Guidelines and advices of how to create a mod.

[Don Vecta]

I guess a topic like this would be fine.

With SORmaker now many people can give it a go in trying to build the beat 'em up of their dreams. SOR maker, while doesn't cover all the features displayed on v5, still has tons of tools and properties to build a fun, exciting and challenging mod. It's all about the creativity of the author.

However, sometimes we don't know what could be the do's and don'ts while building our stages, our settings, enemy placement, difficulty, etc. And after all, we try to please an audience and have our mod played over and over again (I don't think anyone wants to build something from himself and release it public, yes?).

These guidelines are coming from a very personal point of view. People can have different opinions and takes and whatever it might be written here can be discarded if that's not what you guys think. I'm not a professional modder, neither a top player but I've been playing beat 'em ups for more than 25 years so probly my experience could help out a bit to have an idea of what's going on. As I said, I don't intend this to be a universal guide but I try to point out the things I've seen that other people love or hate from a mod and gather their opinions and thoughts. We are community, feel free to contribute with your inputs too.

I'll try not to put specific examples to avoid hurting feelings since this is mostly in a general context. I'm not going to give jabs to anyone or annoy anybody, this is solely with the purpose to contribute and help to create better and better mods, nothing else.

Said that, let's begin, shall we?


Before start modding.

- Get a theme for your mod. You can just make a mod with any lovely stage and fill them with random enemies if you must, but the audience would feel more appealed if the mod had a specific theme. You can make it comedic, or noir, or sci-fi or b-action film or exploitation, etc. and according to your theme, build your stages and place ur enemies accordingly.

- Think in a storyline. By setting a theme then you can try to create a script of events that build up interest to the game. You don't need to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to bring a cool detective story or Wes Craven to bring a horror story, in fact, in beat 'em ups, stories tend to be quite cheese due of their homage of 80's b-action films so no worries, you can bring a deep story or something simple. Stories are just to give flavor to the game and it will bring tons of replay value.

- Choose your materials wisely! Okay, gathering materials like stage background from other games it's a common thing between modders, you also can build your own sprites on your own as well. But there's something important: if someone else ripped or built a stage and you want to use elements from it in your mod ASK PERMISSION FIRST! This is very important if you don't want to have problems with the rest of the community and get branded as a plagiarist or a jerk. You might no get sued but bet your ass you're gonna be ostracized, outcasted and rejected by the community and nobody would like to play your mods.

- Choose your music according to your theme. You know the soul of a beat 'em up (especially Streets of Rage) lies in its music. The music should fit in the theme you choose and give the mood you want to add on it. A detective or noir story would fit with jazz or blues based music (either pure style or more modern styles with jazz elements) or a Sci-fi theme with electro, noise or EBM.
In a personal opinion I recommend the use of INSTRUMENTAL TRACKS since music with lyrics tend to distract and alter the effect desired in a stage, while an instrumental track would give a more neutral and background element without taking away the mood. Definitely tracks with lyrics are tacky and a no go and most people don't find it comfortable to listen during a game, but if you really want it's up to you.


Next chapter would be when you are constructing your mod.

[Don Vecta]

Okay, let's continue.

So yeah, you have your sprites ready, photoshop (or whatever image editor you use) on hand, fpg on hand and SORmaker on. You have the concept ready and it's time to give it shape to the mod.

- Enemy placement. This is the key part of making a fun mod or a crappy mod. Enemy placement it's the main core in how to develop your game and make it fun and challenging. In a standard beat 'em up game, the first stages are usually simple (but still attractive enough to catch the attention of the player) and the mooks there are the easiest type, then as the stages advance, gradually it's added more challenging mooks and sub-bosses, etc.

In practical issues, SORmaker fortunately has a wide array of easy mooks to fill your first stages, here are some tier list that you could use as reference to place your enemies from easier to harder and which bosses can be used as mooks and which mooks can be used as bosses:

Tier 1: Galsias (3 versions), Donnies (2 versions), Signals (3 versions), Goldie, Vice, Soozies (2 versions), Storms (2 versions), Galvice, Cody.
Tier 2: Haku-oh's, Hakuyos, Noras, Electras (2 versions), Jacks (jugglers), Beano, Slash, SOR2 Big-Ben, P-1, Trucker (pipe or barehanded version), Tiger, Hitmen (3 versions).
Tier 3: SOR3 Big-Ben, Ninjos, Muay Thais, troll ninjas (2 versions), Trucker (with beer).
Sub-bosses: Ash, Vehelits, Victy & Danch, Rocket.
Bosses: Antonio, Barbon, Mona & Lisa, Souther, SOR2 Jet, Yamato, Abadede, Zamza, Bongo, Bear, Yasha & Onihime, Neo-X, Robo-X, SOR3 Jet, Particle, Rudra, Shiva (2 versions), Mr. X.
Special: Seekers.

