原文地址：https://flarkminator.com/2011/01/06/designing-enemies-bringing-it-home/

作者：Mike Birkhead(战神系列战斗系统高级设计师)

感谢作者和他的分享精神，我这里也不过是薪火传递，将好文引入国内。

到目前为止，我们的目标是分解和分析《Marvel vs Capcom 2》（MvC2）的战斗系统，但现在我们要转换方向。希望MvC2已经达到了它的目的，给了我们一些可用的想法。将这些想法应用于动作冒险游戏与为格斗游戏设计角色不同，就像为《GT赛车》设计汽车与为《火爆狂飙》设计汽车不同一样；不同风格的游戏有不同的设计目标。

格斗游戏的一个主要目标是尽量减少进入的障碍，并最大化心理战的潜力。这是通过最小化深度和最大化广度来实现的；我的意思并不是说一个角色不需要技巧来掌握，而是（在成功的游戏中）这种掌握可以适用于很多角色——我学会了龙拳，我也学会了虎膝。挑战在于判断和预测对手的动作，而不是执行自己的动作。

然而，动作冒险游戏有一个不同的目标：成就感。这需要玩家的深度和阵容的广度。玩家必须成长并有深度感，这不仅仅适用于他的攻击。玩家学到的每一个系统（魔法、攀爬墙壁、与世界互动）都是一个新的系统需要掌握，所以不要让玩家的攻击过于复杂。避免多余的攻击。这种“盒底设计”在引人入胜的游戏中没有立足之地。玩家不需要广度，因为他没有人可以进行心理战。他能骗谁呢？他只需要那些能以最酷的方式完成任务的动作。这也是为什么MvC2如此出色，因为游戏中的每个人物都在做各种疯狂而强大的动作。可以想象游戏设计师站在一个箱子上大喊：“狡猾是懦夫的！”我说阿门。

我们玩家的紧凑、专注和没有狡猾的设计也适用于我们的敌人。我们想要广度，但我们希望它来自整个角色阵容，而不是个别敌人。怪物不是来和玩家玩心理战的，它们是来让我感觉自己很厉害的。我想要粉碎它们的脸。如果我想要狡猾，我会玩格斗游戏。这种游戏是为心理战设计的，我会和真正的人玩，他们比电脑更难对付。这并不意味着你的敌人不能狡猾——他们可以而且应该有一个诡计。那是单一的诡计。玩家学会了怪物的诡计，一旦克服，就会有成就感。她变得比她的对手更强大了。

成就感是最好的动作冒险游戏的主要推动力，虽然你可能没有意识到这一点，但你知道当游戏未能带来这种感觉时。有时候你多次输给一个boss，挫败感逐渐增加，直到最后你靠运气赢了。这种经历很糟糕。最遗憾的是，这种糟糕的感觉更多是指向自己（为什么对我来说这么难？）而不是游戏（谁设计了这个垃圾）。

所以，如果你希望玩家感到成就感而不是问哪个白痴毁了他们的夜晚，有三件事需要记住。首先，你必须始终牢记你的角色阵容必须扮演的角色。其次，你必须以平衡的方式类型化你的角色阵容。第三，你必须找到你的诡计。

角色

谈论角色时，具体细节是浪费的。你游戏的机制（每个游戏都是独特的）定义了敌人的角色。例如，在《战神》中，蛇发女妖的光束攻击通过使用Kratos的闪避来对抗，所以她的角色是强调闪避机制；这个角色在狭小空间或对抗需要承诺的重甲敌人时非常有吸引力。如果没有闪避机制，蛇发女妖就没有多大意义，这使她变得无聊和令人沮丧。我们必须从更高、更通用的层次来看待我们的角色阵容。这样做会形成一个独立于机制的四个主要重复角色的图景：强调者、强制者、粉碎者和挑战者。

强调者(Emphasizers)

在追求大众市场吸引力时，强调者应该占你角色阵容的大多数。如前所述，玩家有几种工具来应对她面对的生物。强调者是一种奖励而不是要求使用某种特定机制的生物。关键是要有积极的强化。你不会因为使用错误的方法而受到惩罚，只是因为以“正确”的方式做事而得到奖励。《战神》中有几个强调者的例子，但我特别喜欢蛇发女妖。

蛇发女妖被认为是一个高等级的生物，因为她不仅对玩家构成更大的挑战，还需要更多的工作来实现和创建。她很快，避开你的攻击，并且有她致命的凝视，如果玩家停留太久，会把Kratos变成石头。在幕后，当玩家“在”蛇发女妖的凝视锥形区域内时，游戏会启动一个计时器，如果计时器达到一定点，Kratos会变成石头；然而，如果玩家使用他的闪避（滚动），计时器会重置，无论Kratos是否仍在凝视中。闪避（滚动）在对抗这个生物时给玩家带来了优势，但Kratos并不需要这样做。例如，如果蛇发女妖用她的凝视攻击我，而我用一个足够重的攻击攻击她，她会停止凝视并对我的攻击做出反应。关键是“足够重的”攻击。并不是任何攻击都有效。只有Kratos最重的“终结”攻击才有效，但它仍然给玩家一个选择，而这个选择使她成为一个引人入胜的怪物。

假设我开始攻击一个生物，而蛇发女妖同时启动她的凝视攻击。我现在必须做出选择，是继续我的连击，希望我有时间用重攻击击中蛇发女妖（有风险），还是放弃我可能造成的伤害并滚开（安全）。这种有意义的选择来自于她强调机制而不是强制机制。很少情况下，敌人应该被构建为要求玩家采取特定行动。强调奖励实验，而要求则残酷地教导。前者自然流畅，随着时间的推移，玩家会发现最佳的行动方案。后者使游戏停滞不前，而玩家必须设计出正确的解决方案。有时你应该强制一种机制，而这些时候是你想要教玩家一些核心内容的时候。

强制者(Enforcers)

你的角色阵容的大多数应该是强调者，但它们也有缺点。通过允许多种击杀解决方案，它们缺乏强制教玩家的能力。有时你有一个机制是如此核心，以至于玩家必须学会它。进入强制者。这些生物要求玩家使用一种机制，如果玩家不使用它，他们将无法前进。

《战神》中的持盾敌人是强制者的完美例子。你不能抓住他们，你不能用轻攻击击中他们，唯一的方法是用“足够重的”攻击击破他们的盾牌。这些动作被称为他的“粉碎”动作，由Kratos连击的所有重结尾动作组成。（方块，方块，三角）——（方块，方块，方块，方块，方块，三角）。这些动作对《战神》的战斗是如此核心，以至于游戏希望确保玩家了解它们的力量。强制者有它们的位置，但它们的位置应该是罕见的。仅在必须教给玩家某些内容时使用，并尽可能明显地展示；这不是微妙的时候。微妙和强制者不太搭配，如果处理不当，很快会变得令人沮丧。

