The Action Game Scenario Design Dump

This a brain dump of single player action game scenario variables that I want to curate not just for inspiration and reference, but also to hopefully introduce more standardized vocabulary to use amongst craftsmen of our ilk. So, first things first. This is a distillation of the most common configurations of enemies that are encountered in single player action games.

• Standard Handful: A finite handful of standard enemies that confronts the player. When the last member of the handful is defeated the encounter is over.
• Standard Series: An arbitrary number of standard handfuls that confront the player as they defeat all the members of the previous standard handful.
• Timed Stream: An infinite stream of enemies that confronts the player until a clock has run out.
• Trigger Stream: An infinite stream of enemies that confronts the player until a condition has been met.
• Boss: An encounter with a powerful but pattern-dependent opponent.
• Reinforced Boss: An encounter with a powerful but pattern-dependent opponent who is surrounded by some configuration of standard enemies for support.
• Mirror Match: An encounter with a powerful opponent who has access to all of the player mechanics.
• Invincibles: An encounter with a unbeatable enemy or group of enemies. Designed not as a legitimate challenge, but to progress a story.

Since action games have deep roots in the  arcade setting where simplicity in game structure is the rule, this shallow group of variations should make sense. The depth in the encounters in action games come from the mechanics themselves and the complexity of the enemy cast. Now I'm going to produce a list of common combat scenarios found in single player action games.

• 400 Meter Hurdle: This is the most predominant and straightforward scenario found in action games. The player must get from point A to point B while defeating enemies along the way.
• Protection: There is an entity in the play space that is surrounded by enemies and must be protected.
• Assassination: There is a single specific enemy in a larger body of enemies that must be eliminated.
• Genocide: There is a specific type of enemy in a larger body of enemies that must be eliminated.
• Backup: There is a large group of allies and enemies fighting and the enemies amongst the melee must be eliminated.
• Demonstration Of Skill: The game requires a skillful demonstration of ability in the one of the game's many (implicit and/or explicit) scoring forms.
• Restriction Of Mechanics: The game enforces the exclusive use of a specific mechanic or set of mechanics to eliminate an enemy or group of enemies.
• Timed Vandalism: There is a group of objects that must be destroyed before a clock has run out.
• Triggered Vandalism: There is a group of objects (possible very large or regenerating) that must be destroyed until a condition has been met.

Finally, this is a list of scenarios found in other types of games that can and should be converted into a single player beat 'em up action game format.

• King Of The Hill: The player must fight their way to a point in space and protect it for as long as possible from attackers while the enemy does the same.
• Emperor Of The Hills: The player must fight their way to various points in space, establish possession, and protect them for as long as possible while enemies do the same.
• Harvest: The player must survive a series or stream of enemies while something in the play space is collected in some way.
• Capture The Flag: The player must fight their way through a stream of enemies and retrieve an object, at which point they must return it to a specific point in the play space.

I know there is more than this so please contribute! Anything you tell me personally or in comments that is useful I will add to the post. I'd like this to be a really comprehensive list when it's all said and done.

Improperly Enforcing Different Skill Sets

Most games train the player in a specific set of skills, and more engaging games condition the player to utilize them effectively. Some games will at some point, enforce upon the player a facet of gameplay that requires a completely different set of skills. Now sometimes this is fun! But far too often (especially in beat 'em ups, where game structure often goes dangerously neglected) the newly required skill set is not properly introduced to the player, and there is a harsh expectation that they should learn it and succeed with it, sometimes in high-pressure situations.  What's worse is that sometimes the newly required skill set is far less engaging, or even contradictory, to the skills the player has been developing up to that point.

A skill set that gets enforced without proper introduction: I mentioned this in my Castlevania combat analysis; the final boss of the game casts an effect on the play space that mires the players approach. The player must utilize a mechanic they have become familiar with, in this case switching the character's "combat mode". They must match the character's color-coded mode to the color of the effect on the ground in order to not get knocked down and away from the boss. You can see it in this video if you'd like. The problem here is that this is completely foreign from the mechanic's traditional usage, and it is most definitely in a high-pressure situation. Even the high level player in that video awkwardly navigates the effect in order to get within striking distance again. The expectation set at this moment is very inappropriate and I personally found it incredibly jarring.