Pretty much the lay out for a stage one should be tier 1 mooks with low energy bars, with 3 or 4 stops during the scene (depending of the length of it, of course), with 4 enemies at the same time max and at least the first two stops with only two waves with only tier 1 mooks. Then later in the 3rd stop you could put an easy tier 2 enemy to come in a wave, still low to mid energy bar but only one or two. By the end of the stage you could place 2 tier-1 mooks with mid lifebar and a tier-2 mook with a full bar as your sub-boss of the scene.
It's not recommended to put Tier-3 mooks in the first scenes unless u wanna manage him as a sub-boss, and if you REALLY wanna do it, try to put him alone and with a mid to full lifebar (no lives)... or why not? you could put a group of Tier-3 mooks as your stage 1 Bosses, maybe a group of Ninjas or I dunno, the idea is to keep the balance of the game.

With this logic it is easy to build challenge in the course of the game, try to use as reference other established beat 'em ups like the OG SOR's, Final Fight, Cadillacs & Dinosaus, Punisher, etc.


- Stay in theme with your enemies & stages. Yeah, after you selected a theme or a story and therefore the style of your stages, also place your enemies with the theme of your stage. It's kinda odd that you'd find a martial artist like a Hakuyo in a Bar or a party-girl like Soozie in a Samurai temple. SORmaker has a huge array of enemies with different styles that could fit in so many themes.
Remember also that you have name editor and palette editor and a certain name, color or image will change the appearance of your characters.
Also, if you have a storyline that request certain type of enemy to show up in an odd situation, go ahead and try it (in example, in your script the boss is sending assassins to kill the protagonist and he happens to pass-by... let's say a convenience store then it's okay to place 3 troll ninjas with a very dark palette to resemble like shadows).

- Health items, point items, extra polices and extra lives placement. Okay, this is important, after you got a wave of enemies in a stop, you gotta put a health item after you cleared that. That's rule of the thumb. It's not fun whooping the ass of tons of mooks coming in 5 waves and then after you get the GO! GO! GO! There's nothing else after that but MORE enemies! Balance your number of enemies (and their difficulty) with the type of health item you could grant. If it was a stop with 3 waves of tier 1 mooks then a coke, a chewing gum or an orange would suffice. If it was a stop with 3 waves of tier-2 mooks then go for an apple or even a hamburger. If you fought a sub-boss or a bunch of tier 3 goons then a chicken or beef will do.

Also remember that you can make some mooks to drop food after you beat them, mind you the food dropped it's random so odds are that u get a simple chewing gum or the best to get a burger. Sometimes u can make the hardest mook of a wave to drop a food item so you can keep up with the next round.

As for point items those are more for fun or to accumulate extra life. Some valuable items like the gold bars or the extra lives can be hidden behind some layers which can give this extra trick feeling.

Also, if there's a certain difficult and long stage coming, you could place mid way an extra police to give some help (of course, this makes no sense if you do it in a stage with the police calls restricted since the hero characters can't call the police).

- Play with your environment. SORmaker has tons of extras and events that can your stage look richer and interesting. From the simple appearance elements such a littered cans on the floor, flying birds, garbage flying, fog, rain, thunders, etc. to features that can affect the gameplay like slippery floor, endless drum cans dropping, explosions, fire on the floor, etc.

Recreate your stage according to your scripted story and the situation, also remember that placing items like health items, point items and containers can also decor your stage (in example, make a hobo party placing a flame event, surrounded by breakable boxes where Slums and Signals would be sitting on, some Soozies and Galvices jamming with the music, place Cokes and Cocktails drinks (consumable items) around them, a Boombox point item, some Bottle weapon items around and some littered cans around them with the Extra feature and there you go! You can go and crash the party literally!)

Here's the example how it would look like:

...and here crashing the party (and paying for it), lol, happy happy joy joy.... *trollface*

(Sorry, took one of the stages from the Rage in Time mod as an example only, I won't plan to use it like this).
You guys feel free also to contribute with tips, I'll post some more.