挑战者(Challengers)

这些是boss，难度较高的敌人，你需要使用工具箱中的所有工具来击败他们。挑战者与强调者和强制者分开，因为它们的设计复杂性和实现成本。大多数敌人可能只有一到两种攻击，而一个挑战者可能有三到四种攻击。记住，敌人的攻击越多，它们就越能与玩家玩心理战，而心理战是危险的。如果处理得当，捕捉玩家的意外并提供更大的挑战可以为游戏增添趣味，并推动玩家突破到新的掌握水平。然而，更多的时候，它们是令人沮丧的地狱，反复死于没有模式且不提供成就感的廉价战术。

我最喜欢的问题之一是问挑战和挫败之间的区别。虽然有不止一个答案，但我更喜欢简洁地定义：“挑战是与自己斗争，挫败是与游戏斗争。”挑战者，比任何其他敌人，都试图在挑战和挫败之间走那条细线。这些敌人通过插入难度峰值来控制游戏的流动，一个节奏良好的游戏遵循难度的正弦曲线。它从简单的任务开始，逐渐增加挑战，达到高潮，然后迅速缓解让你冷静下来。挑战者控制了我们节奏中的山峰，最后一组则构成了山谷。

粉碎者(Smashers)

为玩家提供挑战很重要，但有时你只想摧毁一些东西——很多东西。粉碎者是较小、较弱且容易被消灭的敌人，你可以单独投放，有时与其他敌人一起，让你尽情粉碎。记住，我们在这些游戏中的首要目标是给玩家一种成就感，而每隔一段时间让你的“大屠杀者”出来感觉真的很好。挑战者追求难度，而粉碎者追求简单。

注意：这种简单性不仅应适用于它们的难度，也应适用于它们的实现。粉碎者有一个次要功能。通过在AI、多边形数量、纹理大小和基本内存占用方面让它们轻量化，你可以在整个游戏中自由地散布这些敌人，而不会对关卡设计产生重大影响，当内存变得紧张时，我们都知道这有多重要。

两个组（强调者和强制者）通过玩家的机制定义。强调者，最常见的，奖励玩家使用特定机制而不是要求它，而强制者教玩家特定机制。剩下的组（粉碎者和挑战者）通过难度和实现来定义，这再次独立于具体机制。粉碎者是弱小且容易消灭的，而挑战者对玩家构成巨大挑战。这四个角色原型很重要，但如果我们想要一个在玩法风格上多样化的平衡角色阵容，它们还不够。为此，我们需要通过额外的标准对我们的生物进行分组。

类别

一个平衡的角色阵容在风格、复杂性和机制上是多样化的。在过去，这是一个简单而清晰的“瘦”、“中”、“胖”冰球运动员，但现在平衡有了更丰富的含义。在《战神》中，他们将敌人分为几类，这确保了讨论的清晰度，确保设计师（以及其他人）能够可视化他们的工作量，并确保游戏中有适当分布的变化。类别范围从包含所有轻量级烦人敌人的“害虫”到显然追踪boss的“boss”。

清晰而明确的类别对于有意义的讨论是必要的。为什么要花时间和精力描述一个怪物的存在，当你可以说他属于“害虫”类时，这样你们就有了一个共同的基础。要达到这种理解，需要你的设计部门既严格又一致。如果你懒惰、健忘或不一致，你会严重损害沟通。然而，奖励超过了危险，因为强制执行这点可以让其他部门不仅快速理解你想要什么，还可以理解它创造了多少工作（或者如果被砍掉会节省多少工作）。可视化你的工作量，在开始时很重要，但在结束时同样关键，当事情被砍掉时。你的砍掉需要节省时间，并且需要让游戏不留下游戏玩法中的空白。

类别还可以帮助你跟踪你的玩法变化。在MvC2中，你可以将所有角色分为三类：巨大（Sentinel）、快速（Spiderman）和远程（Cable）。巨大克制快速，快速克制远程，远程克制巨大——石头、剪刀、布。保持这三类的平衡可以维持平衡感，但假设我需要砍掉游戏中的三个角色。没有类别结构，我可能会无意中选择三个巨大组的角色，减少了快速角色的克制者，导致游戏感觉破碎和不平衡。

角色和类别，虽然看似重复，但为游戏服务于两个不同的目标。角色是关于玩家的，而类别是关于你的角色阵容的。玩家的机制需要与他配合良好的敌人，但仅通过这种特定镜头来看待你的角色阵容会导致你最终拥有很多功能上不同但视觉上相似的敌人。最终目标是一个多样化的角色阵容，而拥有类别有助于确保视觉多样性。

诡计

一切都必须有一个目的。如果你不能在两句话以内向我解释一个生物必须存在的原因，那么可以肯定玩家不会喜欢杀死它。缺乏目的会有效地将你的生物降级为非常华丽的可破坏物体。我认识的一位伟大设计师总是问：“这个家伙的诡计是什么？”这个问题一直伴随着我，这是一个很好的问题来问你的敌人。一个诡计意味着你可以愚弄我，但一旦我知道你的诡计，它就失去了效果。被愚弄会让你保持警觉，同时提供你学习和成长的机会，这导致了我们最终的成就目标。

所以我最后一次回到MvC2。如果有一个游戏可以被称为“诡计袋”，那就是这个游戏，但还有更多的诡计存在于其他游戏中，可以为你的无聊设计增添活力和生气。去吧，挖掘，研究他们所做的，如果你选择只带走一件事，那就是：想法是无意义的，执行才是一切。

你能想到的每一个动作都已经被某人创造出来了。挖掘他们的想法并不会让你成为一个糟糕的设计师，因为，不管你信不信，采取那个想法并将其执行到同样（如果不是更高的话）质量比你想象的要困难得多，如果你聪明，你会选择将所有有限的时间和逐渐减少的精力投入到最大限度的执行上。

Our goal until now has been the break down and analysis of MvC2′s combat system, but now we are going to switch gears. MvC2 has, hopefully, served its purpose and given us some usable ideas. Applying these ideas to an action adventure game is not like designing characters for a fighting game, just as designing cars for Gran Turismo is not like designing cars for Burnout; different styles of games have different design goals.

One of the major goals in a fighting game is to minimize your barriers to entry and maximize the potential for mind games. This is achieved through minimizing depth and maximizing breadth; by this I mean not that a character takes no skill to master, but that (in successful games) the mastery is applicable to numerous characters in the cast – I learn to Dragon Punch, I also learn to Tiger Knee. The challenge comes in judging and anticipating the moves of your opponent, not in executing your own.