A skill set that gets enforced that is less engaging than the primary skill set: real-time space battles in Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space. I simply find this gameplay way less interesting and engaging than the primary skill set of equipping items correctly while moving from node to node. Luckily for Weird Worlds, the primary skill set is not very complex in itself, so it's not very jarring when combat occurs. It's more so just demotivating because it simply isn't as fun and the game doesn't require the pacing break since it only takes 5 to 20 minutes to play.

A skill set that is contradictory to the primary skill set: pretty much every puzzle in every God Of War game. Solving spatial puzzles and engaging in real-time combat couldn't be further apart from each other in terms of brain function, and I find it very frustrating. Primarily because I play God Of War to fight and not to solve trite puzzles, but also because the gear shift is simply irritating. It's like trying to verbally articulate a complex concept when you're full of adrenaline. I completely understand why there are puzzles! It's the same reason there are cutscenes and scenery shifts and quick time events; for pacing. Breaking up combat is pivotal in a game that's intended to be played for more than a short while, but I simply feel like there's much more optimal distance between combat and other activities.

A straightforward example of a game (or in this case a series of games) that properly utilizes different skill sets is the Prince Of Persia series. Its primary skill set is platforming but it breaks up that activity with real time combat. These activities are different enough from each other to provide the much needed pacing shift but similar enough to each other that you're not engaging a completely different set of functions in order to progress. Don't get me wrong, I'm fascinated by the idea of hybrid games that involve different skill sets! I just think there needs to be more harmony.

Combat Analysis: Castlevania Lords Of Shadow

I recently played all the way through Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow for Xbox 360 on Hard difficulty.

Pros:

• The sense of impact you get from successful hits is really sharp and satisfying, which is an interesting feat considering the fact that the main character fights with a whip. The brilliant audio has a lot to do with it; the impact sounds are a combination of whip cracking, something getting cut open, high pressure gas being released, and a hard impact of some kind.
• The impact effects are quite good. They're very exaggerated in form and motion but not in color, which makes them exciting but still appropriate for the game's relatively dark and drab gestalt. That's not to say the game looks very dark and drab, in fact some of the environments in this game are more colorful than the environments in most modern games. But I digress.
• The actual combat flow is incredibly fluid and engaging. The moment to moment is not particularly dynamic (of course this depends on the combination of enemies you're fighting) but I found myself undergoing the typical circuit of item > attack > attack > dodge, except in a really fun and snappy way thanks in no small part to a very well implemented dodge mechanic. Very few beat 'em ups accomplish this kind of addicting fluidity and this games deserve the recognition for achieving it.
• You are given two types of attacks and they are different from each other in a meaningful way, which is refreshing. One attack hits only the enemies in front of you with a lot of power and the other hits all enemies around you with very little power. There is a downside, and I'll list it in the cons.
• The game properly incentivizes you to employ variety in your attacks! And it does it elegantly while rewarding you greatly for doing so! Yay! I'm so happy about this because most beat 'em ups fail to do this yet it's one of those simple things that makes combat so engaging.
• Items were fun and useful! This was my fault, but I was hesitant to use them at first (like I am in most games where my gamer instincts tell me to preserve resources for the real challenges). But once I got comfortable they became a pleasant part of the moment to moment game. They all had great effects and every last item felt very valuable.
• The dark/light magic system is inventive and interesting and fun. You could choose to either make your attacks do extra damage or you could use them to heal yourself. Each mode had different meters that you could refill at a moderate pace by killing enemies or refill it quickly by using and maintaining variety in your attacks. It's an amazing system and the cherry on the cake is that the game eventually requires you to quickly and carefully switch between the two modes to damage very powerful enemies.

