Question Is aligning screenshake with attack direction meaningful in top-down games?

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on a small top-down action game and have reached a point where I am adding screenshake effects. I am curious to know if aligning the initial direction of screenshake with attacks would be beneficial. While I have watched several YouTube tutorials, none of them seemed to mention the significance of the initial direction. Therefore, I am wondering if it truly makes a noticeable difference.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my message and for sharing your expertise. I eagerly await any advice or suggestions you may have.

 

Do without direction first.

 

set it up so you can test multiple ways and the opposite, then toggle back and forth during play testing.Don't only test the ways that you think are good, also test the opposite too. You never know what might be cool until you try, so if you set it up so you can just flip some numbers and give a test, might as well.

for making an artistic choice I like to try and set it up like the vision test when you go to eye doctor. Have all the options ready to be swapped out easily at runtime, then you can compare 1 or 2, 3 or 4... select the winners then compare them until you whittle down to one.

You might record gameplay video as well, and then watch those with more of a mindspace like "i'm a viewer watching gameplay on youtube, deciding if i want to buy the game or not". That can be helpful to do after some time has passed because having nose deep in the details it can be easy to start missing the big picture.

if you give to play testers, enable it one way and the opposite for different users. See if it makes any difference that you can measure. If not, just go with what feels best to you. Not sure how you could test if some tiny amount of juice is effective or not, but if people seem to enjoy swinging weapon more in one build versus another, that could be an indicator.

I like to use screen shake to try and give a sense what the action would feel like if player was IRL doing the same action. So like for drawing a bow, a slow tilt up, release an arrow a tiny but sharp snap down. Swing a sword left I might do a subtle but quick cam swing in same direction - but should probably be extremely subtle so as to not cause disorientation. When weapon hits target you probably want more of a shake, maybe jerking back in opposite direction of swing to begin with.

With something like a swing, there is a wind up too. So like if you had a light swing and a heavy swing, the differentiation might be that the heavy swing has a little wind up in the opposite direction before tracking with direction of the swing. Basically you could just slightly track either the hips or hand movements of the animation.

 

I appreciate your response! I wonder, though, if the reason of your advise is primarily due to its convenience or if they actually have no noticeable difference. Thank you!

 

Thank you for your detailed response and the additional editing!

The emphasis on the importance of playtesting and not overthinking decisions is so clear! I should indeed explore different possibilities before making the decision. And thank you for sharing you insight on screen shakes for attacks in action games. Mimicking real-life actions and the subtle camera movements to enhance the player's experience sounds great, I will definitely try it later!

Once again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions!

 

cool, consider doing a short write up one you've finished. Many questions on forums, but its nice to see results of what people learned too. i think cam shakes is a hugely important piece of making game feel great

 

Sure! I am using cinemachine impulse and perlin noise to make screen shakes. Though the noise can be directionless, the impulse must have an initial direction. I tried both random and aligned, and I think aligned is overall better!

For the impulse profile, I am using "explosion" for basic sword attacks, and "bumper" for defend. These are what I learned so far!