So Much Room To Move.... So Much Room to Miss

The Problem

2.5d'ish Beat 'em Up games have different styles and different approaches to what is 2 dimensional, and what is 3 dimensional. Our controls, we decided for the 3D approach with 360 degree movement with the character. Makes the game closer to the 3D side, but with 2D backdrops. The issue we have faced though is with the freedom to move all over the level, the enemy also has that freedom and it had become increasingly difficult to hit the enemy. The player is at a serious disadvantage as the AI is better than us at hitting it's target. When the player is on the same plane as the enemy, there are no issues. It's not until we're on different planes and trying to hit sideways, towards the backdrop, or towards the camera that it becomes irritating. Something needs to be fixed with this if we want anyone to enjoy this game.

The Solution

Constraining the direction the enemy and player can move is what I believe is the best option. I went to try implementing some constraints with no success. I decided to print to screen the forward direction in an (x,y,z) format as well as the right direction in the same format to see why constraints had no effect. It wasn't until I noticed the directions never changed regardless of how the player was oriented. I was applying movement based on the cameras position, which is locked at facing the player at a 90 degree angle at all times. Of course it wouldn't change. So now my next step is to get the actor (character) rotation and apply movement which in turn will tweak my movement code, but will give me freedom to constrain the player to certain angles....hopefully. Until next time.