Juice in Games (juicy)
A term that stands in for a variety of game-feel words. Pretty much means some game's feedback mechanisms (shaders, screenshake, sounds, everything) are chunky, crunchy, gnasty with a g, etc.
There's a talk somewhere with a break-out game and two devs ratcheting up the juice to show how the impact....
Effect examples
> brief action pause/freeze to emphasize bigger impact hits
street fighter punches
zelda big hits
called sleep in game maker
probably a sceneTree.pause in godot
> slow motion
> squash and stretch
> item delay - carried items lag behind
> gun recoil
super crate box
move player back when you shoot
> strafing
moving left/right while shooting doesn't change the direction you're facing
release shoot to turn
> bullets
>> muzzle flash
first frame of bullet animation - just a circle
>> impact
on enemy, on wall
every bullet hits SOMETHING
movie shoot outs in bars
> player trail
line or particles or dust or clones
> taking damage
>> white flash
>> knockback
> death
>> death paint
something permanent and earned, changed by player actions
>> permanence
leave the bodies
sense of previous combat
> screen shake
>> wobble
>> shock wave
>> chromatic abberation
splitting the rgb channels
> props
dust/particles get pushed around
> camera
>> lerp, smooth lag
>> wobble
>> emphasis on pois/danger/resources
>> look ahead/behind when turning
> sounds!
>> sounds rising up a scale for a combo
>> footsteps
>> doors
>> punches
>> explosions
>> environment
>> variety: pitch-bend
>> blending multiple sounds
> particles
>> running dust trails
>> landing dust
>> screen fog/particles
> eyes
>> look at POIs
> text effects
>> size (grow/shrink/repeat)
>> wobble
hotline miami
>> color
>> borders
>> particles
> experience, level up glow
Resources
Most of these are contained in my Best Game Talks youtube playlist:
> Juice it or lose it
The classic talk on the subject.
> The Art of Screenshake
Jan Willem (JW) Nijman - half of Vlambeer
References:
- Juice it or lose it
- cactus igs 2009
> Cactus (at igs 2009) - making a game is like making a baby
cactus (jonatan soderstrom, game dev)
( hotline miami dev)
quality: hand-held content: great!
like making a baby!
game dev: beginning, like conception (sex!)
- later, you get fat, and it's a ton of work
- your friends lose respect for you
- then, birth - getting it out there, the hardest part, painful not fun
- then, not what you expected
creativity:
- experiment a lot
- dare to be serious
- renew your concept
- doesn't need to be fun
- create an atmosphere
recs: sfxr
fun game examples at the end
idea: finding different endings! like: the stanley parable
> Math for Game Programmers: Juicing Your Cameras with Math
Squirrel Eiserloh, SMU Guildhall
EXCELLENT talk on juicy camera work.
references:
- Juice it or lose it
- the art of screenshake
points of focus vs points of interest
pof should probably stay in view
poi are hinted at: proximity * importance
> Math for Game Programmers: Fast and funky 1D nonlinear transformations
Squirrel Eiserloh, SMU Guildhall
easing functions on steroids
from comment: 'tunable normalized sigmoid function' It can represent most of these shapes with just a change in a constant?
most important number ranges: [0, 1], [-1, 1]
perception of alpha is non-linear
easing functions
filter functions
lerping functions
tweening functions
ease-in - name is bad, it refers to 'fast at the end'
better name: smooth start
smoothstop (ease-out without sqrt)
flip - square - flip (1 - x, x^2, 1 - res)
library functions:
- smoothStart2345
- smoothStop2345
mixing/weighting/blending
smoothstart2.2 = mix(smoothstart2, smoothstart3, 0.2)
(80/20 weight)
weight as the time
smoothstep = mix(smoothStart, smoothStop, t) # t is time during easing
scale = t * f(t)
reverseScale = (1-t) * f(t)
arch = scale(flip(t)) = t * (1-t)
smoothStartArch3 = scale(arch2, t) = x^2 * (1-x)
smoothStopArch3 = reverseScale(arch2, t) = x * (1-x)^2
> GMTK: secrets of game feel and juice
Good examples of game feel!
> why your death animation sucks
nicolae berbece, xelubest, xelu_best
Move Or Die - game
game feel, input feedback
pitch-bend adds variation to sounds
> can we make this button fun to press?
pretty awesome, excellent video, and not too long
worth implementing yourself
- impact/reward
- challenge
- fantasy
Clones
Creating some classics and juicing them up - fun way to learn what makes games fun.
And, a nice creative box to trap yourself in.
> DONE juicy snake
> TODO juicy chess
> TODO juicy super crate box
> TODO juicy asteroids
> TODO juicy space-shooter
Backlinks
A quality of a game that encompasses ease of control and player motivation.
See also:
Don't put it off, do it early and often!
The polish and the art steer the game's direction - without it, you don't know where you're going, what's fun, what interaction/feedback to build the game around.
Camera feel and camera control is a big part of game feel.
Most old games are completely made (or broken) by this.
- Mario 64
- Banjo Kazooie
While some newer games have _excellent_ camera control:
See also:
An idea to make a chess game that is just JUICY AF.
Probably will integrate into lichess for the actual gameplay.
A Juice in Games (juicy) technique. The whole screen is jostled, implying some kind of earthquake or other powerful impact occurring in the game.
Inspired by NaNoWriMo's "magna carta"s, this is a list of things in games that I've liked.
They are here as inspiration, motivation, and as a tribute. I hope to borrow/steal/remix/create with this, to give my own games a bit of the joy these brought me.
These should help step towards the principles I care about in games. What themes are threaded through all these?
See also:
What boxes to check to get the look and feel to celeste-level?
How do games like Celeste / Towerfall and Hollow Knight achieve such a full look and feel? Here I hope to create a list of todos capturing every element necessary. First go Zero to One, then start improving the existing elements.
Feels related: Juice in Games (juicy)
See also: JUICY!
Great lightning talk in a GDC design link (TODO: find that and link it here)
Basically said people put off the polish to the end, but it's so critical to the game that you need it earlier.
Polish can and should steer the design! Don't wait for it, do it now!
It should be part of the engineering effort. It's not just some detail.
So, we change the name to pizzazz and try to fix it's reputation.
A Dino game.
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A run-n-gun focused on adding as many juicy effects as possible.
Playable at: gunner on itch.io
Pretty raw for now.
- future games (roadmap)
- See also: beat em up boss battles
- See also: game story ideas
- See also: Moon Game Ideas
- things i love in games
- Games That I Love (favorites)
- game design ideas
- game controls views
Game Dev/Design Education
Playlist on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2gEO25pE6dqsPxgajrZSuqutgzZSjnk5
See also:
Trying to get a handle on larger game dev topics as I encounter and tackle them.
Some videos for game jam prep or if you're seeking some game dev motivation/inspiration
- All the JUICY (juice in games) resource videos
- All the GMTK game jam top-20-game recaps: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_vnAZjugCRdKr8_8d_y_rRl
Juice in Games (juicy) camera talk from Squirrel Eiserloh (SMU Guildhall) covers this really nicely.
A Dino addon.
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Dino's camera code grew especially while working on tower jet (dino game).
See also: