Please help my research!

[MoSSurII]

So I'm very new here and am not even sure if this is the most appropriate place to ask this, but I'm developing a game which involves a lot of combat and want to implement different real-world martial arts as fighting styles and I thought getting people's real-life experience would be the best way to go about researching these martial arts styles. Now I'm probs asking too much but all I need is:

• Some martial arts styles (Preferably about 6)
• Their unique moves (What may set them apart from the other mentioned martial arts)
• Their unique twists on common fighting moves (Like a roundhouse kick or uppercut)
• And what martial arts they are strong and weak against (Sort of like in a rock-paper-scissors kind of way, just more complex)

I don't need it to be perfectly 100% realistic, it's more or less a caricature of the real thing, so make up stuff and fill up gaps however you'd like.

If some of y'all could be so kind as to type out all of this or help me in some way, I would be ever grateful. Also if y'all know any external resources that could be of help I'd be more than happy to hear about them, my DMs are open too if you prefer that aswell

soooooo anyways... thanks a bunch!

 

[Tony Dismukes]

What kind of game? TTRPG? Video game? Card game?

 

[Gyakuto]

• Their unique moves (What may set them apart from the other mentioned martial arts)
• Their unique twists on common fighting moves (Like a roundhouse kick or uppercut)
• And what martial arts they are strong and weak against (Sort of like in a rock-paper-scissors kind of way, just more complex)

 

[MoSSurII]

What kind of game? TTRPG? Video game? Card game?

It's a video game, specifically a beat 'em up brawler, kinda similar to the game Sifu if you've heard of it

 

[skribs]

The thing is, there's only so many ways the human body can move. A roundhouse kick might have some slight differences between Taekwondo, Karate, and Muay Thai, but there's going to be a lot of overlap. All three of those arts will teach punches, kicks, knees, and elbows. And there is going to be more in common between the average school of all three compared to the outliers in each discipline.

With that said, here's what I would go for if I were making a game:

Striking arts:

• Taekwondo - focus on fast kick combos and head kick finishers
• Capoeira - focus on spinning and flashy kicks
• Boxing - only punches, lots of speed and power
• Muay Thai - punches, knees, elbows, clinching, kicks, the works
• Karate - lots of trapping, combat like Sifu (or at least the couple minutes in the video I just looked at on youtube)
• Kung Fu - faster punches, less room for error

Stand-up grappling:

• Judo - mostly throws
• Hapkido - mix of striking and wristlocks
• Aikido - mostly wristlocks
• MMA - take-downs and ground and pound (and all the other strikes)

Groundfighting I don't think would work too well in a game. Instead, I'd go with the TMA (traditional martial arts) approach of striking after a take-down as a finishing move, or I'd go with the MMA approach of ground-and-pound.

 

[MoSSurII]

Yup, I do realize how confusing this sounds

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Okay, so the bad news is that the "rock-paper-scissors" aspect doesn't really exist, at least not in a way that translates into game mechanics. Likewise the actual mechanical differences between styles (like a boxing uppercut vs a long fist Kung Fu uppercut) don't work in a way that you could easily emulate in a game.

The good news is that you can take the sort of mechanics you want in a game and find martial arts which have concepts and flavors which you can use as a skin for those game mechanics. True realism is neither necessary nor possible, but you can create a fun game which gives the player the feeling that they are using different fighting styles.

To begin with, since you are making a video game, you will want martial arts which are visually distinct from each other. So you might have Wing Chun and Tai Chi and Tae Kwon Do, but not Karate and Tae Kwon Do because those two can appear too similar. These days most video games of this sort work off of mo-cap for the fight animations, so you may be limited by the background skills of your stunt performers. If you are doing more of a low-budget indie game with hand-animated graphics, then you should start by looking at different styles and figure out which ones have visually distinct features that are within your technical abilities for animating.

Beyond the visual aspects, there are a number of different game mechanics that you could find ways to skin with different martial arts concepts - stamina bars, fighting environments, RPG attributes, status effects, defense vs offense stats, power attacks vs quick attacks, critical hits, etc. I'll offer some examples.

We'll compare two styles, Capoeira and Wing Chun, which already have the advantage of being very visually distinct:

Let's look at some game mechanics which might distinguish the two...

Stamina - Capoeira is a very athletic style which uses large body movements. Depending on your game system, these techniques might either drain your stamina bar more quickly or might require higher physical stats for the player character. In contrast, Wing Chun uses much smaller movements which shouldn't require so much stamina.

Range - Capoeira's large movements require more space, while Wing Chun is much more of a close-range fighting system. If your game has different fighting environments then you could give Capoeira the advantage in an open space and Wing Chun the advantage in a narrow alley. Alternatively you could structure the game so that the Wing Chun player has to get past the Capoeirista's long range attacks to get into range for his own techniques.

Power attacks vs Quick attacks: Capoeira kicks can generate a lot more force while Wing Chun is good for barrages of quick, lighter strikes.

Status effects - Capoeira's movements are designed to be highly deceptive and evasive - you could implement a mechanic where executing a certain defensive combo inflicts the "confused" status on an opponent. Wing Chun often utilizes an eye poke (Bil Gee). This could be used to inflict a "blinded" status.

If you let us know what sort of game mechanics you are looking to implement in your game design, then we can probably offer some suggestions that would fit into your goals.

 

[MoSSurII]

The thing is, there's only so many ways the human body can move. A roundhouse kick might have some slight differences between Taekwondo, Karate, and Muay Thai, but there's going to be a lot of overlap. All three of those arts will teach punches, kicks, knees, and elbows. And there is going to be more in common between the average school of all three compared to the outliers in each discipline.

With that said, here's what I would go for if I were making a game:

Striking arts:

• Taekwondo - focus on fast kick combos and head kick finishers
• Capoeira - focus on spinning and flashy kicks
• Boxing - only punches, lots of speed and power
• Muay Thai - punches, knees, elbows, clinching, kicks, the works
• Karate - lots of trapping, combat like Sifu (or at least the couple minutes in the video I just looked at on youtube)
• Kung Fu - faster punches, less room for error

Stand-up grappling:

• Judo - mostly throws
• Hapkido - mix of striking and wristlocks
• Aikido - mostly wristlocks
• MMA - take-downs and ground and pound (and all the other strikes)

Groundfighting I don't think would work too well in a game. Instead, I'd go with the TMA (traditional martial arts) approach of striking after a take-down as a finishing move, or I'd go with the MMA approach of ground-and-pound.

Yo thank you so much, this helps a lot. And yeah you're right the Sifu game does involve a lot of trapping since it supposedly uses Pak Mei Kung Fu