Punch and impact
Learning paths through this topic
A ridden animal that turns on the spot at full gallop, or cannot turn at all
A horse or giant bird should feel big: it takes a moment to get up to speed, swings wide when fast and can still turn on the spot when standing. The usual turn speed is fixed and breaks one of these. Here is a rule that ties turning to speed and keeps control at a stand.
A pushable block moves the instant you brush it, or won't tell you it's stuck
In puzzle rooms, blocks that slide as soon as you touch them make you shove them into corners by accident. Blocks that never respond leave you guessing whether the way is blocked or the game is broken. Here is a short commitment time, a quicker follow-up and a clear signal when it cannot move.
A hero or follower that appears inside a wall after a teleport or respawn
Calling a companion, returning from a cutscene or reviving at a checkpoint puts someone on a spot that may now be blocked by a chest, a rock or a closed door. The game then traps them. Here is how to search outward for the closest good spot, in which order, and where to stop looking.
Guards that hear nothing, or everything: noise from walking should fade, not flip
Stealth in an adventure depends on how far your steps carry. If noise is either on or off, creeping feels pointless, and if it vanishes the instant you stop, a guard standing one step away hears nothing. Here is a radius that depends on gait and floor, fades out, and weakens through walls.
A stamina bar where the last swing is never refused, but exhaustion has a price
A bar that refuses an action when there is not quite enough left feels like the game cheated. A bar that never punishes an empty tank makes it meaningless. Here is how to let the last action through, make running dry hurt in a fair way, and when the bar starts to refill.
The hero stops dead at a curb or stair that it should simply step over
Villages and dungeons are full of low steps, thresholds and roots. If every height difference is a wall the hero feels clumsy, and if all of them are climbable it can walk up cliffs. Here is a rule for what can be stepped over, what is a fall, and how the picture follows without jerking.
Circling an enemy drifts outward in a spiral instead of keeping the distance
With a locked-on enemy, sideways movement should walk around it like a circle. Moving in a straight sideways line quietly moves away every frame, until the hero is across the room. Here is how to turn that into an arc, and how forward and back change the circle's size.
The hero is blocked by its own party member standing in a narrow corridor
Walking into a friend who has stopped in a doorway should not leave you stuck, but walking into a stranger must still block you. And the rest of the line must not jump about. Here is the rule for trading places, which tiles count, and what happens to the others behind.
A sword swing that lets you slide around freely, or locks you in place too long
Weapon attacks in an action adventure need weight: if the hero keeps full speed during a swing it feels like waving a stick, and if it freezes the whole time the controls feel unresponsive. Here is how much steering to allow in each part of the swing, and how control returns afterwards.
A tap only turns the hero, holding walks, and it never feels laggy
In a tile-based adventure you often want to face a door or a person without stepping toward it. But a turn delay that is applied everywhere makes walking feel sticky. Here is when the pause belongs, when it must be skipped, and how the held key carries on afterwards.
Walking into mud or shallow water changes your speed with a jolt at the edge
Roads, mud, sand and shallows make an overworld feel real, but a speed that flips the instant the hero's centre crosses a tile border feels like hitting a wall. Here is how to read the ground under the whole body and how quickly the speed should follow, independent of frame rate.
Dialogue text that types out nicely and skips ahead on a press without skipping the page
A speech box that types letter by letter gives a story its voice, but players who press the button to speed it up often skip the whole box by accident, and the press that opened the box can close it again at once. Here is the timing that makes it feel natural and forgiving.