This article was first published on the following public accounts:
01. Preface
Creating a realistic and exciting "sense of blow" is an important goal of game design and a key element in attracting players, but what exactly is the sense of blow? In fact, the sense of percussion can be understood as the feeling of input and feedback together, from the perspective of output, the "sense of reality" and "exaggeration" of the action is the key to creating a sense of percussion, and from the perspective of feedback, the sense of percussion is manifested in three aspects: numerical feedback, visual feedback and sound feedback.
02, output - "realism" and "exaggeration"
(1) Sense of realism
In game combat, reasonable action design is a key element in forming a sense of blows. Linked to real life, when the human abdomen is attacked, people will make a bow and waist action due to the blow, when something hits the person's head, the person will subconsciously do the head covering action or dodge the action, the so-called authenticity and rationality of the action design is reflected in these details. For example, the real feedback when a person is tripped is that the body falls to the ground because of the loss of center of gravity, and when the body falls to the ground, it may be that the body leans forward and then the knees land on the ground first and then the whole person falls, or it may be a butt sitting on the ground and falling on the ground, but it will never be the body falling directly to the ground.
In the game combat action design, the need to show on the one hand is the attacker's attack action, on the other hand is the attacker's attack feedback, of which the composition of the attack action is more complex, a complete attack action is usually composed of four parts: the preparation stage, the starting stage, the attack stage and the end stage, it is worth noting that not only the action design of the attack stage is the most important, the real action performance needs to pay attention to the cooperation of each stage. Action design requires a sense of rhythm, and the sense of rhythm is produced through the rich combination of these stages, on the one hand, the rhythm of the action can be determined by the game developer, such as the complexity of each stage of the action comparison (such as simple preparation with gorgeous big move display), the length of time of each stage (such as strengthening the big move longer than the ordinary big move), the degree of matching between the action and the special effects; on the other hand, the rhythm of the action can also be controlled by the player, such as the player can control the use of skills in the order and combination, This is known as a combo.
"Eternal Destruction" is full of attacks
There are also two design points in the combat action design that sound contradictory, "pause" and "coherence". "Pause sense" means that the attack action can have a certain pause and delay, the player can feel the resistance to attack things in this pause and delay, this sense of resistance will sometimes make the player feel that the attack behavior is more real, such as the gold miner game that everyone played when they were children, the miner fished up the diamond or small piece of gold, the rope will be pulled up quickly, and the speed of pulling up the rope will become slower, which makes the user have a laborious feeling. This also truly restores the fact that it will be more laborious to catch heavier items in life.
The Gold Miner compares the sense of force when picking up different items
"Coherence" is well understood, that is, the smooth sense of action, the coherence of the skill itself preparation, release, and the coherence of the end stage and the coherence of each skill connection are the key to creating a sense of fluency, in order to improve the "coherence" of the action, many games have set up a "CANCEL" mechanism, that is, the usual "cancel back shake", "cancel the front shake", the previous article has mentioned that the attack action is often divided into four stages, these four stages can also be understood as the accumulation action before the release of the skill, the skill release action, After releasing a skill, the action that occurs before the skill reaches the release point is called the forward swing action, and the action that occurs after the end of the skill to the next skill release point is called the back shake action. Back and forward shake make the action of the skill more rhythmic, but in the actual battle, this action will sometimes appear redundant, because in the actual battle, only a few tenths of a second of the action may be the key to affecting the outcome, so the player can cancel these excess actions through some high-end operations, so that the action connection is faster.
For example, in the MOBA game "Showdown! In "Heian Kyo", the hero Rukia's second skill is a slashing action, the action stops behind the character obliquely with the arm and weapon, but when the two slashing skills are released successively, the arm and weapon swing to this position is slightly clumsy, the player can cancel the post-shake by connecting the general attack behind the skill, and the action performance is that Rukia's arm swinging range becomes smaller, and the end position moves forward, so it is more fluid when connecting the next swing action. In the shooting game "Wilderness Action", after the player jumps or jumps from a higher position, there will be a crouching and standing up action when landing, this design is in line with normal human behavior, but in the game, this action takes extra time, although the time is short, but the encounter with the enemy with accurate marksmanship is enough to drop you for seconds, the player can cancel this back swing action by swinging the fist at the moment of landing, so as to make a counterattack at the first time when encountering the enemy.
Showdown! Heian Kyo" Rukia cancels the post-shake skill articulation comparison
(2) Exaggeration
"Exaggeration" mainly refers to the exaggerated performance on the basis of "realism", and the exaggeration in the game combat action design is mainly manifested in the trunk action, the range of activity, the distance of movement, etc., which can enhance the appeal of the action and the visual impact of the picture, so that the player feels a stronger sense of impact.
