Hi guys, I’ve been going back and forth with this in my mind for a while and I thought I’d just ask for your opinions since I’m just spinning my wheels at this point.
Should I add a button for jumping in my game?
My game is not a platformer. It’s not necessary. It would take up an input that could be used for something else. Yet somehow I feel it’s kind of strange to not be able to jump in a 3D game (it’s both 1st and 3rd person as you can change the camera).
Now, I guess there are some 3D games out there where you can’t jump. But when I play them, sometimes I feel like I want to jump anyway, just for the heck of it. Or for a more practical use - say there is a small box or ledge in front of you and you want to just jump over it but you can’t and you have to instead walk around it. That’s kind of frustrating.
It’s a more stylized cartoony game, not a gritty horror or anything so there’s no huge mood break if the player decides to start hopping around for no reason. The game is also going to be either open world or semi-open world.
I could do the LOZ thing where you auto jump across gaps and stuff but that seems like a lot of work to get right.
I would ask myself if the jump matters. Plenty of games have jump that has absolutely no use. Doom 3 comes to mind, you had the ability to jump but because of how slow you were and how weak your jump was, I never used it. Doom 2016 however, the jump is extremely necessary because it’s as much a parkour game as shooting.
Ask: does the player need agility?
You could make a hidden mechanic in your jump. I’ve noticed that in literally every game where there is a good jump, I tend to twist as I jump. This is muscle memory from playing Quake where twist jumping made you move really really fast.
I say get some play testers and see, don’t tell them anything, see if they say anything about jumping.
personally I think if they character should be able to jump you should have that feature, in cases like the horror bunny hopping example you gave, you could have a bit of logic detecting it and blocking it, you could make it lower (non-regenetive) stamina so the player won’t waste it for no reason, lots of thing to do.
But if he wants to hop around, i say let him - fuck it.
BTW, i’m not talking about “actual” play testers / QA to stress the game, just the average gamer, I just hunt them on the streets, haha
Yeah, a part of me wants to just add it because it’s so expected and it would feel better to the player to have it, even if they never use it.
Right now, not really. If I do add it in I could add some shortcuts or places where you need to jump and it could make the levels more interesting but it will never be essential to the gameplay. It’s just not that type of game
Again, I think the older 3D LOZ games are a good example. You could auto jump but jumping wasn’t necessary for the core gameplay of fighting enemies and solving puzzles. The levels / dungeons / temples and some puzzles would probably be less interesting without the jumps though. A part of me wants to do as you say and trim the fat.
It might make getting around easier. The player also might want to run for their lives instead of fighting an enemy so it might save their lives if there’s something in the way that they can jump over but I don’t really see myself adding a bunch of small ledges or such obstacles in the areas where enemies spawn anyway.
I bring up the horror example because I noticed that you can’t jump in a lot of horror games. It makes sense (especially if jumping increases your running speed or lets you dodges attacks or at least if the player feels like it does).
I think playtesting may be the best option but I don’t plan on getting people to playtest my game for a while. I want to have the core gameplay done, plenty of things to do in the game, and I want to replace all the placeholder models before I show it to anyone (it’s embarrassing otherwise ).
But since jumping is not really going to be essential to the game I could always add it in later. I could redesign an area or two if I need to. It’s just that if I add jumping, I’m going to have to make another character controller (the one I have right now uses NavMesh to get around (although it’s typical WASD control, not click to move) since it made sense at the time and if I never add jumping it would work fine and allow me to avoid adding a bunch of colliers to restrict player movement and prevent the player from ever falling through the world.
Replacing the player’s controller later on in development makes me antsy (which is why I created this thread instead of putting it off). Maybe I’m just paranoid and it’ll be no big deal.
I vote don’t add jumping unless it adds some value to your game. As you pointed out, it’s 1 wasted input, it’s also potentially 3 animations (jump, mid air/falling, landing), it means your players might be able to get to places you dont want them, they could get stuck, you have to add the jump code, the list goes on!
Basically, it’s a lot of work to add something just because you feel weird that it’s not there.
I want to cite one of my favorite games of all time. Fable. You have no jump button yet its a fully 3d game that works perfectly fine without one. Make your vision the way you see it. If you believe jumping isn’t needed to fully enjoy your game, don’t include it.
Do consider the amount of work jumping adds to your game.
Sure, adding the jump feature itself is pretty simple, not a lot of work at all. But now all of your levels need to be designed, built and tested with that feature in mind, and that is a bunch of extra work. You also need to take it into account when designing, implementing and testing the other features in your game.
This is a part of how scope blows out for many developers. Being simple to implement does not mean something is easy to add to your game. When you look at the big picture even “simple” stuff has a big impact. Adding the wrong “simple” thing can seriously blow out your workload.
Unless you specifically need it or it’s a part of your intended experience, leave it out.
Also this. Get stuff playtested early and often.
My ideas always seem great to me. I have no idea whether or not other people like them until I get the game in front of real people to get real impressions. If they don’t like it then that is not a bad thing. It means I can either modify or ditch the project sooner, rather than spending time polishing something that people might not even want.
