When You Parry It Push You Backwards

[ɴᴏᴛᴇ: ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ ᴅᴏᴇsɴ'ᴛ ᴀʟʟᴏᴡ ᴇᴍʙᴇᴅᴅɪɴɢ ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏs ᴏʀ .ᴡᴇʙᴍs ᴍɪᴅ-ᴘᴏsᴛ, ᴛʜɪs ᴘᴏsᴛ ʜᴀs sᴏᴍᴇ sɪᴢᴀʙʟᴇ ɢɪғs ɪɴ ɪᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀʏ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴀ ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴀᴅ]

Happy New Year! How did you spend 2022? [pause for viewer response]. Really? Wow. Huh? No, I'm not judging, you do you. I spent a fair amount of mine trying to make game feel good. That footage above took a lot longer to come to be than you might expect, and it's all because it's just one button! Except for moving forwards. That's normal movement.

From the moment Rainshade's namesake was added to the game, I had one primary goal for the gameplay: Incorporate elements of typically more complex games that I enjoy into a much more accessible package, while keeping the game's original tone and atmosphere intact. No resource management, no complex inputs, and most importantly, as few buttons as possible.

To add variety, much of the player's more unique actions are context sensitive, but there was a strange lack of satisfaction with certain crucial actions. For example, parrying a boss, stunning it, and then performing a home run looks fun, but when they'd all be executed by standing in the same spot and pressing the same button repeatedly, something felt off.

My first instinct was to give the home run a different input, and thus began a rather long daunting iteration process. I tried several different approaches, but they all created new problems:

• The player being able to swing the umbrella whenever meant more things had to react to it
• More bosses needed a justification as to why it wouldn't hurt them most of the time
• If the input was on a different existing button, it felt strange for its purpose to suddenly change drastically under certain circumstances
• I just really didn't want to add an additional button??????

It gradually became apparent that the solution wouldn't be found with a new input, and had to be a context-sensitive umbrella action. If the input or action was almost never used outside of boss battles, and your game mostly plays like this:

Bᴏᴍʙᴇʀᴍᴀɴ 64 (1997) — Hᴜᴅsᴏɴ Sᴏғᴛ

Players would be, I don't know, maybe a little unprepared when bosses play like this?

Bᴀʏᴏɴᴇᴛᴛᴀ 2 (2014) — PʟᴀᴛɪɴᴜᴍGᴀᴍᴇs Iɴᴄ.

(for the record, no mandatory bosses get this reflex-heavy)

None of these were working, so I returned my focus to the core problem: If the player stands in one place and keeps pressing the same button, it feels strange for them to suddenly do a different action. And therein lied the solution: Instead of changing the input, we stop the player from performing the same action. 

So I just pushed the player over.

Their current action is disrupted, they have several frames to register the shift in situation, and in order to hit the boss again, they will need to move forwards first. Though performing a home run for the first time will likely surprise a lot of players, it makes sense: the Umbrella button's purpose is to deflect and repel. The home run is just a more satisfying way of executing it.

Still in iteration is the flick mechanic, a means of countering boss attacks after dodging instead of parrying, which is meant to replace picking up Kirby-style starts and throwing them at bosses. I'm very hopeful about the current approach, and will share that as soon as it's ready, and looking forward to a much more productive 2023!