Cons:

• You knew it was coming; why do I have to unlock mechanics?! If you want to provide an extra layer of pacing then great, give me something else to unlock, please. If you want to ensure that I properly develop my vocabulary of mechanics then great, do it in a training mode please. Having to earn my toolset of fundamental mechanics while I also am trying to progress through the game is maddening.
• They gave me a block mechanic that I never used after the first chapter. While I understand that the ultimate point of the block is to counterattack and punish enemies, I very quickly found the difficulty of execution grossly out of proportion with the reward for success. The problem is that most enemies have attacks that were specifically designed to break your block, and these attacks are not only performed at high speeds but the visual tell on these attacks is communicated very poorly. This wouldn't be a huge problem if the counterattack was very powerful, but it is not.
• Like I said before, the dodge was implemented wonderfully but performing it is needlessly complex. If they'd bail on the block and make dodging as easy as it is to do in God Of War or Bayonetta, Lords Of Shadow would have been a diamond of defense.
• While having a button devoted to attacking all nearby enemies with less powerful attacks seems very useful, it actually loses its usefulness over time as the game throws more and more combinations of fewer, more powerful enemies at you. Eventually I was making large strides of progress without ever using it.
• The shallow bit of air game that was there was well implemented but it suffered from the common problem of being just too risky with little justification. Generally speaking, the air game is something that has never really been taken to the next level (it's the same air game that the first Devil May Cry gave us that no one except Vanillaware (Muramasa) and From Software (Otogi) have bothered to play with). I don't want to crucify MercurySteam for this but based on the combat in Lords Of Shadow, I feel like they had it in them to take it to the next level but didn't for whatever reason. C'mon guys, you're good enough for this!
• A couple of the boss fights were incredibly frustrating, and it always came down to a couple very punitive and difficult to perceive-and-react attacks. Strangely, the rest of the boss fights were pretty straightforward; I might even say easy. I'm just not sure what happened here. Also, there were a couple boss situations where I had to refill every time I died since this game made the common mistake of establishing my checkpoint PRIOR to filling up. If you're going to provide me with the gift of a pre-boss refill, don't make me unhappy about it by coating it in tedium.
• The final boss did a very strange thing where suddenly you've got to accomplish something that you were not prepared to do through the usual tools of earlier foreshadowing or prior training. It's a really neat idea, and beautiful to boot! But suddenly having to do that and getting repeatedly knocked on your ass trying to use a completely different part of your brain felt really jarring. (I'm talking about the glyphs on the ground, by the way.) Minor quibble though, it was just a remarkably strange thing to occur.

The overall synopsis of the game's combat is that it is amazingly constructed, has near immaculate flow, and was interesting and fun all the way to the end. It has enough variety to feel fresh, enough strong mechanics to feel very powerful, and just enough systems in place to stabilize the combat from the top down. I'm seriously impressed and amazed at the work that was done here in this game and I can't wait to see what Mercury Steam does in the future. If they ever make the conscious decision to push game combat forward, then they could actually change the game and write MUCH NEEDED new rules in to the game combat rulebook. Brilliant work, guys.

Beat ‘Em Up Sheet Music

When I was trying to establish what exactly made the attacks and combos in beat 'em ups feel so specific and distinct from each other, I decided to scrutinize the animations from some of these games frame by frame. The first thing I did was grab a hi-def capture card from the office so I could plug my 360 in and start recording. I started by evaluating the bread and butter standing combos and understanding what's happening on a frame by frame basis, and my findings were very insightful. I'll save the nitty gritty details for another post, but what I ended up doing was making a printable template that I like to call "beat 'em up sheet music". It's a very simple idea, but it lets you avoid the staggering tedium of drawing out countless hundreds of tick marks on little timelines so that you can get back to the investigation. I'll go into how I specifically used it, but first know you can click this image to download a JPEG of the sheet music so you can print it out and use it yourself.

My process was to record the first hit in the combo, wait for the character to return to idle, then record the first two hits, wait for the characters to return to idle, and so on and so forth until I had a very accurate timeline of what every attack looks like in terms of length. As I did this for more and more attacks I started noticing patterns in the things I was continually identifying so I created a key.

