Ultrabouters
FROM MY EXPERIENCES, THIS GAME RUNS BETTER IN FIREFOX!
Ultrabouters is a prototype idea for attempting to liven up fighting games. The goal with Ultrabouters is to attempt to make fighting games more strategic & rewarding as chess is. This project was completed in a week, & gives you a sense on how a game with this objective might play.
Devlog
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Development log
- Ultrabouters 2? Anyone?Dec 08, 2023
- 👀👀👀Aug 16, 2021
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NEW & IMPROVED ULTRA BOUTERS IS UP ON GOOGLE PLAY STORE! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hax.ultrabouters
The fireball is too good, not because of its mechanics, but because the AI is just too stupid to have any idea how to handle it. Don't nerf fireball, make the AI recognize it and adapt.
The fireball is too good.
This was a really fun strategy/card fighting game.
The card-based cooldown was fun to witness and plan around, using forward step and charge to get into position so I could chain one quick punch into a second punch and then a charged kick to close the distance between the characters. Tense and exciting but also fair in execution.
It was cool to be able to counter the foe's charged attacks with simple punches and basic movement options.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
Or a punch, in this case.
Well done.
ill go ahead and rate it 7/10, its that cuz like the graphics arent great and doesnt really make the game look that great, but gameplay is well done, i love the mechanics of like a card game + fighting game style! things i recommend to put in the game: faster knockback so its more realistic so it dont look like smash 4, make jumping higher.
quite fun! its biggest issue is repetitiveness, but i think
that's fine for a demo.
The new and improved street fighter
the embeded game doesnt play , just a heads up. http://duppy.tk
One thing: it needs a taunt button. That's the icing on the cake when you have your opponent outmatched.
some of the best parts of the game in my opinion:
- I like how a fair amount of the moves line your opponent up for a second hit if you can judge it properly.
- I like how many of the moves can be repurposed as dodges if need be, and if you judge its use as a dodge properly.
Overall incredibly satisfying game. I find myself spending time enjoying it rather than enjoying many of the games I own that I paid good money for.
improvements:
1. I enjoy this game so much that I could see myself gladly playing several times through a campaign built around it. I envision that a campaign in this game would look much like a classic Mortal Kombat campaign tower with different fighters on each floor and the boss waiting at the very top. A much needed challenge would be added to this game by facing opponents along the tower with fighting styles foreign to what you're used to. You may face someone who uses mainly their fist and prefers to be an infighter, or a fighter that prefers to create and keep distance to launch ranged attacks, or even a fighter with an ensemble of kicks who can reach you in any direction within his mid range.
2. Fighting new enemies can open up the opportunity to alter your own arsenal of combat strategies. Not only do I get the vibes of a Mortal Kombat tower journey from this game, but also I see vast potential in the prospects of collecting cards. If you could defeat mundane opponents along the campaign trail and take (in canon 'learn') their signature martial arts card, you could collect a deck of these cards from which you could select which ones you will bring with you in battle. In this way you can specialize what type of fighter you'll be each go around of the campaign - adding replay value.
3. As aforementioned I enjoy how many of the moves set your opponent up for a second, well judged chain attack. However, in all cases your opponent is being knocked back which limits your options to only the moves that have the most reach. While this already works well, an enormous amount of potential for combos can still be opened up by simply changing the angle at which you launch your opponent with certain attacks. Send them in more of an upward angle and they'll be inline for a Thundercut to the ribs (an attack that currently can't be used as a follow-up to any of your other attacks). Conversely, if you bashed down on your opponent with an axe-heel kick you could send them flying at a lower angle, perhaps sending him prone. I still find myself looking for the opportunity to see my opponent lying prone so I can use the jump attack to leap up and stomp down on the enemy. It feels instinctual that there should be a prone position that you can put your opponent in, and some attacks that can reach floored opponents.
4. I find myself wanting to use an attack that can close distance between me and my opponent . I naturally envision this as a gliding straight-arm punch (much like the main sword lunge attack Dante uses in all devil may cry games). This feels like it would fit in naturally if it is balanced enough (such as a period of ending lag like Desupanchi has, or a high energy cost to prevent spam). This would be well used to capitalize on an enemy that is being knocked back, or is intentionally keeping their distance.
