3: fighting game readability and you!

fifighting games are some of the most complex game genres there are, simply due to the fact each player needs to be able to interpret what's happening on-screen at all times. because of the complexity of this subject, I have broken down my current understanding of it here for you today. 

first off is motion. while good motion is needed for most games, fighting games give very little leeway on this aspect. for a good fighting game to work, there needs to be good motion. each and every action needs to be able to flow into one another and be chained together to create dynamic combos and move sets. keep in mind that the ability for moves to flow together should be different depending on the move, and shouldn't always happen fast, only fluidly. 

second off, we have animation and character design. each character and animation needs to be distinct looking at least a little bit. color is an important factor in this because if each character has its own palette, it significantly helps readability. animations work in a similar sense, that it can hurt or help readability by being distinct or not. keep in mind that this can be used both ways, to make 2 moves look similar to fake-out opponents is a common fighting game character archetype. manipulate these rules into what fits your project the best.

next, we have backgrounds and secondary actions. ideally, you will have a background of your stages, and each background will be interesting yet not overpowering to look at.  a lot of what makes a good fighting game is readability through and through. without good readability, the game becomes tedious and hard to play. anything else happening on the stage other than the characters fighting is what I will refer to as secondary action. this could be background, moving platforms, items, and the such depending on if you're making a platform fighter or not. these should NOT be distracting to the players.

last but not least is GUI. you need to display health and other variables and info to the player, but you want to do so while taking up as little real estate as possible on the screen. this should be accomplished by looking to see if you can make out this info mid-fight. if not, make it bigger, if so, make it smaller until you can't. adjust it to its minimum, making it readable without taking much of the screen. 

to anyone reading this, thank you once again for listening to my ramblings ^^!