• A = Attack: This is the first thing that occurs in the animation timeline; it's the part of the animation where the character goes from the state they were in previously all the way out to fully extended in attack motion. What was hugely insightful about this is that the range on this in particular is so varied across different games that it's no wonder they all look and feel differently.
• ASH = Attack Stance Held: Modern 3d characters will hold themselves in place for a certain amount of frames once fully extended. Not only does this serve an animation purpose (no one throws a punch and then instantly pulls their hand back in once extended, physics simply doesn't allow this) but it also represents a window in which possible branches of attacks can occur. You can confirm this for yourself in any game that shows you your input but also indicates the window in which a branch can occur (Bayonetta does this). They will most likely directly correlate.
• WE = Weapon Effect: This marks the beginning and end of the weapon effect (specifically, effect number 3 of the 10 attack sub-effects). This was also surprising in its variety in VERY subtle ways. I'll give you a hint; sometimes making this effect begin and end slightly AFTER the character's begins and ends their weapon swing INSTEAD of perfectly matching it can make all the difference in the world.
• RF/LF = Right Foot/Left Foot: This is simply used to mark the leading foot on the character for this attack. Any well animated character who moves forward while attacking is going to be stepping forward as they swing and it's important to pay attention to what the feet are doing before you confuse yourself trying to create attack animations that transition well. Sometimes this can change right in the middle of an attack or even multiple times throughout an attack so keep your eyes peeled.
• CP = Cancel Point For Run Input: Most modern beat 'em ups have very elaborate attack animations where the character steps forward, swings their weapon, holds their stance, steps back, and then takes their sweet time going back to their idle position (provided you haven't cancelled the animation with the next attack). Savvy beat 'em ups that want you to feel like you're in control of your character will let you cancel the attack animation with simple movement. Try it. Grab any beat 'em up and perform a basic standing attack without pushing any other button. Now do it while giving the character movement input. Chances are they'll cancel the attack animation way earlier than it ends naturally and just start running.
• BW = Branch Window: Only games that employ a gap timed mash flow are going to have this, but there will be a tiny and exclusive window where you can push the attack button to get a completely different combo than you would if you pushed the attack button right after the attack comes out. It's actually incredibly difficult to measure this, but far more often than not the ASH length is going to give you a pretty good idea of when the branch window is.
• RTS = Return To Standing: This is the part of the animation where the character goes from full attack extension to their a standing animation. A specialty transition reserved for games with whose characters have complex transitions based on the weapon they are holding.
• WSH = Weapon Stance Held: Another specialty case. You only see this in games when the character has stylish weapon poses they will temporarily hold before returning to their normal idle animation. Nonetheless, it can be insightful measuring this if you wish to do the same. It should be noted that the player will never even see this if you intend to let them cancel their attack animation with movement input.
• RTI = Return To Idle: This is what most characters in most modern beat 'em ups do once they're done holding their attack stance (ASH). Another part of the animation the player will rarely see because they'll most likely be cancelling it with movement but is important nonetheless.

The only other elements here that might need explanation are where it says "Mechanic" and "Motion Form" to the left of the timeline. This is just for clarification so you know which attack is documented on that specific timeline. For the motion form, I use an arrow to indicate the basic "swoop" of the animation, which helps me remember the attack I'm documenting without having the game on in front of me. Please use these and give them to anyone who might find them useful. If you're a godly attack designer and you can fully see a complete attack in your brain sauce, you should be able to use this form to tell your animators and effect people EXACTLY what they need to produce.

Combat Analysis: Dante’s Inferno

I recently played through Dante's Inferno on the 360 all the way and like usual, I was evaluating and scrutinizing the combat the entire time. But it doesn't help anyone else to have all that evaluation information stuck up inside my brain so I'm starting a column here on the blog that's dedicated completely to the combat of existing beat 'em up games. For Dante's Inferno, I played all the way to the last boss on normal difficulty.

