Fraud Detection
July 26, 2012 7:24 AM Subscribe
Divekick is the one true fighting game. It's got moves. It's got characters. It's got a secret character. And it's even been to EVO and UFGT. Want to be a Divekick champion? learn to play.
An interview with Adam 'Keits' Heart, editor-in-chief of Shoryuken.com, director of UFGT and one of Divekick's creators.
Bitmob's Chris Hoadley explores the game in two articles:
Divekick is a modest proposal for the fighting-game genre.
Indie fighting game Divekick exposed me as a fraud
Giant Bomb provides some more explanation.
Also, the trailer video features fighter luminaries David "Ultradavid" Graham and James Chen, along with Loren "Fanatiq" Riley.
An interview with Adam 'Keits' Heart, editor-in-chief of Shoryuken.com, director of UFGT and one of Divekick's creators.
Bitmob's Chris Hoadley explores the game in two articles:
Divekick is a modest proposal for the fighting-game genre.
Indie fighting game Divekick exposed me as a fraud
Giant Bomb provides some more explanation.
Also, the trailer video features fighter luminaries David "Ultradavid" Graham and James Chen, along with Loren "Fanatiq" Riley.
This is still an active Kickstarter, on the cusp of funding
No.
TWO WORDS
who cares
this awesome
don't flag
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:45 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
No.
TWO WORDS
who cares
this awesome
don't flag
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:45 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
It's sort of impossible to link to any article or feature about this game without a KS link popping up (which is, I guess, a testament to One True Game Studios's marketing prowess.) I figure the way I framed this is cool, but mods go on and let me know I guess.
posted by griphus at 7:48 AM on July 26, 2012
posted by griphus at 7:48 AM on July 26, 2012
LOL oh man... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heenWdYYhg0
V Akuma Dive kick!
posted by khappucino at 8:07 AM on July 26, 2012
V Akuma Dive kick!
posted by khappucino at 8:07 AM on July 26, 2012
I am truly surprised by how much I hate this.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 8:09 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 8:09 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
I can't say I'm a big fan of the fake asian accent, but the game does look like something I'd enjoy for 10 minutes or so, if it were free. I wouldn't pay $10 for it, though.
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?
posted by KGMoney at 8:14 AM on July 26, 2012
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?
posted by KGMoney at 8:14 AM on July 26, 2012
gilrain: "This is still an active Kickstarter, on the cusp of funding. Excellent post, though..."
for this post, I think you mean STARTKICKER.
posted by boo_radley at 8:17 AM on July 26, 2012 [7 favorites]
for this post, I think you mean STARTKICKER.
posted by boo_radley at 8:17 AM on July 26, 2012 [7 favorites]
KGMoney: "I can't say I'm a big fan of the fake asian accent, but the game does look like something I'd enjoy for 10 minutes or so, if it were free. I wouldn't pay $10 for it, though.
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?"
Oh, also I read that as sort of a jab against the genre, too. "Bad netcode" is a common complaint for bad matches (e.g. losses) and there's weird voodoo cult nonsense about how bad netcode can pick and choose winners arbitrarily. So it's like how audiophiles need crystaline aligned ceramic vibration isolating insulating cable lifts for their speaker cables.
posted by boo_radley at 8:22 AM on July 26, 2012 [4 favorites]
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?"
Oh, also I read that as sort of a jab against the genre, too. "Bad netcode" is a common complaint for bad matches (e.g. losses) and there's weird voodoo cult nonsense about how bad netcode can pick and choose winners arbitrarily. So it's like how audiophiles need crystaline aligned ceramic vibration isolating insulating cable lifts for their speaker cables.
posted by boo_radley at 8:22 AM on July 26, 2012 [4 favorites]
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?
Netcode is easy if you don't care about latency (lag). In serious fighting games even frames (which are fractions of seconds) matter, so people really care about good netcode. I'm not an expert, but from what I understand GGPO is the current best-in-class in terms of netcode, and it looks like it's proprietary.
posted by kmz at 8:22 AM on July 26, 2012
Netcode is easy if you don't care about latency (lag). In serious fighting games even frames (which are fractions of seconds) matter, so people really care about good netcode. I'm not an expert, but from what I understand GGPO is the current best-in-class in terms of netcode, and it looks like it's proprietary.
posted by kmz at 8:22 AM on July 26, 2012
for this post, I think you mean STARTKICKER.