If people criticize your execution then great, the underlying idea is probably ok. If people criticize the underlying idea then you’ve got issues that no amount of polish will fix. No worries, move onto the next idea, I’m sure you’ve got plenty and some of them are probably good.
For clarity’s sake, I’m not saying that your current game is a turd. I have no idea. I’m just in agreement that you should test it with other people early and often.
You still can’t jump, only vault over objects or “jump” down a hole. But none of the time can you actively jump to a higher location without it being some kind of event based action.
I want the content in there so people can see the whole picture before they judge it. It’s kind of like if a dev was making a fighting game with only one character who is a cube (for example). If people played that game they might not be able to see the fun and unique aspects about it until the dev puts in cool art, animation, any plenty of different combos and characters to play with.
I want to have the art be close to the final look and all the major systems in place with different enemies (because a large part of the fun is tactical and without different enemy types and items you won’t be able to experience that) and at least a level or two with two different kinds of boss fights. Then people can play it and say, “Okay, I get what you’re trying to do.” It’s kind of a complicated system so I want people to be able to play around with a good chunk of it before judging it.
After taking everyone’s advice into account, I’m going to test out auto-jumping or button prompts / sequences like this. I think this will allow me to make some more interesting levels and not have the player feel like their character is stuck to the ground the entire game without having to account for them being able to hop around wherever they please. I don’t think this will add too much work since I’d have complete control over where the player can jump.
I see a lot of replies that do not address the physics problems of jumping.
If you jump, you need to address several incoming pros and cons of jumping, notably physics.
If the player is stuck kind of like in the original dragon age and jumping is not an option, then you don’t have to work around jumping to close off areas.
If jump is enabled, you have to consider this:
fall damage (in banjo and kazooie, ground pounding and then falling doesn’t count as a “jump” or “walk off” so no fall damage)
anti-climb boundaries (in vanilla WoW, the jump was there for no reason and many people abused colliders to climb stuff)
when to make the jump part of the game (in doom, you can jump but it gets you nothing at all)
synergies with other controls (in Metroid prime, scan jumping is a bugged state where you long-jump and can skip stuff)
getting stuck (so many games need an unstuck option because you can get stuck in small areas)
So if you can address these pros/cons, then put a jump in it. Otherwise, consider it a limitation.
Also, always have a reason ready to talk about why or why not there is a jump. FXIV got a lot of flak for never addressing it.
All I can say is to stop worrying about being “judged”. It doesn’t matter if people don’t like your unfinished thing. What does matter is why they don’t like it.
If they don’t like it because it’s unfinished then you might be onto something good. If they don’t like it because it’s not an interesting idea then great, you found out before you completed a bunch of major systems and made a whole bunch of polished art and so on and so forth. The time you saved can now be put into your next idea, which might be a winner.
Over investing before you’ve checked if people like something is usually a mistake. The exception is if you’ve already decided you don’t care what other people think (ie: you’re making the game for you, not for an audience), in which case we wouldn’t be talking about being judged.
How do you know what “final” is without getting feedback from players?
My current project has some pretty fundamental differences from its early design because we put it in front of players, learned what they liked and what they didn’t, and deliberately modified the design accordingly. There’s plenty of ways to cook an egg, and that’s just one of them, but overall I’d definitely say that if you’re developing for an audience and you’re not getting feedback from them during development then you’re building blind and just hoping it all works out in the end.
Coming back to the topic… if you don’t need jump as a part of your core experience, I’d make a prototype that doesn’t have jumping, then I’d get a bunch of people who are into your type of game to play it, and I’d ask for feedback. If “there’s no jump button” comes up a lot then I’d consider adding one. If it doesn’t come up much or at all, save yourself the effort and work on the things that do come up.
I’d say it’s half and half. This is a project that I’ve wanted to create for a long time so half of me is creating it for myself. But the other half of me also wants as many people as possible to enjoy what I made. As such, I am willing to change even the core mechanics if people simply don’t like it. (The only thing I’m married to is the genre, which is very flexible with it’s mechanics).
The art style is something that I’m not as willing to budge on. I’m going to have a lot of different enemies (100+) and NPCs (30-50) not to mention items and backgrounds in this game and from the very beginning, I wanted to be able to do the entirety of the programming and art myself (I want to work with a team later on, but if something happens I don’t want development to come to a complete stop).
So I tried out different art styles and settled on one that I could see myself comfortably completing the entire game with (even if it takes time). I simply wouldn’t be able to create the game with a more realistic or simpler style (it’s low / mid poly - around 20k tris for each character). Any more detail and I’d get burned out creating all these characters. Any less and I wouldn’t be satisfied with how it looks.
But you do make a good point - what people think about my game is very important to me. Making this game is fun for me but most of all I would enjoy it if other people had fun playing my game.
Okay, I’m convinced. All of my core mechanics are basically done and I have a few NPCs and enemies done and some almost done so I’ll wrap that up and get some play-testers as soon as possible! If I show them what I have now and explain the extra features and content I’m planning on adding in the future, I think they’ll have a good idea of what the final game will look like and be able to give me some valuable feedback.
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