You can feel the charm of exaggeration by observing the action design of the classic cartoon "Tom and Jerry", "Tom and Jerry" uses a lot of "elastic deformation" rules to exaggerate the action, such as the gesture of waving and bending down when Tom laughs, which can resonate with the audience and let the audience feel its happiness; for example, many of the chase scenes in the animation are exaggerated by increasing the amplitude of the character's forward or backward tilt to show the inertial action when turning or stopping. This creates a sense of tension in the chase.
Tom laughs in Tom And Jerry
Tom and Jerry chase action design
The action design of the classic game "King of Fighters" uses exaggeration just right, it gives the player a stronger sense of impact by exaggerating the state of the character being lifted, the distance sliding after being knocked down, the range of physical reaction after receiving the attack, etc., so that the player can feel the attack and attack effect more strongly during the battle.
King of Fighters 97 battle action design
In addition, game designers often create a strong blow effect by exaggerating the sense of pause, such as showing the damage effect through stop-motion movements when using large moves, and slow-motion attack shots during combat.
03, feedback - counting, seeing, listening
(1) Numerical feedback
Numerical feedback refers to the critical strike rate, damage amount, etc. performed during the attack, the amount of health displayed after the blow is small, the amount of damage suffered, etc. Numerical feedback is the simplest and most direct way to create a sense of blow, users can clearly see their attack effect by observing the value and therefore quickly get a "cool feeling".
Showdown! Numerical feedback on the battle of Heian Kyo
(2) Visual feedback
In the course of the game, the player's most feelings are obtained through the game screen, vision is the most common way for the game to convey information to the player, and skill special effects, shots and screen details are the main factors that constitute the game screen and create a sense of impact.
Skill effects
When it comes to special effects, people can think of cool, glowing, magic, etc., in fact, it refers to the beautification and exaggeration of the strike effect. Special effects can be said to be the most visual impact of the game, the part that can give the player the most intuitive feeling, and the player can feel a strong sense of blow through the skill special effects.
Spider-Man Marvel's Spider-Man attack effects
Lens head
Whether in the field of animation, film and television or games, lens design is very important, the picture lens does not have to be stable, different perspectives will present completely different visual effects, flexible lens design for the game immersive experience provides more possibilities. For example, when colliding during a battle, the screen can show a vibration effect, and when using special skills, you can use a large perspective lens to enhance the sense of impact of the picture.
In COD - Modern Warfare, the oblique camera is used to stimulate the player's tension
Picture details
Graphical details can help enhance the immersion of the game, and the way details are handled is rich and diverse. For example, the feedback of the attack can not only be reflected in the action, but also in the expression, and the game maker can improve the player's combat experience by designing the character's painful expression after being attacked, the proud expression when winning, etc. For example, in "King of Fighters", the production team pays great attention to the design of light and shadow in battle, in the course of the battle, although the characters use a variety of fancy actions, but the light and shadow can still reflect the rationality in these strong and rapid changes, this "sense of reality" enhances the player's sense of immersion and blow feeling.
"King of Fighters 97" light and shadow design
(3) Auditory feedback
Studies have shown that the proportion of people's brains receiving external information through five senses every day is: visual 83%, auditory 11%, olfactory 3.5%, tactile 1.5%, taste 1%, it can be seen that hearing is the most important way of information transmission in addition to vision, so in the game interaction design, auditory interaction also occupies an important position. In the game's combat design, the player's strong blow feelings are often transmitted through realistic sounds, such as the sound of flesh and skin colliding, the sound of falling to the ground, the sound of being attacked, the sound of swinging weapons, the sound of bullet attacks, etc. These sound feedback can make the player truly feel that his operation is effective during operation. In addition, some sounds are innovatively expressed on the basis of realism. For example, in "Showdown! The skin of the white boy in Heian Kyo is set as the image of the chef, so its skill performance is also related to the chef-related elements, and the second skill is designed as a soup bowl style, which is accompanied by the sound of boiling water with the soup noodles, which is in line with the skin setting, reflects the different textures of the weapon through sound interaction, and provides the player with different blow feelings.
Showdown! Heian Kyo", white boy two skill special effects
However, it is worth noting that the sound interaction is not only reflected in the combat process, but also in more details, such as the footsteps of the surrounding environment in the chicken eating game, the sound of feet stepping on the grass, the wind sound of waving weapons in the air and encountering resistance, and the lines and gasps of the characters can enhance the player's immersion and thus improve the player's game experience.
Summary
In summary, in the game, the sense of percussion is the product of the combination of attack sound effects, battle screens, numerical performance, etc., and is the coordination and unity of attack action, attack special effects, attack action, hit special effects and sound effects of the attack moment. In daily life, the sense of percussion is a kind of tactile sense; in the game world, the sense of percussion is the use of visual, auditory and other elements to establish a percussive behavior that meets physical expectations. In layman's terms, the sense of blow refers to the player hitting an enemy or object, there is obvious visual and sound feedback to tell the player how to hit and how effective, these factors are the key to creating a sense of the game's blow.