Hi! So I’ve promised I’ll have something special at the beginning of the summer. Here I am!

I’m working on a new project, a small one to explore one simple idea I had. I had a bunch, but for now let’s talk about this one.

So after I’ve stopped working on Shadow under the Mountain, I was sad about one thing in particular that would never see the light: combat. I really was excited about my ideas for combat there. And well, I generally like all the boom-pah-crack combaty stuff. So I’ve got an idea about making a separate small game about top-down combat.

I’ve decided to make a simple fighting game about fencing, also local-multiplayer but I want to add computer controlled opponents (because not everybody has friends). I’ve landed on a “bare-bones” design. There are only two main actions: block and attack. That’s why I also named the game, at least for now, “Parry-Strike” to capture this simplicity.

There’s a catch though. Or two. Or maybe three.

First, just to try something unusual I decided to make movement of one player… relative to the other player! It means that instead of going up, down, left and right on the screen, you can go towards, away from the other player’s character or you can go around him. Then in order to make controls easier, I made camera relative to both players, rotating with them (so that one player is always above on the screen). It looks a bit confusing to me, so I want to test this thing and decide whether I want to leave it that way change something.

Then, instead of health I made a system I called “focus”. Quite funnily, the “focus” system is the main focus of the game. All the actions there either deplete or restore it. And to keep everything tight – most actions bring you ever closer to zero. And when your focus is zero – then a successful attack from the opponent would be fatal.

I think the way the game is going to be fun with so few actions is how much it relies on timing and positioning. I plan it to be a tough fast-paced combat, and I also plan for some extra things you can do which are still part of the main actions. I mean close-range attacks that are faster, and a perfect-timed block that gives some timing-related advantages.

For now, I plan to go dig up some references in other games to see how what I want this game to be can be done, and I also will test the game extensively to see if I’m doing things right. I’ll keep you and myself updated here – and see you, hopefully soon.