Action adventure games, however, have a different goal: Accomplishment. This requires a depth of player and a breadth of cast. The player must grow and have a sense of depth, which applies to more than just his attacks. Every system the player learns (magic, climbing walls, world interactions) is a new system to master, so do not go crazy with the player’s attacks. Avoid superfluous attacks. This “back of the box” design has no place in compelling games. The player doesn’t need breadth, as he has no one to play mind games with. Who is he going to fool? He requires only the moves that get the job done, in the coolest way possible. Again, this is why MvC2 is so great, because everyone in that game is doing wacky, powerful shit all over the place. One can imagine the designers on that game standing on a box shouting, “Subtlety is for pussies!”, and I say Amen.

The tight, focused and subtlety-free design of our player also applies to our enemies. We want breadth, but we want it to come from the cast as a whole and not the individual enemies. The monsters are not there to play mind games with the player, they are there to make me feel like a bad ass. I want to smash faces. If I want subtlety, I will play a fighting game. A game which is DESIGNED for mind games, and I’ll play it with real people who are infinitely trickier than a computer. This does not mean that your enemies cannot be tricky – they can and should have a trick. That is trick, in the singular. The player learns the monster’s trick, and once overcome, gives her a sense of accomplishment. She is getting stronger and better than her adversaries.

Accomplishment is a major driving force behind the best Action Adventure games, and though you may not be consciously aware of it, you know when games have failed to grant that feeling. Have you ever lost to a boss numerous times in a row, your frustration growing to a boiling point, until finally you squeak out a victory more through luck than anything? I’ve been there, and it sucks. Most regrettable is that the shitty feeling is directed more to yourself (why was that so hard for me?) than the game (who designed this bullshit).

So if you want player’s feeling accomplished and not asking what idiot ruined their night, there are three things to keep in mind. First, you must always keep in the mind the roles your cast must fill. Second, you must type your cast in a balanced manner. Third, you must find your trick.

Roles

When discussing roles it is wasteful to speak in specifics. The mechanics of your game, which are unique to each game, define the roles for your enemies. In God of War, for example, the Gorgon’s beam attack is countered by using Kratos’s dodge, so her role is to emphasize the dodging mechanic; a role that makes her compelling in tight spaces or against heavily armored enemies that require commitment. With no dodge mechanic, the Gorgon serves little purpose, which leaves her boring and frustrating. We must instead instead view our cast from a higher, more generic level. Doing so forms a picture, independent of the mechanics, of four major reoccurring roles: Emphasizers, Enforcers, Smashers and Challengers.

Emphasizers

Emphasizers should, when striving for mass market appeal, make up the majority of your cast. As stated, your player has several tools in her toolbox for dispatching the creatures she faces. An emphasizer is a creature that rewards, not requires, the use of one specific mechanic. The key is to have positive reinforcement. You are not penalized for using the wrong method, simply rewarded for doing it the “correct” way. God of War has several examples of emphasizers, but I particularly like the Gorgon.

The Gorgon is considered a higher tier creature, in that she poses not only a greater challenge to the player but also requires more work to implement and create. She is fast, avoids your attacks, and has her deadly gaze, which if the player stays in too long, will turn Kratos to stone. Behind the scenes, when the player is “inside” the cone of the Gorgon’s gaze the game starts a timer, and if the timer ever reaches a certain point Kratos is turned to stone; however, if the player ever uses his dodge (roll) the timer is reset, regardless of whether Kratos is still in the gaze. Dodging (rolling) gives the player an advantage against this creature, but Kratos is not required to do this. For example, if the gorgon is hitting me with her gaze and I attack the gorgon with a significantly heavy enough attack she will stop her gaze and react to my attack. They key here is “significantly heavy enough” attack. Not just any attack will be effective. Only Kratos’s heaviest “ender” attacks work, but it still gives the player a choice and that choice is what makes her a compelling monster.

Let’s say I have started to attack a creature and at the same exact time the Gorgon has started up her Gaze attack. I must now make a choice, do I continue with my combo in the hope that I will have time to hit the Gorgon with my heavy attack (risky), or do I forgo the damage I could do and roll away (safe). This meaningful choice comes from her emphasizing mechanics and not enforcing mechanics. Very rarely, if ever, should enemies be constructed with the purpose of requiring a specific action from the player. Emphasis rewards experimentation, while requirements brutally teach. The former flows naturally, and over time the player discovers the best course of action. The latter brings the game to a screeching halt, while the player must deign the correct solution. There are times when you should enforce a mechanic, and those times are when you want to teach your player something core to the game.

Enforcers

The majority of your cast should be emphasizers, but they do have a downside. By allowing for multiple killing solutions they lack the ability to forcibly teach the player. Sometimes you have a mechanic that is so core to your design that a player must learn it. Enter the enforcers. These creatures require a mechanic from a player, and without the player using it, they will not progress.

The shield bearing enemies from God of War are the perfect example of Enforcers. You cannot grab them, you cannot hit them with light attacks, and the only way to get passed their shields is to hit them with a “significantly heavy enough” attack. These moves are known as his “crush” moves, and are made up of all the heavy ending moves of Kratos’s combos. (Square, Square, Triangle) — (Square, Square, Square, Square, Square, Triangle). These moves are so core to God of War combat that the game wants to make sure the player understands their power. Enforcers have their place, but their place should be rare. Use this only when something MUST be taught to the player, and do so with as much obvious flair as possible; this is not a time to be subtle. Subtly and enforcers do not mix well, and if handled poorly can quickly become frustrating.

Challengers

These are the bosses, the difficult enemies, the ones you use all of the tools in your toolbox to defeat. Challengers are separated from your emphasizers and enforcers due to their complexity of design and cost to implement. Where most enemies in your cast will have their one or at most two attacks, a challenger might have three or four. Remember, the more attacks you give an enemy the more it can play mind games with the player, and mind games are dangerous. Catching a player off guard and providing a greater challenge, if handled well, can spice up the game and drive the player to break through to a new level of mastery. More often, however, they are a hell of frustrating and repeated deaths to overly cheap tactics that follow no pattern and offer no accomplishment.

One of my favorite questions is to ask for the difference between challenging and frustrating. While there is more than one answer, I prefer to define it succinctly: “Challenging is a struggle against oneself, frustrating is a struggle against the game.” Challengers, more than any other, are the enemies that attempt to walk that fine line between challenging and frustrating. These enemies control the flow of your game by inserting spikes in the pacing, and a well paced game follows a sinusoidal curve of difficulty. It starts the player off with simple tasks, increases the challenge gradually up to a climax, and then quickly eases back to let you cool down. Where the challengers control the mountains of our pacing, the final group makes up the valleys.

Smashers

Providing the player with challenges is important, but sometimes you just want to destroy something – a lot of somethings. Smashers are the smaller, weaker and easily dispatched enemies that you throw at the player, sometimes alone, but most times accompanying other enemies, and they let you get your smash on. Remember our number one goal in these games is to give the player a sense of accomplishment, and letting your mass murderer out of the bag every once in a while feels really good. Where Challengers strive for difficulty, Smashers strive for simplicity.