Do his starts have the power of kicks?
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:24 AM on July 26, 2012 [3 favorites]
Do his starts have the power of kicks?
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:24 AM on July 26, 2012 [3 favorites]
Oh man... Mr. N and Kung Pao... this game looks awesome, I'd play this on a phone like a mf
posted by khappucino at 8:32 AM on July 26, 2012
posted by khappucino at 8:32 AM on July 26, 2012
This is a joke, right?
It's a serious game filled with in-jokes and parodies. The gameplay itself appears simplistic, but it's actually pretty deep.
posted by explosion at 10:02 AM on July 26, 2012
It's a serious game filled with in-jokes and parodies. The gameplay itself appears simplistic, but it's actually pretty deep.
posted by explosion at 10:02 AM on July 26, 2012
Fanatiq is rumored to have played the biggest money match of all time. 40k on MVC2. He's kind of a fun player to watch, I wish he would sort of focus more on tournaments instead of money matches I'll most likely never get to see. I really dislike filipino champ due to his disgraceful treatment of Mike Ross so I am waiting for the day Fanatiq blows him up. For extra lulz here is Joker calling out Fanatiq, check out the 5k in Canadian "money" he is waving around. I love UMVC3, these guys really know how to hype up matches, in 10 years MVC will be on ESPN6 or something, mark my words.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:25 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Ad hominem at 10:25 AM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
In the Kickstarter FAQ, they say that licensing good netcode for online play will be expensive, but people have been releasing cheap little games like this for years. What is he talking about?
To elaborate on this further, fighting games like these are a genre all on their own - they are extremely timing dependant. A game like Guilty Gear, for example, runs at 60 frames per second, and all move strategy is expressed in "frames". You might say that a punch has 20 frames of windup (20 frames elapse on screen before it lands, or 0.3 seconds) or a kick might have 60 frame recovery if you whiff it, meaning if you kick and miss your character spends 1 second recovering until you can throw another move, it might only have 20 frame recovery if your kick connects, 35 frame recovery if it's blocked, etc.
The most demanding moves, say the false roman cancels, can only be executed in something like a 3 frame window. That's a 0.05 second window, or 50ms.
Latency jitter is the enemy of games like this. Sure, you might get an average of 30ms latency to a nearby server. But what is the variance from frame to frame? Some frames might take 10ms to transmit, some might take 50ms to transmit - consider that the average data packet has to bounce between 5-10 devices before it gets to its destination. Basically, you need some really smart algorithms and software to hide the latency jitter and ensure a playable game.
Even more so if it's a P2P game (user connected to user). At least if it's server based (which adds a lot of cost) with both players connecting to the server, you can use the server's frame of reference to resolve disputes over which frame occured in what order. But if it's just two player', it's not immediately obvious how you make it fair - If you use one person as the "server" they will gain a huge advantage over the other person, because they will be playing with zero latency and all the latency is heaped upon the other player. Yet if neither player is the server, whose frame of reference is "correct"? It's a fascinating topic.
posted by xdvesper at 4:48 PM on July 26, 2012 [5 favorites]
To elaborate on this further, fighting games like these are a genre all on their own - they are extremely timing dependant. A game like Guilty Gear, for example, runs at 60 frames per second, and all move strategy is expressed in "frames". You might say that a punch has 20 frames of windup (20 frames elapse on screen before it lands, or 0.3 seconds) or a kick might have 60 frame recovery if you whiff it, meaning if you kick and miss your character spends 1 second recovering until you can throw another move, it might only have 20 frame recovery if your kick connects, 35 frame recovery if it's blocked, etc.
The most demanding moves, say the false roman cancels, can only be executed in something like a 3 frame window. That's a 0.05 second window, or 50ms.
Latency jitter is the enemy of games like this. Sure, you might get an average of 30ms latency to a nearby server. But what is the variance from frame to frame? Some frames might take 10ms to transmit, some might take 50ms to transmit - consider that the average data packet has to bounce between 5-10 devices before it gets to its destination. Basically, you need some really smart algorithms and software to hide the latency jitter and ensure a playable game.
