Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.
Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
31–37 of 37 posts
Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out the…
Listen to the "many of people". Seriously. I've worked on a lot of video games (indie and commercial), and this is a perfect example of something that is much cooler to you (the programmer) but not to the player. You 100% need to have a player-controlled vs mode or the whole thing is a waste of time. You can ALSO have the autoplay strategy/design/creation (what does that even mean?) if you want. And maybe it will eme…
I understand your point, but as an avid fighting game enthusiast myself you've got to understand that the game has a broad audience of everyone who wants to upload their hand-drawn characters. From a technical aspect, it's got to be easier to grasp than even say, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and in the eyes of the fighting game community that's about as non-technical as you can get. Developing a hard-core fighting game is a different task all in it's own, and since the idea of graFighters is to have a move pool of thousands with a character pool of infinity, extrapolating those figures with a traditional fighting game engine and we'd be in for trouble.
graFighters isn't just a fighting game, and that isn't meant to be a sly against fighting games - the truth is, graFighters does a bit of a bunch of different genres; There's fighting, but then there's also strategy, there's also social networking in a sense, and there's also drawing. It's not "a fighting game" or "a strategy game", but saying that it's a fighting game is the easiest way to explain it to the largest audience in the least amount of words.
Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out the…
The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back. Providing a…
Also, you won't have a character getting pummeled again and again - but there are some opponents you might just not have any luck beating, and for those fights you want to have a diverse base of characters.
"The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game." - I don't think this is true at all. The feedback we've been getting range from avid gamers, casual gamers, to even people who don't game, but would love to see their hand-drawn character brought to life. The problem with setting this up as a traditional fighting game is that is then becomes immediately too technical for 95%+ of our audience, which isn't really ideal.
Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
#34I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you-draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game. > it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000 Why not just submit to YC the…
Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
#35I've read all of the comments thus far and I have to say that I agree with many points on both sides. However, I would have to definitively say that if you want to control your player, this concept isn't for you. This is of course through the basic player moves that so many people are used to. Click A for jump, B for attack, different combo moves etc. Yes this appeals to many for great gaming, but I would argue that it is a gaming genre that may be at it's absolute peak. Even with today's most complicated games, there is a certain amount of creativity, street smarts and ingenuity in how you play the game.
What I love most about these arguments is that the creator (argued most notably for by dave_chenell) is telling you that you in fact DO have control over your character and the fight. It's just a higher level of control than one is used to. Basically, the 'player' gets to play 'god' in creating characters. By changing the slightest drawing, weapon accessory, and proportions (as is my understanding of this algorithm), one has complete control in how one should act in an all out brawl. If you want your gorilla to have great grappling moves, provide him with powerful arms, etc. I would argue that this feature gives complete control to the gamer.
This game type wouldn't be for anyone, that is certain. However, look at the massive amount of popularity games like Armadillo Run (http://www.armadillorun.com/) have received. You don't have any control over the armadillo in this either. One must use their knowledge of physics, materials, and common sense in order to build a device to complete the objective, like a puzzle. This graFighters idea seems very similar; spend some time playing to learn how the game works, and it'll be just as addicting.
I understand that this concept isn't for everyone and it'll be tough to spread word to gamers who are willing to give it a shot based just on concept alone. But let me ask these gamers something. How many times have you been bored maybe in class or talking on the phone, and you doodle some complex robot. Maybe you give him a lightsaber for good measure. Wouldn't it be nice to put him to some use instead of tossing him away with your class notes?
Re: Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters
#36Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.
The idea behind many huge movements today is to be a part of something. If you take a risk to donate $5, you could potentially lose it yes, but you could also say that you helped launch something big.