FaceBreaker Q&A Official Thread

[Col Blair]

Please Welcome Todd Lead Producer for the game.

Post any questions about the game and Todd will answer them. Please give him a warm welcomed and post questions.

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by Col Blair

Please Welcome Todd Lead Producer for the game.

Post any questions about the game and Todd will answer them. Please give him a warm welcomed and post questions.

Hey everyone, thanks for having me. Let me know what you know about facebreaker, what you think if you've played the demo or seen anything about the game, questions re: strategy, controls, etc. basically whatever is on your mind.

Be blunt, be direct. I will do the same.

Cheers,

Todd

[Col Blair]

Welcome XBS feel free to post the link to officail site. Enjoy the site

[mekid21]

Hey, I was checking out the official site and I noticed that obviously the Wii game is slightly different as it features the Wiimote (and apparently the Motion Plus). I've played other fighting games in the past like Mortal Kombat (I haven't had a chance to download the demo of FaceBreaker yet), and I find a lot of them for most people are kinda just button mashing mayhem, where the fun lasts maybe the first 20 minutes or so and that's it.

What kind of controls could I expect from FaceBreaker, and what elements would keep me playing the game for hours, days, months instead of just being a short repetitive fighter (feel free to link to the official site, I won't lie, I haven't done my background research yet, I just wanted to get things started off).

[Gronar]

Good question, Mekid21. As for me, I want to know what the hell Kim Kardashian is doing in there??!!??!! Oh, and welcome tbatty!

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by mekid21

Hey, I was checking out the official site and I noticed that obviously the Wii game is slightly different as it features the Wiimote (and apparently the Motion Plus). I've played other fighting games in the past like Mortal Kombat (I haven't had a chance to download the demo of FaceBreaker yet), and I find a lot of them for most people are kinda just button mashing mayhem, where the fun lasts maybe the first 20 minutes or so and that's it.

What kind of controls could I expect from FaceBreaker, and what elements would keep me playing the game for hours, days, months instead of just being a short repetitive fighter (feel free to link to the official site, I won't lie, I haven't done my background research yet, I just wanted to get things started off).

That is a great question and something I am glad that you asked. I won't comment on the Wii as our team built the 360 and PS3 versions, but I will see if we can get Trey Smith on here to post as well - he is heading up the Wii team.

So let's talk about fighting games in general and the whole button mashing thing. We've had some comments as well that our game feels like a button masher when you first pick it up, so this is a great topic. For starters, we all have to agree on one thing - every single new game that you pick up and play for the first time is technically a button masher, meaning you hit a bunch of buttons randomly hoping for the best. The difference among games is that with some games you start to figure things out amongst your mashing and the game mechanics/system starts to take shape for you, and that understanding or learning opens the game up and starts to make the experience fun.

With many fighting games the underlying gameplay systems are very complex, which means that just learning by mashing and starting to figure things out is a very difficult task and can take hours and hours of play and/or practice until you can even start to formulate a picture of in your mind of how the game actually works. If you ever do at all. I think this is what has turned a lot of people off fighting games in general in the past. For those that take the time to learn the system the experience is for sure very rewarding, but many people just don't have that much time to invest. It also creates another very common problem in gaming - it is almost impossible to play complex games with your friends. Try having your friend over to play VF5 who has never picked it up before. They mash buttons and hope for the best while you are bored knowing that you could destroy them any time you wanted to. As an aside, I think this is why people always remember old-school games (ie like NHL 95 or Live 99) so fondly, because they were simple enough to learn that you and all of your friends could quite quickly get on equal grounds where you were all using the same controls/moves, and then the player who won on any given day was the one who used them the best. Those games were more about a battle of wits than being about who had invested the most time, practiced the most, memorized the most combinations of buttons, etc.

