Feel?

There are some differences in how games feel, mostly in how movement, taking damage and other motion related things are.

Combat related: (these are a combination of controls, sounds and graphics)
* Juicy / watermelony — depicts well when a person inexplicably explodes in a mist of blood - the first person AVP games for PC have this at least, darkSector, too. It's like hitting a watermelon with a large wooden mallet.
* Wooden / boffer — bok-bok-baf-bonk, common in games that try to be less violent - usually in console RPGs, I think
* Flint & steel — a lot of metal sliding across metal and such
* Airy — a bit of mix of wooden and flint, the attacks sound mostly like you're slashing empty air in a manner that produces most sound. Not only those empty swish-swish swings, but this is seriously overplayed SWOOOOSHing swings (usually with clearly visible "slash" visual effects).

Movement: (mostly just control responsiveness)
* Cumbersome — movements are somewhat slow as if the character was carrying heavy load but not enough to cause real problems, somewhat realistic. Think Silent Hill was somewhat famous for this. The name is mostly accurate only when compared to other games, besides that it really isn't.
* Tar — similar to above but causes real problems and feels unnatural
* Skidding — works nicely at slow speed, but with increased speed the movement feels like you're sliding and changing direction becomes difficult
* Train — usually vehicles, acceleration/deceleration slow but reaches extremely high speeds eventually, turning difficult at almost any speed.
* Tank — very mechanical movement, early Resident Evil games were said to have this
* Snappy — turning is instantaneous, mostly evident when controller sensitivity is set extremely high and even mild motion sends the character spinning wildly few dozen times around themselves. Usually character reaches maximum movement speed instantaneously. Early 1st person 3D games had this, and so did early real-time top-down games too, though they were faster to try eliminate it, I think.

Well, the names are clear-ish if you've ever played a game that has it.

Note that this listing doesn't include vehicle games except with the train and skidding movement. My experience with driving games is minimal so I can't really give anything for them, most of my experience is with sufficiently realistic movement (pretty much the same I get when driving a real car) in addition to train/skid movement and usually they've been sufficiently realistic not to care (though I can't remember how it was for the early "2D" driving games).

Also, for systems with variable base hardware this should only be considered when you're running the game with sufficiently powerful hardware, so giving out these based on gameplay on a system that can barely meet the minimum system requirements is quite likely in the realm of tar or otherwise unnecessarily unresponsive. Poorly optimized console games may have problems with this too.

Movement tags are a bit too susceptible to subjectiveness for my taste.

Some of them could, others not so much. Like the tank and skidding ones, I can't imagine how anyone could not agree with them. Some less clear variations could be merged to avoid confusion, though, like the "slow" response kind.

Really just needs popular / well known examples. With them they can hardly be subjective since you have a clear point with which to compare.

these seem to work for character or vehicle.

directionalsnapping
example, character only travels in 90°, 60° or 45° increments/turns. Perhaps split this
turnconstraint90°
turnconstraint60°
turnconstraint45°
turnconstraint15°
turnconstraint180° (pong, breakout)
turnconstraint360° (unconstrained)

turnsmoothing
the character reaches the target turning radius in longer than instantly. or the same for constrained directions

accelerationsnapping
character travels in preset speeds instantly when commanded without any gradual change in speed (usually 2 speeds. stop and go)

accelerationsmoothing
more realistic acceleration/deceleration
skidding/decelerationsmoothing
character experiences any type of deceleration that prevents them from exercising 'normal' control for the duration of the effect.

jump snapping
character jumps in straight lines. Usually 2 lines, diagonally up then changing to instantly diagonally down. The diagonally up, level flight, diagonally down sometimes occurs.

jumpsmoothing
like Mario

jumpchanging
player initiated changing of speed or direction in mid air. Unless dealing with a clearly 'controlled flight' vehicle/aircraft.

surfacedependentmovement
ice level

This is sort of done already with grid move.

Otherwise this and the others are useful for top-down games only. Some very few early 1st person 3D games did have fixed turn angles of 10 degrees or so, but I can't remember any right now (they weren't very good games anyway).


Visual feedback for turning only, has little effect besides delaying the turn. Would be better to have as smoothed movement as usually the games with smoothed turning also have the other movement smoothed as well. Practically only useful with games with fixed turn angles.


Others have 3, stop, go, and run/dash.


I don't quite understand what this is for. Opposite of the snapping?


Skidding as far as I've experienced happens due to faulty movement model that works similar to pulling an object (the protagonist or whatever the player controls) with magnets. Movement continues in the previous direction and slowly changes to the desired direction. Somewhat realistic in vacuum or on extremely slippery ice but is unfortunately used outside of them.


I vaguely remember games with this. I'd rather call it linear jump since the jump is always the same, regardless when or how it is done. Works well with games like Prince of Persia where you have only two types of jumps that do exactly the same (with added "delayed" jump for the running one). This eliminates its relation to the ugly visuals (the gameplay effect is the same).


Not sure what this is.


It's a bit like air brakes but often you have more control than that. It's a very simplistic solution for the lack of control for the jump itself (sort of like the "charged" jump some modern games have). I'd think something for mid-air movement control would be more appropriate since you usually can do this regardless if you actually jumped (such as fell of a cliff or were thrown instead).


Surface friction, there are games where the friction depends on the surface itself, not level or anything that big.

Beside the "ice" (faster and difficult to change the direction) and "mud" (that slows down), there are the "moving walkways" usually found in industrial settings, where player moves faster in a direction and slower on the other.

About jumps, not sure we should get too specific, as there are so many variations, maybe realistic ( not too powerful, can't change direction in mid-air, gravity force is considered ) and the opposite would help. Or we could take the single elements that make a jump realistic...

Instead of something like turnconstraint180, should not be the case to use 1-D / one dimension (left-right, top-bottom)?
This brings 2D, 3D and circular-something for Gyruss-like games, but we have tube shooter that's perfect...

Wanted to contribute but now I feel more confused than before :D

No midair control without special equipment/powers. Besides that, they are all somewhat realistic (disregarding the immense height). Unfortunately this is a bit unfair since the midair control is there because the platforming sequences require greater precision than the single strength jump button can do (it activates jump instantly), there are also those that jump higher the longer you hold the button, but these cut off the rise when the button is depressed which creates similar effect to midair control. Currently the most realistic ones "charge" the jump, so a short keypress causes a small jump while a long press causes a longer one (but the jump is started at depress point, so the jump strength/length/height is effectively "charged").


I have no idea what this constraint even says other than that it's a side-scroller (or not, looking at the examples).

Conveyer belts, I think they deserve to be tagged separately (a bit like moving platforms do).

This is sort of done already with grid move.
So Pac-Man is grid move? Or the tanks and light cycles in Tron? Or Ladybug? I took grid move to mean that the character literally moves from one cell to the next, 'snapping' to the nearest cell before any other maneuver can be initiated (changing direction or stopping or doing anything else).

I think, but I'm not sure, 3 Demon, a derivative of Pac-Man, duplicated Pac-Man 90° turns and the ability to move smoothly forward without being snapped to a grid position unless a turn was availably. This game was 1st person.

Michael Andretti's World Grand Prix has a turnconstraint angle that I have not calculate. Its 3rd person / behind the car.



Any analog game and many older driving games use turnsmoothing if a digital controller is used.



good point. But I think want to be sure no one is confusing this with many games where the character accelerates to one of two speed, rather than instantly switching between them. But, Ms. Pac Man (megadrive), is a great example of what was pointed out.. She has three speeds, stop, go, and turbo, and does not have any of the 'in-between' speeds that she needs to accelerate through.


The opposite of accelerationsnapping. The character must gradually build their to speed, even if this takes less than 2 seconds (which is dozens of videogame frames)


They can not stop instantly and they can enter a state of skidding that differers from a state of deceleration in that is has decremental, beneficial, or unusual effects. For instance, Super Mario 64, The character can modify their speed and direction rather well if they do not 'skid'. If they skid, they will continue straight ahead for a longer distance and be unable to turn. This one fulfills both aspects because a higher 'flip kick' can be initiated during this skid. Many times skidding actually stops the player faster. A condition rarely found outside of videogames, movies, and TV shows.


This does not rule out the possibility that the player can release the button and cut the jump short. But the motion of the short jump is still linear.


Opposite of jump snapping, The player jumps in either a smooth parabolic arc or similar smooth arc.



Conveyor belts are kind of have a similar effect as moving platforms. Yet, they do not actual change position (if they do, then they are both). I think we need a movingwalkways/conveyorbelts

Please read the tag description before assuming such.

Also please read what was said thoroughly. "Sort of" was there, as was concession for the use of the turn constraints.


Any analog game and many older driving games use turnsmoothing if a digital controller is used.


No/instant acceleration, perhaps? Instantly reaching the maximum speed suggest there's no acceleration, or that acceleration equals the maximum speed (the instant kind probably is more in line how people into physics would describe it).


There isn't much of smoothing in there, then. It's just regular acceleration.


Can't remember any games with incremental speed build to not have non-instant deceleration. Also, the sliding stop is just one way, and even real people and animals do it if the surface is even slightly slippery unless they want to fall over (we can make some curious assumptions from this in regards of the surfaces in games). However, games that allow actions during the slide are separate from the slide itself.


Then it's purely poor animation and belongs to the realm of graphics rating.


Again, based on the previous, belongs in the realm of graphics rating.


Starting to get too specific, IMO.

Except moving platforms can move up and down, left and right, in circular motions or long convoluted path.

Edit: conveyer belt name itself is too specific though. many games have these sections where the player can move against the direction the "conveyer" is moving. such as strong currents in sea, or some inexplicable areas with arrows. Some are weak/slow enough to move in the opposite direction and others are not. For example, Aquaria has a variety of them and you can (not sure if it was mandatory) gain an "upgrade" that allows you to move in the opposite direction in all of them. Anyway, the effect is the same and these are largely a curiosity and not related to the general feel of a game which this thread was about.

Skidding is actually identical to controlling a heavy ball (e.g. bowling ball), or standing on top of one and moving by controlling its rolling. There are quite a few games where you control a ball exactly in this fashion. So the name should reflect that rather than sliding (which may be a bit too vague).

Examples: Spectraball, Ballance, Babo:Invasion, etc.

unresolved, Conveyor belts
conveyorsurfaces
forcingsurfaces
directionalsurfaces
movingsurfaces
conveyortransports
movingsidewalks
movingwalkways
movingpavement
automatedmovers
walkalators
travelators
autowalks
horizontalescalators
horizontalators
slidewalks
electricslides
travelingfloors
movators
?
surfaces that horizontally in a spin around a point are a different animal, correct?
similar effects can be explained with magnets, wind, or a tilting surface. Not the same?

I would think this needs to be for any area in which player is forcibly moved in some direction and they may attempt to move against it but this (again) may be ineffective or even impossible. I did note that water currents are a variation of this earlier. We can tag the more specific cases separately after the fact. But currents and conveyers seems fine for the two. Wind, gravity, repulsive forces, and so forth are other possible things doing the same thing. Even a slick downhill surface does essentially the same gameplay wise.

directionalforce as parent then specific forces (conveyorforce, windforce, slantforce, etc) as children?

Directional force sounds good enough.


I don't think -force is needed. Conveyors, galewinds, and such should be fine, though one could also prefix them with directionalforce, such as directionalforce-wind.