Pros:

• Successful hits feel good and I appreciate the sense of impact I get from the game's attacks.
• There are a lot of really satisfying and pretty effects that make mundane actions feel far less mundane.
• The game utilizes a Super Flexible mash flow and it lets you pick and choose the next attack in the combo from two types of attacks: weak (hits multiple enemies but does little damage) and strong (hits only the enemies right in front of the character but does more damage).

Cons:

• Enemies have way too much health. The game got incredibly tedious very quickly as I repeatedly whittled down on a handful of enemies that can absorb way too many full combos. Even the very weak and non-threatening enemies take too long to kill and it not only makes mob control boring but it compromises my sense of power and hurts the game's overall pacing. The thing that very thrilling beat 'em ups do so brilliantly (particularly God Of War; Dante's Inferno's most obvious influence) is give the player a handful of threatening but fragile enemies that only take a few moments to destroy before shuffling the player into a new area with its own sights and sounds. The player may ultimately be doing the same thing over and over again but it just doesn't ever feel like it.
• Because of the high health of enemies, I almost never used the weak attacks. I was overcome with the tedium and opted for the strong attacks 95% of the time in order to feel like I was making the fight resolve quicker.
• There are a lot of meaningless attack mechanics. There was two separate trees of unlockable mechanics and I only ended up utilizing a few useful mechanics from either tree. And I did not just assume they weren't useful, I actually purchased and evaluated every mechanic.
• There is an enemy type that dashes into you very quickly and throws out a couple quick attacks. The problem is that this attack is nearly impossible to see coming and react to, and whenever it hit me it would abruptly kill my flow and demotivate me greatly. It got to the point that I would feel very frustrated simply seeing this enemy type approach me and it made those encounters immediately less fun.
• Enemies are not conscious of what they do from off-screen. There are only a couple enemies with projectile attacks but they all will perform them from off-screen and it's very frustrating. To me this is a violation of a golden rule; don't hit the player with things they can't realistically react to. I understand the threshold of realistic reaction is different from person to person but eliminating the opening visual tell of an enemy attack from the player's tactical frustum simply feels unfair, even if it's not necessarily unfair.
• There is a block mechanic and a dodge mechanic and I almost never used the dodge. Because of how vulnerable you are at the end of this move, I didn't feel safe using it unless I was dodging directly AWAY from the enemies and that isn't fun to do because then I'm breaking my combat flow by having to run back into their faces and attack. Sometimes you have to use it (one particularly large enemy and bosses) and so I did but otherwise I was just compulsively holding down the block button until an opening appeared.
• You have the ability to use a projectile attack that eventually gets pretty powerful. Unfortunately some enemies are prone to it and don't know what to do with it so certain fights against certain configurations of enemies was just me sitting in the corner of the playspace spamming this projectile for a demotivating amount of time.
• Dante's Inferno does this irritating thing that a LOT of games with bosses do; they save your position right in front of the boss where you have access to things that refill your various meters but you have to go through the motions every single time. If that wasn't irritating enough, Dante's Inferno meter refillers are these ugly objects you have to mash a button to get the goods out of. This is another thing that God Of War put forth into the world but it's also super irritating in God Of War so I'm not sure why this has been perpetuated.
• Quick time events. In my honest opinion, game developers have mistaken the novelty they had when God Of War 1 introduced them for something legitimately enjoyable. And the only reason they work in the God Of War games is because they're incredibly gross and satisfying, and even then they still BARELY work as fun mechanics. Dante's Inferno's quick time events are poor imitations just like everyone elses. I'm not trying to be cynical, I just hate how much collective time I've spent in various quick time events instead of playing a fun game.
• WHY DO I HAVE TO MASH A BUTTON TO OPEN DOORS?
• There was a large array of inventory items that had various effects on the moment to moment gameplay but not enough of an effect to be noticeable at all, rendering the system meaningless. I just didn't care at all what I had equipped.
• There was no incentive to employ variety in my attacks. None whatsoever. There was no tactical reasons, as all enemies are prone to all attacks, and no broader reasons either because there were no systems in place giving me any reason to. To the game's credit, it rewards you for very large combos by giving you additional currency with which to buy mechanics but achieving this in most situations isn't fun or exciting. I could get even grumpier with this particular issue by bringing up the fact that I shouldn't have to be buying combat mechanics in the first place, but I figure I've ripped on the game enough at this point.

