Arbiter - Monthly Recap - June 2022 (Patreon)

HELLO THERE!

It's once again time for me to talk about all the neat stuff I'm working on while showing off literally none of it! Okay fine, I might show off a LITTLE but only because I like you. 

Yes, you.

Anyways I spent the month of June finishing up Omen's animations and starting to get him in-game! As of right now he can run around, throw out his basic combo strings, and use his attack charging mechanic. All that's really left is to get his abilities and special attack in, as well as some other little things here and there like polish and effects.

I'd say that overall, things have been going pretty smoothly! I mentioned having some art block last month in regards to how heavy and/or fast I wanted Omen to be, but I think I've settled on a very nice balance since getting him in-game. 

*Dust effects pending.

I've never really been a fan of slower movesets in action games, but I knew I wanted Omen to at least be slower than the other transformations. In hindsight, I think I achieved a nice balance in two ways. The first was that the other forms (and rest of the game's combat in general) are already extremely fast, so I can have Omen be "slower" while still generally being pretty speedy as far as action games are concerned.

Secondly, I found that the charging mechanic naturally made me give his attacks comparatively slower start-up, but with very fast follow-through. Put simply, you'll often find that a lot of Omen's attacks start slow but end fast, which I think compliments the charging mechanic quite nicely.

On that note, I realize I haven't actually explained how his charging mechanic works! Basically, for any of Omen's ground attacks (discounting abilities) he can hold the attack button down to charge the attack and change what it does. This means that every one of his grounded attacks has two variants: charged and uncharged. 

The uncharged variants come out pretty quickly and don't do anything too fancy aside from stringing combos together. The charged variants, however, do all sorts of fun stuff. 

So the way it works is that each attack can be charged for about 1.5 seconds. When fully charged, Omen will release the charged variant of the otherwise basic attack. If he releases the input before that, he'll just use the basic attack as normal. 

However! If he releases it shortly after starting the charge (within a 0.2 second window indicated by an orange flash), he'll use the charged variant earlier. I call these Perfect Charges ™, and mastering their timing will be more or less essential to playing Omen effectively. On top of this, all of his charged moves can combo together, which basically allows Omen (a slow character) to play like a faster character with enough mastery of his mechanics. Neat!

One of the other factors of his charge mechanic is that he has super armor for the duration of the charge. That means that as long as you're charging an attack, you cannot be hit-stunned out of it (though you'll still take reduced damage). 

Super armor is prevalent in a lot of Omen's mechanics, but it was important to have due to both his vulnerability while charging and his overall theme as a berserker. While the other forms require a bit of finesse to avoid damage, Omen's more of a "You're gonna hit me, but I'm hitting you harder" kinda guy. Or you can just dodge, up to you.

Anyways that about wraps up this update! I'll be spending July working on Omen's special attack and abilities, as well as some VFX work here and there. I'm hoping to have him finished by August, but we'll see! 

In the meantime, thanks for everyone's continued support as usual! You're all wonderfully patient beings. 😌

Cheers,
Jordy