CIEL'S PROFILE

I'm curious about what people think about how characters should control in sidescrolling platformer games. It occurs to me that platformers are very similarly set up to 2D fighting games and am wondering if it is acceptable for platformers to use basic character control principles from fighters. To start with I will clarify a term;

Wikipedia on Responsiveness
The responsiveness of an interactive system describes how quickly it responds to user input.

For instance, when typing letters on a computer keyboard, the user will usually expect these letters to appear immediately (< 0.1 seconds delay) on the screen.

In "car" parlance the responsiveness of the vehicle is how quickly it reacts to input. Obviously in video games, high responsiveness is desired.

Character movesets/limitations/freedoms
This is different from responsiveness. It is the percentage of time a character is open to new inputs. A lower percentage of time is not necessarily bad; sometimes when a character executes a certain move he will have to dedicate X number of frames to it before being able to do another move. This is common in fighting games. When you execute the fireball command in Street Fighter, the character cannot jump or use any other move until he is finished with the minimum required frames to complete the fireball. There are characters with moves that require a (relatively) great number of frames to execute, but they often have powerful advantages. This is where important factors like spacing and situational awareness come in. You don't want to dedicate a lot of frames to a move when it is inappropriate to do so, otherwise you are leaving yourself open to attack. A skilled player will utilize the move in an effective manner, maximizing its potential and nullifying its drawbacks.

I am supposing most people here have at least played Smash Bros. Obviously some people prefer characters that have quick execution times (i.e. very few frames wherein new inputs are not accepted) on all their moves, such as Meta Knight, while others enjoy the play style of characters with slow execution times such as King Dedede. I should note that both of these characters are considered "top tier" - it has been proven time and time again in fighting game history that both styles can make for an effective character.

My question is, do you think this sort of variety of control in a single player platformer is acceptable? If your main character has a move he can do that has a relatively long execution time, but a strong property like a sizable hitbox or long range, would you consider that unacceptably limiting to your freedom to control the character, or would you regard it as a limitation around which the character and game is balanced? Would you dismiss the game's controls as "poor", or think of the move as if it were a fighter and consider its advantages and utilize it effectively and appropriately? Are both of these styles viable in a platformer, and if one is unacceptable why so? Do you personally like having to think about spacing and potentially leaving yourself vulnerable in a single player game or do you find it a nuisance?

These are a lot of questions about video games I know!! But I think people tend to be narrow-minded when it comes to the variety of manners in which a platformer character can control - they always want to be able to press buttons and see something happen no matter what (Meta Knight style) and if this is not the case the controls are "poor" or "clunky". 2D Fighters and 2D Platformers essentially both amount to a character moving on a x and y axis with the objective of destroying enemy targets, so why would certain things be acceptable in one but not the other?

i hope it is going well., i am well.

how are you? my cat is doing fine also.

i am looking forward to your video game.

just checking in. see you later bro.

excuse me i am just trying out some street vernacular.

in the case of faint hearted readers

i beg your pardon.

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http://ciel.image.googlepages.com/Ciel-Accordion1.mp3

Enjoy.

To whom it concerns,

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Thank you in advance for your compliance.