Note: this simplicity should be applied not only to their difficulty, but also to their implementation. The Smashers serve a secondary function. By making them lightweight in terms of AI, poly count, texture size, and basic memory footprint, you can sprinkle these enemies liberally across the game, without having a major impact on your level designs, and we all know how important that is when memory becomes tight.

Two groups (Epmhasizers and Enforcers) are defined through the player’s mechanics. Emphasizers, the most common, reward the player for using a specific mechanic without requiring it, while enforcers teach a specific mechanic to the player. The remaining groups (Smashers and Challengers) are defined by difficulty and implementation, which again is independent of the specific mechanics. Smashers are weak and easily dispatched, while Challengers pose a great challenge to the player. These four role archetypes are important, but they are not enough if we want to have a balanced cast that is diverse in play style. For that we need to group our creatures by additional criteria.

Classes

A balanced cast is one diverse in style, complexity, and mechanic. In the old days, it was as simple and clean as a “skinny”, “medium”, and “fat” hockey player, but now balance has a more textured meaning. In God of War they break enemies down into several classes, which ensures clarity in discussion, ensures designers (and others) visualize their workload, and ensures there is a properly distributed variation in play. Classes range from “Pests” which contains all of the lightweight annoying enemies, all the way to “Bosses” which, obviously, tracks the bosses.

Clear and distinct classes are necessary for meaningful discussion. Why spend time and effort describing a monster’s presence when you could say he’s of class (to borrow the term) “Pests”, which starts you both on a mutual foundation. To reach this understanding requires your design department be both vigorous and consistent. If you are lazy, forgetful or inconsistent, you will seriously harm communication. The rewards, however, outweigh the dangers, as enforcing this lets other departments quickly understand not only what you want, but also how much work it creates (or saves if it’s cut). Visualizing your workload, while important in the beginning, is just as critical near the end when things are being cut. Your cuts need to save time and they need to leave the game without a gap in its play.

Classes can also help you to keep track of your play variation. In MvC2 you can break all characters down into three classes: Huge (Sentinel), Quick (Spiderman), and Ranged (Cable). Huge counters quick, which counters ranged, which counters huge – rock, paper, scissors. Keeping these three classes even maintains a feeling of balance, but say I need to cut three characters out of the game. Without class structure, I could unknowingly choose three characters out of the Huge group, and with fewer counters to the quick characters, leave the game feeling broken and unbalanced.

Roles and Classes, while appearing redundant, serve two distinct goals for the game. Roles are about the the player, while Classes are about your cast. The mechanics of your player demands enemies that work well against and with him, but only viewing your cast through that particular lens leads you to end up with lots of functionally distinct but visually similar enemies. The ultimate goal is a diverse cast, and having Classes helps to ensure visual diversity.

Tricks

Everything must serve a purpose. If you cannot explain to me why a creature must exist – in less than two sentences – then it’s a safe bet the player is not going to enjoy killing it. Lacking purpose reduces your creatures, effectively, into very fancy desctrucible objects. A great designer I know always asks, “What’s this guy’s trick?” The question has stuck with me, and it’s a great question to ask of your enemies. A trick implies that you can fool me, but once I know your trick it loses its effectiveness. Being fooled keeps you on your toes, while providing you with the opportunity to learn and grow as a player, which leads to our ultimate goal of accomplishment.

And so I return, one last time, to MvC2. If ever there was a game that could be called a Bag of Tricks, it is this game, but there are even more tricks out there, existing in other games, that can add spice and vitality to your boring designs. Go, mine, study what they have done, and if you choose to take away only one thing, let it be this: ideas are meaningless, execution is everything.

Every move you can think of has already been created by someone. Mining their ideas doesn’t make you a bad designer, because, believe it or not, taking that idea and executing it to the same (if not higher) quality is harder than you can ever imagine, and if you are smart, you will choose to devote all your limited time and dwindling energy on executing to the fullest of your extent.

原文地址：https://flarkminator.com/2010/12/24/designing-enemies-actions-reactions-and-results/

作者：Mike Birkhead(战神系列战斗系统高级设计师)

感谢作者和他的分享精神，我这里也不过是薪火传递，将好文引入国内。

在这篇三部分文章的第一部分中，我以一个基本前提开始：你能想到的每一个动作都已经被创造出来了。我重点介绍了《Marvel vs Capcom 2》作为研究酷炫和强大招式的强大资源，因为它在游戏深度和广度上都很出色，并且有大量的主题可供借鉴。现在，我们要深入了解如何通过理解你所看到的内容以及为什么要借用它来分解招式的乐趣。

需要明确的是：我的词汇与MvC2社区并不一致。这些是我在制作《战神》时学到的术语，我已经将其适应并应用于MvC2游戏。我这样做的原因有两个：第一，因为用《战神》的术语思考对我来说更容易；第二，我这样做是为了强化一个观点，即这不仅仅是关于MvC2的讨论。目的是讨论如何有效地构建用于动作冒险游戏的创意，而MvC2是最大的灵感来源。

所有的招式都可以分解为三个阶段：动作、反应和结果。玩家执行某个动作，他的对手做出反应，结果是他们的状态发生变化。有些招式涉及所有三个阶段（如发射火球），而有些可能只涉及一个阶段（如传送），是的，有时很难将招式归入任何一个模子。不要灰心，而是要记住：最终你将把这些想法重构为自己的招式。结构化的方法有助于构建和平衡；此外，这种思维方式提醒你问重要的问题：它看起来怎么样，它做了什么，我如何反应，为什么要使用它，我如何反制它？

在设计过程中，有时会有那么一些罕见的时刻，过程似乎自然流畅。灵感左右开弓，你知道你想要的确切动作。一看到一幅概念艺术，你就知道它应该有哪些动作。这些完美的时刻太少了。灵感，这个最难捉摸的朋友，选择她想要袭击的时刻；然而，这并不意味着我们只是坐等。这就是挖掘创意的地方，无论我们是在寻找适合怪物的动作，还是希望找到适合某个动作的怪物，搜索都从一个动作开始。

动作

你角色的每一个动作都是某种动作。分解你在MvC2或任何游戏中看到的动作的第一步是理解它们的基本结构。一个动作由动画帧组成，这些帧分为三个阶段：启动（又叫做起始、前摇）、命中和恢复又叫做（收招、后摇）。

• 启动：动作开始，但还没有发生任何事情。如果我要打你，这将是我把手收回准备的部分——我的肌肉在准备中紧绷。这个阶段持续的时间越长，你的对手就有越多的时间来判断你在做什么动作并做出反应。当有人说一个动作是“显而易见的”，他们可能指的是动作有一个长而明显的启动阶段。

• 命中：动作现在“激活”。如果这是一次拳击，并且它碰到了别人，这将是他们受到伤害并做出反应的部分。这个阶段持续的时间越长，就越容易击中某人。乍一看，“越长越好”，然而你的命中帧越长，你的角色花在这个动作上的时间就越多。在《街头霸王2》中，M. Bison的蹲重脚（c.HK）让他沿地面滑行一段距离。他的命中帧涵盖了整个滑行，这使得它成为一个冒险的动作。如果另一名玩家挡住了这个动作，由于你仍然被锁定在滑行中，他们可以轻松反击。

• 恢复：动作不再激活，但我必须花时间恢复到“休息”状态，才能执行另一个动作。如果我在打你，这将是我把手收回所需的时间。如果我真的全力以赴，这也可能是我花时间喘息的时间。恢复时间越长，就像有大量的命中帧一样，意味着你被锁定在这个动作中，或者“承诺”了。一个特别强大的动作可能通过长时间的恢复来平衡——高风险高回报。

格斗游戏、动作冒险游戏、割草游戏……它们的成败取决于近战动作的强度。它们是否感觉强大，是否流畅，是否合乎逻辑。MvC2中的大多数动作——一般来说，在格斗游戏中——都属于近战动作。从快速的刺拳到让你用身体的一部分猛击对手的头顶重击；你可以用身体的某个部位打击他人的方式数量多种多样。这种多样性来自于三个属性之间的相互作用：力量、范围和速度。这些属性是一个滑动的尺度，而不是一个严格的选择——想象拨号盘而不是复选框。

理解如何调整这些拨号盘需要牢牢掌握我们动作的三个阶段。你可以拥有游戏中最强大的动作，而我拥有最弱的，但如果我的动作启动帧更少，我每天都会击败你。我的速度击败了你的力量，虽然我们可以通过给那个强大的动作更大的范围来解决这个问题，但当我们对反应有一个全面的理解时，更好的解决方案会出现，以及如何使用不同种类的反应（或缺乏反应）来平衡动作。

反应

动作是有趣的部分——我们专注的部分——但它们不是最重要的部分。一个强大的动作只有在由一个强大的反应卖出时才感觉像一个强大的动作。理解角色对各种动作的反应的方式和原因对于确保你的动作不会显得平淡无奇，甚至更糟的是，滑稽可笑是至关重要的。

在研究动作时，要观察对手的正常反应和招架（防御）时的反应之间的区别。当你被一个动作击中时，就像你执行一个动作一样，你会播放一个动画，并且你的角色在一段时间内被锁定在这个反应中。当你防御时，播放的反应动画在视觉上通常是不同的，但更重要的是，你被迫播放的动画更短（帧数更少）。击中和防御之间的长度差异可能意味着连击成功或被残酷惩罚。正常反应意味着你被困在命中恢复中（也称为命中硬直）。如果你在防御，你被困在防御恢复中（也称为防御硬直）。注意：我不喜欢“硬直”或“招架”这两个术语。前者因为你实际上并没有被硬直，而后者因为招架意味着完全否定所有伤害，而防御意味着减少伤害，这更准确。

假设我有一个有2个命中帧、4个恢复帧的拳击动作，以及一个有3个启动帧的踢腿动作。拳击造成10帧的命中恢复，但只有5帧的防御恢复。如果我用这个拳击攻击某人（他们没有防御），我可以连击我的踢腿并获得一个免费命中（我的命中、恢复和启动时间少于他的命中恢复）。然而，如果他们防御我的拳击，他将在我之前恢复。这只是一个简单的例子，但你可以看到理解差异的重要性。

这只是你开始理解反应时可以做的事情。回到上面的例子，那个超级强大但缓慢的动作和那个非常快速但弱小的动作。快速的动作会占优势，但如果我们能给慢动作引入一个新花招呢？有些动作允许玩家拥有护甲或“坦克”攻击。坦克时你会受到伤害，但不会反应。这给你一个明显的优势。快速的动作会击中你，你会受到伤害，但没关系，因为你继续前进并粉碎那个混蛋——万岁！坦克是我们可以放在一个动作上的修饰符的一个例子，这不是你能使用的唯一一个。注意：即使修饰符是动作的属性，我认为在这里谈论它们很重要，因为它们几乎专门处理你如何（或不）对动作做出反应。有相当多的修饰符，再次，这些是我在制作《战神》时学到的术语，但你可以在MvC2中看到它们的某种形式：

• 坦克：你会受到伤害，但不会播放反应。有时一个动作只能坦克固定数量的击中。例如，你可以坦克第一次击中，但如果你第二次被击中，你会正常播放反应。
• 无敌：你不会受到伤害，也不会播放反应。
• 破防：试图招架具有此属性的动作会强制你播放一种特殊的反应。你不会受到伤害，但你会变得脆弱。
• 不可招架：试图招架具有此修饰符的动作会强制你播放正常反应，就像你根本没有招架一样。
• 崩溃：一种特殊的反应。你的角色在一段时间内失去控制。崩溃时被击中会使你播放正常反应。注意：这与被硬直不同。当你被硬直并受到击中时，你会保持硬直状态，直到一段时间过去。然而，崩溃状态在你被击中后结束。
• 冻结：变成冰，变成石头；主题无关紧要，反应是相同的。你被锁定，硬直，你不能破除，直到计时器结束。注意：这是我第一次使用硬直这个词。因为这是第一次它是事实上的正确。不要在不合适的时候使用它。这很混乱，只会削弱沟通和意义。

有了各种反应（正常击中、防御击中、空中击中、崩溃等），并且知道要真正卖出一个攻击，它必须有适当的反应，你可以看到当不加控制时，工作量如何开始膨胀。

如果你没时间制作与之相配的反应，那么制作看起来‘很酷的’攻击动作就是白费力气。

这纯粹是轶事，但我相信，区分优秀与伟大的因素是对系统中反应的重要性有一个真正的掌握；不仅是如何让它们看起来好，而且是如何在预算内让它们看起来好。你的工作量决定了可能的反应，反应决定了攻击的感觉，感觉决定了最后一部分，你的结果。

结果

反应和结果有什么区别？随意地看，反应似乎是结果，但这里有一个值得注意的区别。首先，一个动作可以有结果而没有反应（我喝了一瓶治疗药水）。其次，更重要的是，反应是动画，而结果是状态的变化。

在这个上下文中，状态不仅仅指你的角色的健康。其他状态变化包括从改变你当前的护甲等级到改变你是否被认为在地面或空中。为了清晰起见，我将它们分为几类，然后在每个类别中提供一些例子来说明其用途。

健康

• 伤害：固定的健康减少。造成的伤害量由两个因素决定：对手的护甲等级和当前的连击计数。像Sentinel这样的角色比Akuma受到的伤害更少，因为他们有不同的护甲等级，此外，你击中某人的次数越多，你的伤害缩放越小（最终减少到每次击中1点伤害）。
• 毒药：固定的健康随时间减少。
• 治疗：固定的健康增加。
• 再生：固定的健康随时间增加。
• 吸血：减少一个人的健康，治疗另一个人一定比例的伤害。

防御

• 护甲：增加或减少由护甲缩放的伤害量。

时间

• 增加：让一个角色比另一个角色移动更快是一个易于理解但实现复杂的概念，但一个更好的例子是考虑如果我们简单地减少一个角色播放的启动帧数会发生什么。
• 减少：同样，但相反。我可以增加对手的恢复时间，给我一个重大优势。

位置

• 冲击：并非所有动作都会把你推到屏幕的另一边，有些会把你吸进去。冲击是一个通用属性，程序化应用，表示某物（正或负）推你的量。
• 发射：将敌人击飞到空中会将他置于一个完全新的状态。游戏必须理解他不仅行为不同，而且反应也不同。当你在空中时，会有一整套新的反应要播放；记住我说过当你不注意时你的工作量会膨胀？

结果是容易理解的，且思考起来很有趣，但不要被冲昏头脑。它们在概念上的简单性掩盖了它们在实现上的复杂性。对于你希望调节的每个系统，程序员必须花费时间和精力使该系统可变而不是固定。谨慎选择你的战斗。

工作完成了一半

动作、反应和结果。这些阶段帮助我们回答三个问题：它看起来怎么样，我如何反应，它做了什么？我们还没有了解为什么要使用它以及如何反制它，但这些问题通过将分解的部分和想法重构为一个连贯的包来回答。这听起来要比实际操作容易得多，而从分解的部分中创造新想法，一旦开始，似乎是一项艰巨的任务；然而，有一些简单的指导方针（和耐心），这是非常可期的——甚至可能很有趣。

原文：

In the first part of this three part post I started with a basic premise: every move you can think of has already been created. I focused on Marvel vs Capcom 2 as a powerful resource for studying cool and powerful moves, as it has both depth and breadth in play, and it has a large tapestry of themes to pull from. Now we are going to get into the nitty-gritty fun of breaking down moves by understanding not only what you are seeing, but also why you are stealing it.

Just to be clear: my vocabulary is NOT congruous with the MvC2 community. These are the terms I was taught while working on god of war, which I have adapted and applied to the game of MvC2. I do this, number one, because it is easier for me to think in terms of god of war terminology, and number two, I do it to reinforce the idea that this is not “about” MvC2. The purpose is to talk about how to effectively construct ideas for use in an action adventure game, with MvC2 being the greatest source.

All moves are broken down into three stages: Action, Reaction, and Result. The player performs some action, his opponent reacts, and it results in both of their status changing. Some moves involve all three stages (throwing a fireball), while others might only involve one (teleporting), and yes, sometimes it can be hard to fit moves into any mold. Do not lose heart but instead remember: eventually you are going to reconstruct these ideas into your own moves. A structured approach helps in both construction and balance; additionally, this way of thinking reminds you of the important questions to ask: what does it look like, what does it do, how do I react, why should I use it, and how can I counter it?

When designing, there are those rare moments where the process seems to flow naturally. Inspiration is striking left and right, and you know the exact move that you want. One look at a piece of concept art, and you know exactly what moves it should have. These perfect moments are all too uncommon. Inspiration, that most elusive friend, chooses when she wants to strike; however, that doesn’t mean we just sit around waiting. That’s where mining for ideas comes in, and whether we are looking for a move to fit a monster, or hoping to find a monster to fit a move, the search starts with an action.

Action

Every move your character makes is some kind of action. The first step in deconstructing the actions you see in MvC2, or any game, is by understanding their basic structure. A move is made up of frames of animation, and these frames are broken down into three stages: Startup, Hit, and Recovery.

• Startup: The move is starting, but nothing has happened yet. If I was going to punch you, this would be the part where I pull my hand back and get ready – my muscles tightening in preparation. The longer this period last, the more time your opponent has to figure out what move you are doing and react. When someone says a move is “telegraphed”, they are likely referring to the fact that a move had a long and obvious startup.
• Hit: The move is now “active”. If it was a punch and it was touching someone else, this would be the part where they take damage and react to it. The longer this period lasts, the easier it is to hit someone. At first glance it appears that “longer is better”, however the longer your hit frames are active the more time your character spends locked into this move. In Street Fighter 2, M. Bison’s crouching heavy kick (c.HK) makes him slide along the floor a decent distance. His hit frames encompass the entire slide, which makes it a risky move. If the other player blocks the move, since you are still locked into the slide, they can easily counter attack.
• Recovery: The move is no longer active, but I must spend time recovering back to my “rest” state before I can perform another move. If I was punching you this would be the time it takes me to bring my hand back. If I really put my all into this punch, it could also be the time I spend trying to catch my breath. The longer the recovery, like having a large number of hit frames, means that you are locked into this move, or “committed”. A particularly powerful move might be balanced by having a long recovery – high risk high reward.

Fighting games, action adventure games, beat em ups… they all make it or break it by the strength of their melee moves. Do they feel powerful, do they flow, and do they make sense. The majority of moves in MvC2 – in fighting games in general – fall into the category of melee moves. From quick jabs that let you poke your opponent to death, to arm-stretching overhead smashes that flatten them to the ground; the number of ways you can slap some part of your body against someone else is as varied as our imaginations. This variety comes from the interplay between three attributes: Power, Range, and Speed. These attributes are a sliding scale and not a harsh choice – imagine dials not check boxes.

Understanding how to adjust these dials requires a firm grasp of our three stages of a move. You can have the most powerful move in the game and I the weakest, but if my move has fewer start up frames I will beat you all day every day. My speed defeats your power, and while we could fix this by giving that powerful move greater range, the better solutions present themselves when we have a robust understanding of reactions, and how different kinds of reactions (or a lack of them) can be used to balance moves.

Reaction

Actions are the fun part – the part we fixate on – but they are not the most important part. A powerful move feels like a powerful move only when it is sold by a powerful looking reaction. Understanding how and why characters react to various moves is integral in making sure your moves don’t come off feeling underwhelming, or even worse, comical.

As you study moves, observe the difference between an opponents normal reaction and his reaction when blocking (guarding). When you are hit by a move, much like when you perform an action, you play an animation, and your character is locked into this reaction for a period of time. The reaction animation you play is, most times, visually different when you are guarding, but more importantly, the animation you are forced to play is shorter (fewer frames). The variance in length between taking a hit and guarding a hit can mean the difference between landing a combo, or getting brutally punished. A normal reaction means that you are stuck in Hit Recovery (also called Hit Stun). If you are guarding, you are stuck in Guard Recovery (also called Block Stun). Note: I do not like the terms stun or block. The former because you are not actually stunned, and the latter because blocking implies a negation of all damage, while guarding implies a reduction in damage, which is more accurate.