5. The card aspects of the game inspire me to think of both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Persona. Filling out your deck with new and unique cards looks par for the course in a game like this, in my opinion. However, I imagine that the features of card fusion from the Persona series would prove useful (both as a fun mechanic in the game, and to make it easier for the game developer to put in great access to more moves without complicating the heads up display). For instance: you can elect to expend a large sum of energy to select two of your thirteen cards on the HUD. Depending on the two you select they'll momentarily turn into a new card that will allow you to use higher level powers for an instant. One example would be selecting the "charge at" card and the "punch" card to perform a gliding straight-arm at lightning speeds. This would keep the HUD clean because with only thirteen cards on display, you may have access to over a hundred different abilities. Of course balancing for specialty moves like this would be needed to keep the game in the realm of a chess-like experience, and not change it into a mere beat-em-up.
6. I don't know how or why, but it would be extremely gratifying to grab my opponent from mid air (while they aren't suspecting of being grabbed mind you) and spiral them down in a primary lotus. This is probably wishful thinking, but still a very gratifying prospect.
7. I like the jumping attack, but it feels like I should be throwing something down at my opponent while I'm up there... Among the many martial arts cards one might attain I imagine several types of jump cards, each of which featuring a different type of action at the apex of the jump (such as a flying kick at a downward angle, or casting a large energy ball ahead of you). The fact that they are all jumps may serve as a feint against your opponent.
8. I'm noticing that the absolute most fluid combo currently available in the game is:
- Knock your opponent back with any of your melee attacks
- follow up with a Super Kick as they careen backwards in the air
- follow up again with a Fireball
You can't link any other attack this well in the game.
btw you've definitely got one new subscriber to the YouTube channel, cool content.
thanks for all the feedback. Yeah I really feel your criticism about the comboing. I originally was trying to get it so for example, jumping, & slamming down to the ground in fire, are 2 different cards.
desupanchi sucks so much. Such little range, slow startup, and the end lag is absolutely horrendous. Doesn't seem to deal enough damage, and even if you hit it, you get punished. Good game, fireball not op
despite what others are saying the fireball is quite balanced if you play rushdown, but i understand if you want to nerf.
if you spam fire 1 you instantly win. i also think if you remastered the graphics and added a bunch of new moves it could actually go as a full game that people will play
tip: to win just spam the most op attack... fire
(pls do it less powerfull)
it would be cool if there was more ranged attacks as fire 1 is currently too overpowered and some more skins would be nice you should defiantly keep working on it
a nice little feature could be some sort of multiplayer... either local or online
Really cool concept, and its fun to play. Something to look towards is a highlighting mechanism which shows the range of an attack when you hover over a card which would let the player make decisions more decisively or something like that. But overall a really fun game.
the game s fun you should keep working on it
This game is really cool, when my buddy told me about it I was skeptical but I was pleasantly surprised. The music and sound could use some work, I wouldn't mind lending a hand if you are interested. I could compose some music and make some sounds for the hits and explosions and other stuff.
This is a really fun game! Oddly more intense than a normal fighting game. Being able to make the moves and constantly be thinking about what I should be doing next is different than slowly losing brain cells and just mashing together moves I remember to outmove my opponent makes it different.
Really fun even at the current development stage! Having multiplayer even if just locally and some characters on top of general polish would make this something I'd buy and play very often with friends.
When will come out the local multiplayer version?
Cool game, and btw if you spam the fire attack you can't lose.
I'm just coming from watching your video on this, and being a big idea person I really wanted to share my thoughts with you because I'd love to see you take this game seriously. Firstly I'll throw out some very general design ideas that maybe you can toy with. Going off of your original idea to a deck where a player would get their cards at random, I thought it'd be neat if you sectioned all of the moves into four separate decks: A punch deck, kick deck, defense deck, and special deck. With this set up you could incorporate the typical Highs, Mediums, and Lows for the punches and kicks but you also open up a way to diversify each character and their movesets. Want like Cammie then you can simplify the punch deck, add more unique kicks, and add dashes into the defense deck. The hope is that this system makes building a roster easier as it could tackle the issues of differing movesets and playstyles.
