Guide to implementing 2D platformers (2012)
I thought this was pretty solid<p>> In many games, your character will play an animation before actually performing the action you requested. However, on a twitchy action-based game, this will frustrate players – DON’T DO THAT! You should still have leading animations for things such as jumping and running, but if you care about how the game responds, make those cosmetic only, with the action taken immediately regardless of the animation.<p>Interesting take. I feel like there’s an unexplored niche of 2D action platform era that do the opposite of this. Yeah a jump startup anim wouldn’t work well for Mario. But a more combat heavy one could be  cool. Especially if you had quite a few jumping options. Somewhere between a sluggish super smash bros and dark souls. Something with deep character state management and directional parrying / dodges.<p>Salt and sanctuary is an interesting title that tries to do 2D dark souls but I feel like it’s just an over simplified outcome. Iframe dodge rolls work well in 3D because you have a 360 range of directions and need to pick between getting out of range for follow ups or dodging into attacks to avoid lagging hit boxes. In 2D you get just 2 directions and it seems a bit too easy imo.