Even more so if it's a P2P game (user connected to user). At least if it's server based (which adds a lot of cost) with both players connecting to the server, you can use the server's frame of reference to resolve disputes over which frame occured in what order. But if it's just two player', it's not immediately obvious how you make it fair - If you use one person as the "server" they will gain a huge advantage over the other person, because they will be playing with zero latency and all the latency is heaped upon the other player. Yet if neither player is the server, whose frame of reference is "correct"? It's a fascinating topic.
posted by xdvesper at 4:48 PM on July 26, 2012 [5 favorites]
The usual way that fighting games deal with latency is by delaying inputs by an agreed-upon number of frames on both ends, with the intention of taking ping time into account so that both sides receive the other's inputs before the game plays them out, so that they resolve simultaneously with no worry about which end is "right."
GGPO takes a somewhat different approach with this, by reducing the delay between input and resolving in-game, but adds "roll-backs" when it turns out that the local prediction is inconsistent with what the opponent did. On a good connection, it's gdlk, but on a bad connection it's straight-up unplayable and leads to much saltiness.
Oh, incidentally, just as a point of reference, the examples of frame data. (20 frame startup and the like) are much more Virtua Fighter than 2D fighter, and in fact due to the nature of VF being essentially, for fear of getting into it too much, essentially a real-time turn-based game, input lag doesn't make nearly as much of a difference in that game as it does for 2D stuff, where you have attacks that come out in 3–4 frames at the fast end.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:50 PM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
GGPO takes a somewhat different approach with this, by reducing the delay between input and resolving in-game, but adds "roll-backs" when it turns out that the local prediction is inconsistent with what the opponent did. On a good connection, it's gdlk, but on a bad connection it's straight-up unplayable and leads to much saltiness.
Oh, incidentally, just as a point of reference, the examples of frame data. (20 frame startup and the like) are much more Virtua Fighter than 2D fighter, and in fact due to the nature of VF being essentially, for fear of getting into it too much, essentially a real-time turn-based game, input lag doesn't make nearly as much of a difference in that game as it does for 2D stuff, where you have attacks that come out in 3–4 frames at the fast end.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:50 PM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
One of these days I'll do a FPP about Virtua Fighter, because it's the hardest-core video game that nobody in America plays. What a great game.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:22 PM on July 26, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:22 PM on July 26, 2012 [3 favorites]
Aw hell, fine. Here's your nutshell explanation.
Long and short of it is that in Virtua Fighter, attacks come out slowly enough (a fast attack is something like 10–12 frames' startup) that there's virtually no counterattacking on reaction (only defending) and, unlike Street Fighter, you simply cannot throw an opponent who is currently in an attack startup animation,* so they serve absolutely no value other than to beat blocking or dodging. As a result of these systems, you wind up with a setup where the players essentially take turns being on offense or on defense, and the way you switch is to interrupt your opponent's offense by sneaking in a faster attack to beat theirs during startup, by dodging and counterattacking, or by blocking something with a long recovery and counterattacking during that.
The practical application of this is that, essentially, if you keep doing standing punches against a blocking opponent, you'll never lose offensive priority, because that's one of the few moves in the game that consistently recovers faster than a blocking opponent does. They're trivial to dodge if you expect them, though, and they lose out to otherwise-not-very-good ducking punches. And so forth, and so on.
As a result of all this, the game becomes much less a matter of reacting to opponents and winning by execution and much more a matter of predicting your opponent well enough, frequently enough, that you win. For further reading, go play the card game Yomi, which feels a lot like Virtua Fighter with Street Fight window dressing, due to the fact that it's very much more oriented around predicting your opponent.
*in 3rd Strike especially, throws were just insanely powerful because they came out faster than nearly any other move in the game, and they could be used to grab opponents out of startup animations of most attacks.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:31 PM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
Long and short of it is that in Virtua Fighter, attacks come out slowly enough (a fast attack is something like 10–12 frames' startup) that there's virtually no counterattacking on reaction (only defending) and, unlike Street Fighter, you simply cannot throw an opponent who is currently in an attack startup animation,* so they serve absolutely no value other than to beat blocking or dodging. As a result of these systems, you wind up with a setup where the players essentially take turns being on offense or on defense, and the way you switch is to interrupt your opponent's offense by sneaking in a faster attack to beat theirs during startup, by dodging and counterattacking, or by blocking something with a long recovery and counterattacking during that.