Another thing from a gameplay perspective is if you can find a decent way to incorporate hitstun into the game (perhaps have each card show Stunned Turns with the others) then you might be able to set up a couple of different systems. The first one being that once a hit is landed then a card could be highlighted for an optimal follow-up? Of course the player wouldn't need to take it. The goal is for this to be a way to bring combos into the game and allow for players to find/create their own. Following the idea on the "optimal follow-up" maybe you could also have cards locked behind certain others or even a certain criteria being met. This is mainly where the special deck would come into play in my eyes. Say a character lands a high knee, uppercut, or super kick these actions could unlock a card from the special deck that could be used for a devastating follow-up. I'm hoping this along side the cooldown meter would help your more powerful special moves from being too overpowered as now a player can't just throw them out there anymore.
The last thing I'll talk about in this dump of text is actually ideas for characters and the roster. Power to you for using the characters from your WIP anime, but since I'm unaware if you want this game to be tied to it I thought I'd just throw something out there. With Chess being the inspiration for this game I thought it'd be neat to having characters and their movesets loosely based off the Chess pieces. It doesn't have to be anything major or on the nose like having characters named King and Queen, or anything like that. I think just the starting letter is fine. I think the best example of this would be the character based on Rook; their name could be something like Rockie or Roxanne, and they'd of course be a rushdown/grappler. Just something simple like that.
Anyway I just wanted to get these ideas to you while they were still fresh in my mind. I hope you enjoy them and can get at least some insight from them. Thank you for taking the time for reading all this, and most of all good luck in all of your endeavors!
I like this game. Now it only needs a bug fix of the fact that one can just float in the air instead of falling off the building (see the image) and an online mode. I suggest to make the online mode so that there are 30 seconds to decide the next move.
I also suggest to move all the cards of the same colour one next to the other and to add a second evade that would be counterclockwise, unlike the one that is already here (so that when the falling off the arena is fixed, one isnt doomed if one tries to evade from a bad position next to the edge). Maybe add some other cards too, so that one can make a deck to use, with different combinations.
This is like a more dumbed down version of a fighter. Where is the counterpokes, meaties, the okizeme, frametraps, mid/low game (I see some highs that can be ducked), pokes and counterpokes, combos with different routes, etc.
Also the elements that are there don't really seem thought out well. Whiff punishing options all have the same results besides damage, the hitboxes and turndata on moves don't really reflect what little utility each move has, trades don't rely much on turndata (most of it is pretty homogenized anyways) and you just get huge pushback and return to neutral, etc.
I think the most egregious design are how the moves that would generally considered normals work. They all have the same startup, there are clipping issues (might be a design choice to not make kick so strong) and there are only four (three if high knee is supposed to be like a special) options despite there not being controller or physical comfort limitations. It makes the neutral game pale in comparison to the footsies you see in even the simplest of fighters because there is no way to have a proper high/low/mid/aerial and short/poke/counter/meaty game.
I'd love to see you really explain and flesh out what you think a fighting game entails because this game makes me feel like you're mostly a masher with a very superficial grasp of mechanics. The lack of real-time and the bad CPU hurts the game, but the absolute destruction of the fighting game fundementals makes this unplayable.
Agreed. Compile a comprehensive list of everything a player could do in any given situation in a traditional fighting game of your choosing and map them out to a menu navigated with the controller. The path to a specific move might look like a combo to you. Players could be given ample time to complete a turn or pressured to decide quickly - this way, it could be played either as an evolution of chess or of speed chess, the latter of which you might find to be more typical of a "fighter."
He did it in a week. Chill. I'd like to see him spend another week on it.
I mean he say fighters were boring and then made something far worse.
this game is honestly really fun. think with a lot of polishing and something like a campaign or online multiplayer this game could become at the very least a cult classic
This is really cool. It's neat how the more you play, the more you can be strategic about which cards you choose, and you can even get to a point where you're dodging attacks and timing attacks really well. I do think the fireball is a bit overpowered, but it seems that if you use the fireball enough, the ai will just start to use it as well, or he'll try to dodge the attack. I'd love to see this as a full game, and I know this would be incredibly difficult, but it'd be sick if you could turn this into an online multiplayer. Cuz I can just imagine playing this against my friends or just destroying some randoms online.