Let’s say I have a punch with 2 hit frames, 4 frames of Recovery, and a kick with 3 frames of Startup. The punch causes 10 frames of Hit Recovery but only 5 frames of Guard Recovery. If I attack someone with this punch (and they do not guard it), I can combo into my kick and get a free hit (my hit, recovery and startup is less than his hit recovery). If they guard my punch, however, he will recover before I do. This is just a simple example, but you can see the importance in understanding the difference.

This is just the beginning of what you can do when you begin to understand reactions. Return to the example above, with the ridiculously powerful but slow move and the weak but very quick move. The quick move was going to have the advantage, but what if we can introduce a new trick to the slow move? Some moves allow the player to have armor or “tank” through attacks. While tanking you take damage, but do not react. This gives you a clear advantage. The quick move will hit you, and you will take damage, but it’s no matter because you plow right on through and smash that punk to bits – huzzah! Tanking is an example of a modifier that we can place on a move, and it’s not the only one you can use. Note: even though modifiers are an attribute of the action, I feel it’s important to talk about them here in reactions, because they deal almost exclusively with how you react (or don’t react) to moves. There are quite a few modifiers, and again, these are terms I learned from working on god of war, but you can see most of them in some form in MvC2:

• Tank: You take damage, but do not play reactions. Sometimes a move can only tank a fixed number of hits. For example, you can tank the first hit, but if you are hit a second time you play a reaction normally.
• Invulnerable: You take no damage and do not play reactions.
• Guard Break: Attempting to block a move with this attribute forces you to play a special kind of reaction. You do not take damage, but you are left vulnerable.
• Unblockable: Attempting to block a move with this modifier forces you to play a normal reaction as if you did not block it at all.
• Crumple: A special kind of reaction. Your character loses control for a period of time. Being hit while crumpled causes you to play a normal reaction. Note: THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING STUNNED. When you are stunned and receive a hit, you remain stunned until a period of time has passed. The Crumple state, however, ends once you are hit.
• Frozen: Turned to ice, turned to stone; theme is irrelevant, the reaction is the same. You are locked down, stunned, and you cannot break free until a timer runs down. Note: this is the first time I have used the word stunned. That is because this is the first time it has been factually correct. Do not use it when not appropriate. It’s confusing, and only serves to weaken communication and meaning.

With all of the various reactions (normal hits, guarded hits, air hits, crumples, etc.) and with the knowledge that to truly sell an attack it has to have an appropriate reaction, you can see how the workload begins to balloon when left unchecked.

Note: If you don’t have time to make heavy reactions, all that time and effort making ‘cool’ heavy looking attacks is now worthless.

It is purely anecdotal, but it is my belief that what separates the good from the great is having a truly competent grasp of how important reactions are to the system; not just how to make them look good, but how to make them look good within a budget. Your workload dictates the possible reactions, the reactions dictate the feel of your attacks, and the feel dictates the final piece, your results.

Result

What is the difference between reaction and result? Viewed casually, reactions seem to be results, but there is a worthwhile distinction here. First, a move can have a result without a reaction (I drink a health potion). Second, and more important, reactions are animations, while results are changes in state.

State, in this context, refers to more than just the health of your character. Other changes in state range from altering your current armor rating, to altering whether you are considered on the ground or in the air. For clarity I will break them down into categories, and then provide some examples within each category to illustrate its uses.

Health

• Damage: A fixed reduction in health. The amount of damage done is scaled by two factors: the opponents armor class, and the current combo count. A character like Sentinel takes less damage from hits than someone like Akuma because they have different armor class ratings, additionally, the more you hit someone, the more your damage is scaled down (eventually reducing down to 1 damage per hit).
• Poison: A fixed reduction in health over time.
• Heal: A fixed increase in health
• Regen: A fixed increase in health over time
• Drain: Reduces health from one person, healing someone else for some fraction of damage done.

Defense

• Armor: Increases or decreases the amount of damage scaled by your armor.

Time

• Increase: Making one character move faster than another is a simple to understand, if complex to implement, example of this concept, but a better illustration is to consider what happens if we simply reduce the number of startup frames a character plays.
• Decrease: Much the same, but in reverse. I could increase the length of my opponents recovery, giving me a major advantage.

Position

• Impulse: Not all moves shove you across the screen, some suck you in. Impulse is the generic attribute, applied programmatically, of how much (both positive or negative) something shoves you.
• Launch: Knocking an enemy into the air places him into a completely new state. The game must understand not only that he acts differently, but also that he reactsdifferently. There are a whole new set of reactions to play when you are in the air; remember what I said about your workload ballooning when you don’t pay attention?

Results are easy to grasp and fun to think about, but do not get carried away. Their simplicity in concept belies their complexity of implementation. For every system you wish to modulate, the programmers must expend time and effort making that system variable instead of fixed. Pick your battles carefully.

A Job Half Done

Action, Reaction, and Result. These stages help us answer three questions: what does it look like, how do I react to it, and what does it do? We have yet to learn why we should use it and how to counter it, but these questions are answered by taking the deconstructed parts and ideas and reconstructing them into a coherent package. It sounds a hell of a lot easier than it is, and crafting new ideas from our deconstructed parts can, once started, seem like a Herculean task; however, with some simple guidelines (and patience), it is very manageable – maybe even fun.

原文地址：https://flarkminator.com/2010/12/23/designing-enemies-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-mvc/

作者：Mike Birkhead(战神系列战斗系统高级设计师)

感谢作者和他的分享精神，我这里也不过是薪火传递，将好文引入国内。

所有你能想到的动作都已经被创造出来了。

这听起来荒谬，但一个角色打败另一个角色的方式是有限的，所有那些耗费的努力，所有那些为了想出一个“酷”的新特技的挣扎，所有的工作最终都归于无用，因为它们在本质上是衍生的。这些时间更应该花在游戏的其他方面。

不要羞于使用其他设计师的想法。使用Java中的预构建库并不比从另一个游戏中借用并重新应用想法更具冒犯性。想法并不成就设计师，执行力才是。抛开不断重复发明轮子的束缚，开始偷窃、借用、挖掘。挖掘过程始于最伟大的源头，酷炫、闪亮且强大的招式之泉：Marvel vs Capcom 2。