The overall synopsis of the game is that it feels good to hit things but it's just so fundamentally straightforward that it stops being fun after a very short amount of time. Like I mentioned above, my combat flow quickly deteriorated into me blocking until something struck me and then letting out a couple boring combos or a few minutes of projectile spam before starting that very simple loop right over. Boss fights were often frustrating due to their very quick tells and punitive attacks and my "last feeling" in the game was one of "I'm glad I'm done with this".

The Mash Flow

Mash flow is the very simple concept of what exactly your fingers are doing while you're fighting a group of enemies in a beat 'em up game. There are a handful of integral types, and while there are many subtle strains of these types, I'm going to break down and scrutinize the big boys.

Type 1: Super Traditional

I call this Super Traditional because the very first generation of beat 'em ups (specifically Taito's Renegade and Technos' Double Dragon) took a two button approach. The input scheme was identical; one button was for punch and one button was for kick. Either button would start a very straightforward combo that you could either see to the end, cancel by ceasing input, or get hit out of. It is very important to note there was no interplay between the two basic flows, it just seemed like it because you could start one combo in the middle of the other. What's fascinating to me about the manifestation of beat 'em ups and their early use of this very rigid style of mash flow is that in all fairness, every attack in the combo past the very first attack was just a satisfying formality; you could design the same game without even having combos. But they did it anyway because it was incredibly satisfying to players. So much, in fact, that we've been iterating on this basic formula for 25 years.

Type 2: Traditional

It didn't take very long for game designers to realize they were misusing an entire button with a trivial redundancy so they smashed the game's important mechanics into one button. Thanks to this decision, the second generation of beat 'em ups (Final Fight, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, all the way up into the later era of Aliens Vs Predator, Battle Circuit, and Armored Warriors) were much more elegant and had the players navigating the game environment, staying clear of attacks, and then pinpointing the right moment in which to execute one very useful string of attacks by mashing one button. Eventually the genre developed a "special attack" button that would execute a unique mechanic that was very powerful but also very limited in use. Before the implementation of this ability on its own button, most beat 'em ups let players perform this by pushing the attack and jump buttons at the same time. This was too difficult for the average player to do reliably, hence the move to its own button.

Type 3: Gap Timed

One of many concepts the first Devil May Cry introduced into the world of beat 'em ups is the idea of branching live combos into completely different combos by waiting at key points in the combo for a split-second before hitting the attack button again. For example, pressing A four times in a row would get you a fundamental standing combo, but pushing A twice, waiting for the second attack animation to approach completion, and then pressing A two more times would get you a completely different combo. The benefit of this method of mashing is that it's varied but elegant. The downside is that most players struggle with the execution of this type of combo and give up on it, which is understandable.

Type 4: Circuit Jumping

Heavily popularized by Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden and Sony Santa Monica's God of War, beat 'em ups eventually returned to a two-button input scheme that offered "light attack" functionality on one button and "heavy attack" functionality on the other. Admittedly, this can feel a lot like the Super Traditional mash flow but there are two key differences. The first key difference is that the attack types don't just look different, but they feel different and have different effects. For all intents and purposes, attacks on one button in Super Traditional mash flow games are functionally identical to attacks on the other button, they just look different. The other key difference is that modern beat 'em ups have formalized the dynamic use of the two buttons so that it is still considered one combo if the player decides to jump into the other circuit. This was certainly not the case in Super Traditional games, which is another reason the second button was ultimately useless. Circuit Jumping mash flow allows the player to switch mid-stream between the light and fast combo they have started to the slower and more powerful combo they want to finish with, or vice versa. Once they have jumped, however, they must follow through to the end of the new circuit.

