We've come a long way since TMNT II, folks. You might not think that brawlers are the most cerebral of genres, but there's a surprising amount of theory that goes into the creation of games that allow players to do little more than smack NPC's around.
Gamasutra has posted an interview with Creative Director Tom Smith from THQ, who discusses different beat-em-ups, and how they managed to occupy specific niches within the genre. Here he talks about attack groups:
Prince of Persia and Ninja Gaiden both keep enemies
in a single group, with one enemy breaking from the group to make a
single attack. This works well with smaller groups, but for our game,
we want over a dozen enemies at once, so we need to spread them out
more if we're going to fit everyone.
Mark of Kri and Genji felt a bit artificial, because
one enemy from the group would call the player character out for
multiple attacks while the others watched. Genji could at least argue that the pattern fit the dueling style of the game. I did like the surprise attacks that Mark of Kri
added from the far group-it made those distant enemies much more
meaningful. The player has to keep half an eye on the outer ring at all
times.
But overall, God of War and Heavenly Sword had
the best feel. Having multiple enemies near you keeps things on edge
and makes it harder for the player to tell what to expect next-which
was reassuring, since that was the basic direction we were already
considering.
I never really gave it any thought! He also throws in a nugget of weird human psychology:
God of War: Enemies in the far group just stand around and look relatively
uninvolved. But they're zombies, so it looks OK. (Personally, I believe
the popularity of zombie-killing games is partially fuelled by the
lower AI expectations-they're supposed to be mindless, so game
development is easier. That, and zombies are the only thing as fun to
kill as Nazis.)
So, zombies are an easy way for developers to slack off a bit when it comes to programming peripheral enemies. Sneaky.
There are six more pages of crunchy design theory. Go read it!
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