So this brings us to facebreaker. Out of the box you will probably have no idea how to play and will, of course, just smash some buttons and hope for the best. But, if you are willing to invest even 20-30 mins to learn the basic controls (there are not many), the rest of the strategy becomes about how to use those seemingly simple controls in better and more strategic ways. I have been playing facebreaker for months now and it is literally the only game that I am still playing this late in the project. I can't wait until the game is released so I can start fighting people online to see what other types of strategies might emerge, because I already have many.

I guess my answer is that facebreaker will keep you fighting for days, weeks, even months because it is actually more simple than traditional fighting games. This might seem backwards, but I can assure you that it is true.

So, if you are interested, i can walk you through quite simply how to learn and master the basic controls. Or, you can pick up the demo and try it out yourself and then ask me questions. we also included a simple practice mode in the demo that allows you to learn things pretty quickly, and we have 'how to play' tips available at any time in-game from the pause menu.

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by Gronar

Good question, Mekid21. As for me, I want to know what the hell Kim Kardashian is doing in there??!!??!! Oh, and welcome tbatty!

haha another great question, but this one is easy. from everything that i have read about people's impressions when they found out that KK is in the game i can see that some people get it, and others don't. So, here is the quick back story.

As you probably already know, our create boxer feature makes use of photogameface, where you can upload a picture of yourself (or anybody) to create your boxer. We wanted to include some pre-created boxers in the final game so that if people didn't want to go to the trouble of uploading pics, or if they weren't actually connected online they would still be able to use the feature, by editing and customizing a person that already exists in the game (much like a traditional create player).

So, we needed some people. Knowing that gamers were probably going to be uploading celebrities and athletes and other famous people into the game anyhow, we thought it might be cool to use some famous people ourselves, rather than John and Jane Doe.

We started with what you might expect. Who would be cool to have in our game? Who would people want to be? We thought of everyone from Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee to Jack Black and Wil Ferrel. But if facebreaker is about one thing, it's that we are really trying hard not to take ourselves too seriously with the game. So we figured it might be funny to include some people in the game that we thought the general public might always have wanted to beat the crap out of. And that is how we got to where we got to. There are more to be announced very shortly, and i'm sure the picture will start to become more clear when you hear about them. For the record, I think it's pretty cool that everyone was a good enough sport to participate. And I actually kind of like beating the crap out of people with Kim.

[Rockk]

Haven't had time for a lot of games lately, but I'll read up on this one and probably throw some questions your way!

Until then, welcome tbatty! Thanks for taking the time!

[Col Blair]

Originally Posted by tbatty

haha another great question, but this one is easy. from everything that i have read about people's impressions when they found out that KK is in the game i can see that some people get it, and others don't. So, here is the quick back story.

As you probably already know, our create boxer feature makes use of photogameface, where you can upload a picture of yourself (or anybody) to create your boxer. We wanted to include some pre-created boxers in the final game so that if people didn't want to go to the trouble of uploading pics, or if they weren't actually connected online they would still be able to use the feature, by editing and customizing a person that already exists in the game (much like a traditional create player).

So, we needed some people. Knowing that gamers were probably going to be uploading celebrities and athletes and other famous people into the game anyhow, we thought it might be cool to use some famous people ourselves, rather than John and Jane Doe.

We started with what you might expect. Who would be cool to have in our game? Who would people want to be? We thought of everyone from Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee to Jack Black and Wil Ferrel. But if facebreaker is about one thing, it's that we are really trying hard not to take ourselves too seriously with the game. So we figured it might be funny to include some people in the game that we thought the general public might always have wanted to beat the crap out of. And that is how we got to where we got to. There are more to be announced very shortly, and i'm sure the picture will start to become more clear when you hear about them. For the record, I think it's pretty cool that everyone was a good enough sport to participate. And I actually kind of like beating the crap out of people with Kim.

Good idea but I think Paris Hilton or Britney Spears would have been better choices

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by Rockk

Haven't had time for a lot of games lately, but I'll read up on this one and probably throw some questions your way!

Until then, welcome tbatty! Thanks for taking the time!

Hey, no problem. Thanks for having me in your community!