I managed to get a tie with both characters dying from the desupunch.
i jumped from the youtube video and first off all, i'm a great fan, love your work since forest runing in the labyrinth <3
I realy loved the concept of the chess-like mechanic, but i really like minimalist approaches, the vast options of cards made the game kinda open for some sort of dominant sequence (depending on the npc first instance), maybe making it less abbout diferents cenarios and more about one mechanic, like chess. The samurai sword fighting aura of those grey screen is realy awesome, it would fit nicelly in a player x player experience and maybe a simple set of movements (in chess there are two, lines and diagonal) would make the player feel smarter (as chess do so well)
Hope i made myself clear, my english is kinda rusty, i'm a brazilian game and web dev (junior at max), you inspired me a lot, thanks so much for that!
I like the strategic aspect. It's really fun when you succesfully dodge and punish, I like how some moves have indeed post-lag time and the other player can take advantage. You can even bait. I also like that when you land a punch, the animation creates distane again so that there is no exploitation. Really nice and actually fun, man!
Aparto from that, I'd say to fix the animations, some feedback I'd give is:
If you get hit: interrupt animation. I see some moves follow that, but I see it's only until a timeline point reaches. There should be more priority on stopping the animation the frame the attack hits.
Expanding on last point, with only one type of knockback, strategies can be formed to exploit combos really easily (My favorite is following up anything with a fireball because of the reach) If you implement different duration knockbacks depending on the move that has hit, this will be better for the recieving user to punish or come back.
The players should not share space with each other after a move. I tried my char to be always sharing space with the other and I was succesful, this lead to me always winning because most attakcs flew past me, permitting me do a combo with short attacks. Look at how SF does this and try to replicate it.
Don't do the deck idea, having all options is super nice, each charcater should even have a different moveset / card poll.
Map cards to specific buttons on a controller try that, It may be fun.
Not much more man, I think these are the main ones. Good luck!!
So this game is on the way that in the same vain: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1265820/Fights_in_Tight_Spaces/
There's also the The Hand of Fate series.
Great concept, but needs to be better balanced. The fire attack is super OP and there is nothing to balance it out. A reflect might be good. Also, unlike chess, you don't have much information about what the opponent could do next. I would recommend making the time steps even more granular so you can react part-way through their moves.
One can just duck and step forward. After all, the fire move takes 3 turns, while evade, step forward, charge at and duck all only take 1 turn
An extremelly cool consept! Please make this into a full game!
This is actually sick, I love this! I can imagine this could be a really fun competitive deck builder kind of thing, or maybe even something akin to slay the spire! A really solid concept!!
Nice. But the fire attack is defnitely too good. You can spam fire and win!
This is honestly a fun and interesting game. In the first balance change, the fire needs to change. Its range and knockback make it nearly impossible for the opponent to approach. Just spam fire and see. This could be a really fun game if more time were put into it.
I really really like this idea! It’s totally cool if not, but would it be alright if attempt making my own game based on this idea. Let’s face it, it probably wouldn’t see a release at all, but if it does make it to that point, I’d definitely credit you!
Like I said though, it’s cool if you’d prefer me not to!
Tried the web build, it's a very nice idea, though i feel like in general the concept of using cards in battle games has been done before, though possibly in not such a great way, I feel like you could go for something that would be better than just cards, maybe use the keyboard, since it's almost never used in your game, which would make choosing moves faster and feel more natural, and would aid my next point, which is: in chess games usually there are also premoves, it would be nice if they were implemented in here as well, if the person already assigned a move to the queue the game goes through the queue and plays their move (unless it was cancelled, you probably could make premoves cancelable by using escape or some other key, like space?), i think this game has huge potential, and it would be cool to see this game do something different with a genre that's been overdone, but as a prototype, this shows your idea very well. I like it. Also, taking inspiration from chess is a good idea. Chess is very satisfying to play, especially when it comes to playing seriously or playing friends with experience, I feel like a fighting game with elements inspired by chess would be the best fighting game to be, it's a very good idea.
As a proof-of-concept, THIS. IS. AMAZING!
It's simple, fun, and a great intro to strategy in a fighting game.
If you can iron out the interpolation between moves so that players can build combos, then I'm pretty sure that you'd have a true contender against traditional fighters.
I definitely want to see this follow through. :D
Web build works pretty well on mobile, except that the cards are impossible to read, at least on my phone.
I'm in agreement with both you (from the video) and others in the comments that adding an actual deck and/or cooldowns would make this a lot more fun.
Not to mention, of course, multiplayer!
yep, 100% gonna "borrow" this idea for my project, great game.