The practical application of this is that, essentially, if you keep doing standing punches against a blocking opponent, you'll never lose offensive priority, because that's one of the few moves in the game that consistently recovers faster than a blocking opponent does. They're trivial to dodge if you expect them, though, and they lose out to otherwise-not-very-good ducking punches. And so forth, and so on.
As a result of all this, the game becomes much less a matter of reacting to opponents and winning by execution and much more a matter of predicting your opponent well enough, frequently enough, that you win. For further reading, go play the card game Yomi, which feels a lot like Virtua Fighter with Street Fight window dressing, due to the fact that it's very much more oriented around predicting your opponent.
*in 3rd Strike especially, throws were just insanely powerful because they came out faster than nearly any other move in the game, and they could be used to grab opponents out of startup animations of most attacks.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:31 PM on July 26, 2012 [2 favorites]
This is interesting. I laughed my ass off when I saw a video about Divekick a few weeks ago, but these videos of secret characters with fighting game aficionados laughing their asses off over them? Increasingly less funny.
To an outsider of this scene, Divekick gets less and less funny as it starts to look more and more like a "real" fighting game. The utter purity - and stupidity - of "Dive" and "Kick" fighting it out with only two of the goofiest-looking moves in the fighting game arsenal available to them is giggle-inducing.
Of course, it is quite obvious that this is Not For Me; it's a whole bunch of fighting game injokes stuck together. It's by and for people who care enough about these things to go to conventions for them.
posted by egypturnash at 10:10 PM on July 26, 2012
To an outsider of this scene, Divekick gets less and less funny as it starts to look more and more like a "real" fighting game. The utter purity - and stupidity - of "Dive" and "Kick" fighting it out with only two of the goofiest-looking moves in the fighting game arsenal available to them is giggle-inducing.
Of course, it is quite obvious that this is Not For Me; it's a whole bunch of fighting game injokes stuck together. It's by and for people who care enough about these things to go to conventions for them.
posted by egypturnash at 10:10 PM on July 26, 2012
Do his starts have the power of kicks?
A sequel for this game is in the works, tentatively titled Divekick II: Codename: Kickdive.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 12:40 AM on July 27, 2012 [2 favorites]
A sequel for this game is in the works, tentatively titled Divekick II: Codename: Kickdive.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 12:40 AM on July 27, 2012 [2 favorites]
One of these days I'll do a FPP about Virtua Fighter
I recently made one for VF5FS but I sure wouldn't mind reading yours if you go through with it! Mine is closed to new comments now, so I'll add here that Sega have been putting out more episodes of its tutorial series, with each new video explaining basic strategies for a couple of characters. But for completely new players I still recommend either DandyJ's excellent tutorial (warning: frequent annoying swearing in the first few minutes) or UltraChen's two part stream.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:49 AM on July 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
I recently made one for VF5FS but I sure wouldn't mind reading yours if you go through with it! Mine is closed to new comments now, so I'll add here that Sega have been putting out more episodes of its tutorial series, with each new video explaining basic strategies for a couple of characters. But for completely new players I still recommend either DandyJ's excellent tutorial (warning: frequent annoying swearing in the first few minutes) or UltraChen's two part stream.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:49 AM on July 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
As a result of all this, the game becomes much less a matter of reacting to opponents and winning by execution and much more a matter of predicting your opponent well enough, frequently enough, that you win.
I think that explains why I can't ever get anywhere in VF unless I'm playing novices. I haven't actually gotten to the boss in any VF game, and I am (obviously) quite fond of fighting games.
posted by griphus at 11:50 AM on July 28, 2012
I think that explains why I can't ever get anywhere in VF unless I'm playing novices. I haven't actually gotten to the boss in any VF game, and I am (obviously) quite fond of fighting games.
posted by griphus at 11:50 AM on July 28, 2012
Griphus, one important habit to unlearn is that in VF, duck-blocking is a terrible idea unless you're expecting a low attack specifically, because you're actually far MORE vulnerable in VF5 when duck-blocking than stand-blocking. Took me friggin' AGES.
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:51 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:51 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]
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posted by andreaazure at 7:36 AM on July 26, 2012