Type 5: Super Flexible

This super modern and very newly employed mash flow is an incredibly flexible and intuitive flow that allows the player to switch back and forth between attacks types on two different buttons whenever they want as a dynamic response to whatever is happening around them. As far as I know, the only games that have implemented a mash flow like this are Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno. To be fair, Bayonetta is much more nuanced than this diagram would suggest, but for the most part the idea is on the mark. While it does have the potential to be very exciting and expressive, the danger with this mash flow (as evidenced by both Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno) is that your attacks can lose meaning. I say "danger" and not "problem" because I don't believe this issue is inherent to the flow type, but to the game. In Dante's Inferno, none of the standard attacks on these buttons are particularly meaningful or different from each other. In Bayonetta, the problem is fascinating; there is such a vast amount of meaningful attacks and combos that many of them are rendered meaningless by our human habit of "sticking to what works". I firmly believe this idea can be wrangled in to create something that feels dynamic but doesn't get turned to mush by the player's brain when they are knee-deep in an encounter.

I wrote this post to create new language. If you started using these terms to describe the types of combos you like and want to implement it would inject joy directly into my biological joy parser.

Difficulty In Beat ‘Em Ups

The idea of difficulty in a beat 'em up seems straightforward, but once you dig in and really pick apart why a particular game feels so easy or so hard, you'll quickly find it's pretty hairy. Keep in mind this is not a discussion about difficulty on the higher game-structure level; for a couple notes on that check out the previous post on Challenge Vs. Punishment. This is about the difficulty on the moment-to-moment encounter level. I've found that you can really evaluate it by posing a few really important questions:

1. Who is attacking the player?

This is simply about assessing an encounter at various stages and then planning accordingly. One of the key differences between an easier and a more difficult encounter is how quickly and carefully the player has to undergo this process. Now the first thing the brain is going to do is register the enemies by their appearance. Ideally they are as visually intimidating as they are mechanically threatening so even when the player has never encountered an enemy type they'll have an idea of what they're up against. In a well constructed game, the different enemy types are recognized effortlessly and the player can easily recall exactly what those enemy types are capable of, assuming they've been previously defeated. The very next thing the brain is going to do is go into a bloodlust and what separates a good player from a bad player is whether or not outright mashing begins here. I make the distinction because these factors we're discussing will determine whether or not the average player is going to survive that impulse to mash.

2. When are they attacking the player?

This is about two symbiotic possibilities: the frequency of individual enemy attacks and the coordination of attacks between multiple enemies. The frequency of attacks is pretty straightforward; enemies perform a dice roll at the end of a designer-specified cycle and the quicker the cycle the more intense the pressure on the player is. This cycle can be as short as a single second (sometimes less in the more sadistic sectors of the genre) or as long as a minute, depending on the game, enemy type, and difficulty mode. But the real secret sauce is in the enemy group behavior. Attack coordination (or lack thereof) is easily one of the single biggest contributing factor in determining how difficult a game of this type is. For example; in God Of War the player will rarely be attacked by more than one or two enemies at a time but in Ninja Gaiden, enemies don't give a flying fuck about what other enemies are doing and the player is under a constant barrage of attacks. Obviously this changes how you play the game and cannot be glossed over in the design process. For a much more detailed analysis about the nuances of group behavior, check out this great 2009 write-up by Tom Smith, a then creative manager at THQ who was helping with Nihilistic's Conan at the time.

3. How are they attacking the player?

This is about identifying the attributes of an enemy attack. The player is relying on a set of primitive behaviors and simple cues to determine how dangerous an enemy and their respective attacks are. One of these attributes is the "tell", or the visual cue that indicates to the player that an attack is about to occur. Typically this just means a warm-up animation (for example, an enemy swinging their sword behind them in an exaggerated fashion before attacking) but could also mean a distinct sound or effect. Tells can vary greatly in form and function, but it goes without saying that having no indication that it's time to prepare for an attack is much more difficult than having it broadcast way before it happens. The more mechanical aspects of an enemy attack are much easier to observe. What does it look like? How much damage does it do? What does it feel like getting hit by it? What's really interesting is that these factors can come at the player in all kinds of crazy combinations, like attacks that don't look very powerful but hurt the player very much, or attacks that are spectacular and intimidating but ultimately trivial. In some (too many) games there are generic looking attacks with non-trivial effects and this oftentimes feels unfair. It's a very strange problem but it boils down to minimizing the discrepancies between what the player is looking at and what the player feels.

