The Binding of Isaac", but if you wanna check also 3D games for ideas, you can check either "Risk of Rain 2", or "Warframe".
Enter the Gungeon has some pretty good characters
Make upgrades scale with the character. One character gets x1.5 damage for upgrades.
One character gets x1.5 hp for upgrades
Etc etc.
I'd say Dead Cells.
Although, it's the same character, the weapon variety adds a totally fresh experience, the fact that weapons could be combined in various ways also allowed players to develop their own tactics when defeating bosses and enemies.
Mine were the spartan boots and nutcracker😅
Another example I could think of that had unique character variety and stats would still be enter the dungeon although it was a more simple approach. :-)
Looking forward to playing this again and hopefully crushing the leaderboard.😁
New to the channel so I have no history but I gotta ask, was this game based on James Doyle's "Learn to make a Rogue Like Game" class on Udemy? The resemblance is striking.
Of course... a Rogue like bullet hell game can only have so many "looks".
Nope, I made the base game over the weekend to make my own tutorial for work, and then I just started building on it from there. But I'm not surprised they look similar, if we both originally built our games to mimic other games for tutorials, that makes sense. 😅
In the Venn Diagram between games with unique-feeling characters, games I play, and games whose character mechanics overlap in any way with this roguelite is a single game: HoloCure. Which you've probably heard of if you're familiar with VTubers or Vampire Survivor, and have almost certainly played if you're familiar with both.
I haven't played it, but a few people have mentioned it in the comments, so I have looked it up. 👍
Soul knight, definetely. Each character feels different thanks to different stats, special abilities and starting weapons
They pick the starting weapon for each character? 🤔
I'd need to rework for that, but I like the stats and ability idea.
@@HelperWesley As someone with a few hundreds of hours on that game I must say - yeah, they do. If I remember correctly, there is like 19 normal characters + 4 legendary ones. Normal characters can be earned via achievements, ingame currency, or for some real money (1-2 euros). Legendary ones are characters that you must craft at first and then there is some probability that they will spawn in your lobby sou you can pick them for your run. And about stats and weapons - there is health, armor, energy (used to fire weapons), and skill (like double damage for some time, invincibility etc ... just examples), each character have different stats that suits their playstyle and each character have their own unique starting weapon, but that dont really matter because in Soul Knight there is like 400 weapons (yeah, really, and some of them are really funny, like that one really long sword named "40m long blade" lol) so you are changing that starter one as soon as you find better one during the game. Hope this might give you some ideas and inspiration
Wanda Warriors, Rainworld Downpour (comes out tomorrow)
What if you made it so some tiles had holes in the floor and/or had bridges - that way the floors of the tiles can look different as well.
I still believe the game lacks enough unique floors, biomes and enemies that fit those unique biomes with more impactful visual response from killing enemies
Along with alternative bosses would be amazing and items to increase replay ability making every run feel unique.
I feel like tiny rogues does this very well
I would take inspiration from gungeon when designing characters. Most of them have something unique for the early game and something for the late game.
Warframe: it lets you pick between 3 characters at the start of the game and they all have other abilities
i think the robot character could have a speed boost while walking
I think that some of the Yakuza games have pretty good playable characters with their own special properties, like one of them is slower, but higher damage and health, and then another character is way faster but does little to no damage and has low health.
Haven't played them, didn't know there were multiple playable characters, I thought there was just the 1 main character. 🤔
i would say tainted charecters in the binding of isaac each feel unique
A lot of people mentioned the binding of isaac, I should really go back and replay that game a bit more. 🤔
@@HelperWesley if you havent tried most of tainted charecters in that game you definitely should
Nuclear throne has perfect characters. Each feels a little over powered in their own way which I think is a good thing
Yeah, I totally agree. Each one feels overpowered in their own way. I've never picked a character and though "I should have picked someone else". 👍
Agreed
Cool video, one question though, why release it onto newgrounds? I’m new to game development so I’m just curious on why not to release it to maybe itch, crazy games, or even steam?
I'll be honest, it's a personal score I want to settle. I keep getting silver trophies on Newgrounds, so I wanted to drop something big there to finally get the gold one.
Some great devs from the early Newgrounds Era that have successful indie games released today, have gold trophies, and I want to be part of the "cool kid club". 😅
But..... If the game does really well, I'll likely come back and work on it more to make it a commercial release.
@@HelperWesley ohhh gotcha, thanks for the honest answer, is this your, as they say “dream game”?
@@TheTragicTruth No. 😅
I've tried a couple of times to make it, but it's scope keeps getting away from me. This is just a fun game I'm enjoying working on.
@@HelperWesley understandable, I thought this was your dream game, which is why I had so much confusion on why you were uploading it onto newgrounds, hopefully it gets the gold metal! Once it’s released I’ll go support it!