时间是1998年，Marvel vs Capcom在街机中爆发，并借鉴了之前VS系列的想法，将其扩展到Marvel和Capcom的角色中。两年后，其续作Marvel vs Capcom 2（MvC2）成为了杰作。它利用了前作奠定的所有简单性、巨大的粉丝服务、团队攻击和炫酷招式的精彩想法，精炼了这些想法，然后与令人眼花缭乱的角色阵容结合起来。做一下数学运算，你会很快发现这个游戏是一个创意的宝库。总共有56个角色，每个角色都有几个普通攻击、空中攻击、特技、辅助技、超级技……总数很快就会上升。

招式数量并不是MvC2成为灵感来源的唯一原因。这款游戏的设计理念，VS系列的设计理念，是如果你“打破”每个人，每个人都是平衡的。太多时候，当事情看起来过于强大时，我们的本能告诉我们要像游戏欠我们钱一样挥舞“削弱棒”，但如果你要让一个招式变得无力，那为什么还要有这个招式呢？确实，在MvC2中，并不是每个角色的每个招式都是一个破坏游戏的超级攻击（那是不现实的）。但对于每个角色，设计师都努力赋予每个角色一个“花招”——一些有趣的东西来赋予他们风格。这里展现了这个游戏的美丽和乐趣。每个角落都有一些新的、令人眼花缭乱、粉碎对手或恢复健康的宝藏等着你去发现，而且有很多东西可以发现。是的，许多招式是角色主题的，微妙扭曲的其他招式的衍生品，但它仍然为我们提供了大量的创意，无论是从主题上还是功能上。

拥有55个角色的阵容意味着你有一个很好的主题拼贴可以借鉴：植物人、巨型机器人、武士、赛博格、忍者、恶魔、浩克、埃及神、红坦克……名单还在继续。当在主题上卡住时，这个游戏可以成为一个灵感来源。即使你有一个不符合MvC2模子的角色，这种创造力的水平也有助于激发想法。

作为一个主题工具，MvC2很棒，但更有益的是它在定义功能上的帮助。当设计敌人时，你的目标是确保每个家伙都有自己的小花招。这个花招可以是简单的，例如你用来围攻玩家的害虫敌人（强调你的大范围攻击），也可以是像战神中的美杜莎那样的特例（强调移动和时机攻击）。

作为潜在创意的来源，MvC2既有深度又有广度，这种组合使它成为一个值得深入挖掘的游戏。所以，如果MvC2是我们应该偷窃的来源，从哪里开始以及如何开始？首先，你必须理解如何解构游戏，因为了解招式的构造方式会给你一个格斗游戏的词典。其次，你必须理解为什么以及如何重建它们。只是随便拿一些招式并将它们——方钉圆孔——强行塞进你的角色阵容中是违背这项练习的目的的。此外，如果你正在制作一个单人动作冒险游戏，有些哲学与格斗游戏是不相容的。你的角色有角色要扮演，所以你需要知道哪些招式有助于定义这些角色，如何修改这些招式使它们与您正在制作的游戏兼容，以及如何在你的游戏中保持平衡。

Marvel vs Capcom 2是一个惊人的资源，但它不是唯一的资源。铁拳、街头霸王、罪恶装备，名单还在继续。在下一篇文章中，我将讨论如何分析、描述和解构你在MvC2中看到的东西，武装这些知识后，你希望能够将其应用于你看到的任何游戏，而不仅仅是MvC2。

原文：

Every move you can think of has already been created.

It sounds ludicrous, but there are only so many ways that one character can beat up another character, and all of that expended effort, all of that struggle to come up with a “cool” new special move, all of that work comes to naught when you end up with something that is, at its core, derivative. That time is better spent on other areas of the game.

Do not be ashamed to use the ideas of other designers. It is no more offensive to use a pre-constructed library in Java, than it is to take the ideas from another game and reapply them. The ideas don’t make the designer, execution does. Throw off these chains of constantly reinventing the wheel and get to stealing borrowing mining. The mining process begins at the greatest source. At the fount of cool, flashy and powerful moves: Marvel vs Capcom 2.

The year is 1998 and Marvel vs Capcom explodes into arcades, and taking the ideas learned from the previous VS titles, it expands them to both the marvel and capcom casts. Two years later, its follow up, Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (MvC2), was the pièce de résistance. It used all the wonderful ideas of simplicity, massive fan service, team attacks, and bad-ass moves laid down by its predecessors, refined those ideas, and then coupled them with a dizzying cast of character. Do the math and you quickly see why this game is a treasure trove of ideas. 56 characters in total, each with several normal attacks, air attacks, special moves, assist moves, hyper moves… it quickly adds up.

The quantity of moves is not the only reason MvC2 is an inspiration. The design philosophy of this game, of the VS series in general, is that if you “break” everyone, everyone is balanced. Too often, when things seem overpowered, our instincts tell us to swing that “nerfbat” like the game owes us money, but if you are going to make a move impotent, then why even have the move? It’s true that in MvC2 not every single move, of every single character, is a game-breaking super attack (that’s just unrealistic). But for each character the designers strove to give each character a “trick” – something fun to give them style. Here emerges the beauty and joy of this game. Around every corner is some new eye-exploding, opponent-smashing or health-restoring nugget that is yours to discover, and there is a lot to discover. Yes, many moves are character-themed, subtly-twisted derivatives of other moves, but it still leaves us with a large amount of ideas to mine both thematically and functionally.

Having a cast of 55 characters means you have a great collage of themes to pull from: plant guys, giant robots, samurai, cyborgs, ninjas, demons, hulks, egyptian gods, juggernauts… the list goes on. When stuck thematically, this game can be an inspirational source. Even if you have a character that doesn’t fit a mold cast by MvC2, the level of creativity can be helpful to get ideas popping.

As a thematic tool MvC2 is great, but what is more beneficial is its help in defining functionality. When designing enemies your goal is to make sure that every guy gets his own little trick. The trick can be something as simple as the pest enemy you use to swarm the player (emphasizing your big area attacks), or it can be something as special case as the medusa from god of war (emphasizing movement and timing your attacks).

As a source of potential ideas MvC2 has both depth and breadth, and this combination makes it an intimidating game to mine. So, if MvC2 is the source we should steal from, where and how do we start? First, you must understand how to deconstruct the game, because knowing how the moves are constructed gives you a fighting game lexicon. Second, you must understand why and how you reconstruct them. Just taking random moves and smashing them — square peg round hole — into your cast of characters defeats the purpose of this exercise. Additionally, if you are making a single player action adventure game, there are certain philosophies that are incongruous with a fighting game. Your cast has roles to fulfill, so you will need to know what moves help you define these roles, how to modify these moves so they are compatible with the game you are making, and how to maintain a balance in your play.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is an amazing resource, but it isn’t the only resource. Tekken, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, the list goes on and on. In the next post I will talk about how to analyze, describe, and deconstruct what you are seeing in MvC2, and armed with this you will, hopefully, be able to apply this knowledge it to any game you see, not just MvC2.