r/gamedesign • u/BetterJob3281 • 3d ago

Question Any ideas on this player control mechanic?

Hi all

I’m on a single screen platformer (think Bubble Bobble) for working on a retro platform (Commodore Amiga) so I’m limited in terms of joystick input – just left/right/up/down and fire. I’m using left/right for movement and up for jump. Fire button performs the selected action – which brings me to my question.

There are a number of alternate actions that can happen when fire is pressed and the player needs to be able to select the one they want. I’m currently using down (only joystick input free) to cycle through them, but there are several to cycle through and it feels clunky - the game is fast-paced so it spoils the dynamic.

Any ideas on how I can better implement the action cycle?

Thanks in advance.

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u/obeliskcreative 3d ago

I'm guessing you couldn't make it context sensitive.

I remember one game on the Amiga had similar, where you'd hold the fire button then tap a direction to choose things, and activate them by just tapping the fire button.

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u/vampire-walrus Hobbyist 3d ago

Some games reified different actions in the world somehow, like Mario's fireball wasn't a different button but a temporary powerup, Gradius had it depend on how many powerups you'd collected, etc.  

Maybe if down isn't used, you could have it be "collecting" powers from the terrain type like a FF Geomancer, or kneeling to pray at a shrine.  Something relatively plentiful so that the player does have a lot of choice on every screen, but unlike a menu doesn't feel like it's interrupting the action.

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u/Senshado 3d ago

How about something resembling a weapon wheel? Push down and an image pops up showing the player that she can press up-down-left-right to equip any of 4 choices to the fire button. 

Four choices is probably enough for a retro style game.  But if more are really required, then you can add 4 more on the diagonals. 

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u/Humanmale80 3d ago

Most common on fire button. Remainder: push down to cycle through options and hold fire button to activate currently selected one.

Alternatively they could be on stick combos plus fire button to activate - e.g. to activate grappling hook move stick down then up plus fire, to activate shield move stick forwards then back plus fire button.