4. What can the player do about it?

This is the million dollar question once it's all said and done and wraps up the high level difficulty equation. This can make or break the game and all of the enemies in it or alternatively, it can render the player powerless. The answer is found in the flow of combat and deals specifically with what ability the player is given to deal with inevitable enemy attacks. As stated in the previous post about defense mechanics, sometimes it's a block or a dodge and sometimes it's nothing, but whatever it is and however it's implemented are very important factors. Unfortunately, most games don't have a very rewarding answer to this question, and the only tool the player is provided with is the ability to simply continue attacking once they've survived an attack. Not only is this why most beat 'em ups feel difficult, but it's also why they oftentimes feel very tedious! The player must simply repeat the "evaluate, survive, attack" process over and over and over again.

Here are some case studies:

God Of War:

1. Who is attacking the player? Small to medium sized groups (3 to 10) of reasonably threatening enemies that encircle the player character.
2. When are they attacking the player? Carefully coordinated enemy attacks across all types of enemies at regular intervals; no more than one or two enemy attacks at a time.
3. How are they attacking the player? With moderately fast attacks that aren't particularly damaging but are often very extravagant and powerful looking.
4. What can the player do about it? The player can identify the attack tell and dodge out of the way. Once recovered the player simply continues to mash.
5. Concensus? Is not very difficult, but feels very difficult.

Ninja Gaiden:

1. Who is attacking the player? Small groups (3 to 5) of fairly threatening looking enemies that form groups around the player character.
2. When are they attacking the player? Every enemy will attack whenever they want at very frequent intervals.
3. How are they attacking the player? With very fast and damaging attacks with little to no tell.
4. What can the player do about it? The player can maintain their block stance or perform a quick dash out of the block stance, but since enemies attack so quickly there is no incentive to dash. In any case, the player may then continue to simply mash.
5. Concensus? Is very difficult, and feels very difficult.

Bayonetta:

1. Who is attacking the player? Small to medium sized groups (5 to 15) of very threatening looking enemies that encircle the player character.
2. When are they attacking the player? Lower level enemies will attack in turn at regular intervals and higher level enemies will attack whenever they want at regular intervals.
3. How are they attacking the player? Some enemies attack from a distance with very weak projectiles but most enemies have powerful close combat attacks with fast but very noticeable tells.
4. What can the player do about it? Bayonetta is a remarkable exception in this regard; the game rewards the player with a brief window of excessive power against all nearby enemies when they perform a last second dodge against any one attack. Once this is window has closed the player may then continue to regularly mash.
5. Concensus? Is very difficult, but does not feel very difficult.

Dante's Inferno:

1. Who is attacking the player? Small to medium sized groups (3 to 10) of goofy looking enemies that haphazardly encircle the player character.
2. When are they attacking the player? All enemies across all enemy types coordinate their attacks so that only one or two enemies are ever attacking you.
3. How are they attacking me? Most enemies have close combat attacks that have barely noticeable tells, but they are also not very fast or damaging.
4. What can the player do about it? You can maintain a block stance or dodge, but the dodge is so poorly implemented that it is rarely used. You can also parry in the same way God Of War lets you parry but it's not rewarding enough to hone and employ. After any of these things the player may simply continue to mash.
5. Concensus? Not very difficult, and does not feel very difficult.

Every game does things a little differently so it's worth spending some time breaking them open, especially if you like the way one feels and plays when you've got your hands on it. In any case it's a very delicate balancing act and has so much to do with how your game feels. With that being said, keep in mind that it is still a matter of preference! Decide how difficult you want it to "feel" for the player and then build around that.