[Elmo]

Well, I no zilch about making a mod - technically. But from a gameplay perspective (I play computer and console games since 1983) Don's guidelines feel spot on to me. There's one more thing I like to add about the high art of enemy placement. Remember the bar fight with Electra in SOR2? From designs like this we can see that we can get an improved impression of variety if even "normal" enemies are introduced properly as "sub-bosses". So the first time that you encounter, say, a Tiger in the game, there should be just one, in a proper setting, with full life-bar and good AI, helped by some already known minions. Only afterwards you will spam later levels with these guys. If you do this properly with new enemies (respecting the tiers), you can have a crapload of exciting "fresh" mid-stage sub-boss experiences. I know of no beatemup other than SOR V5 which boasts 64 enemies. Still some mods manage to invoke a feeling of grinding repetitiveness by not "introducing" enemies properly over those eight stages. It really doesn't have to be that way.

Elmo

[badjab]

Well, I no zilch about making a mod - technically. But from a gameplay perspective (I play computer and console games since 1983) Don's guidelines feel spot on to me. There's one more thing I like to add about the high art of enemy placement. Remember the bar fight with Electra in SOR2? From designs like this we can see that we can get an improved impression of variety if even "normal" enemies are introduced properly as "sub-bosses". So the first time that you encounter, say, a Tiger in the game, there should be just one, in a proper setting, with full life-bar and good AI, helped by some already known minions. Only afterwards you will spam later levels with these guys. If you do this properly with new enemies (respecting the tiers), you can have a crapload of exciting "fresh" mid-stage sub-boss experiences. I know of no beatemup other than SOR V5 which boasts 64 enemies. Still some mods manage to invoke a feeling of grinding repetitiveness by not "introducing" enemies properly over those eight stages. It really doesn't have to be that way.

Elmo

qft

This and the slight tag element some enemies have (i.e. ninja and electra in SoR2 stage 7) are some of the coolest types of enemy placement/introduction imo.

[CajNatalie]

Caj's rushed, convoluted, but very important guide to doing a scene right.

Step 1: Scroller & Layers
Build these first.

Ensure you have 0,0,0 black only where you want transparency.
Use the 'select specific RGB value' tool (whatever your program calls it) with MINIMUM THRESHOLD and click on a 0,0,0 (RGB) black pixel.
This will show you where all the transparent parts are.
If you see something selected that shouldn't be transparent, then fix it to 1,1,1 at the very least.

If you don't have this tool then you need to stop using Paint or whatever crap you've got and get and at least half decent graphics program. Even GIMP will do.

Layers at the bottom of the screen need an odd number for height
Why?
With an even number, the layer will 'float' one pixel up, no matter what you do.
How to Fix: Increase canvas size by 1 pixel up (do not keep aspect ratio, otherwise width will change, too), and fill that extra line of pixels at the top with 0,0,0 black.

Scroll Speeds
The further back something is, the lower this should be.
The closer to the screen something is, the higher this should be.

Foregrounds that are right in front of the scroller should be 1.2
If there's more distance then use 1.4
Cityscapes/horizons should usually be 0.1 or 0.2.
Backdrops that are closer often work well with 0.8.
Objects that are literally right behind the walking area should use values from 0.9 to 0.98.

Collision Map - if you need one
Copy your scroller file, and rename it... it's your base for a collision map.
Open it up, and fill in the ground and obstactles with the correct colours.
Green (walls/obstacles) should usually 'go over' in to the blue area by at least 8 pixels, but for a vertical wall you'll probably need 16 or sometimes even 24 pixels to ensure the character can't paradox themselves 'in front' of it.

Step 2: Testing
Once all graphics and your collision map are done, DO NOT PUT ANY ENEMIES IN!
Open your scene up, set your layers, set the upper and lower boundaries where the character walks in between.
Put in all the settings for police call type and such.
Add your alternate routes and little events and items and all that.
But do not... DO NOT... put even a single Galsia.

Hit test.
Walk through your scene, watch each layer... the way it scrolls, the way it animates.
Walk in to your collisions.
Try to do stuff you shouldn't be able to do.
If ANYTHING is wrong, fix it, and then start a new test.

There are some circumstances where you need an enemy to prevent a scene ending or to trigger an elevator, try to save that for last.
Put in a SoR1/2 Signal for this part - they don't smack you and are easily ignored.

Once EVERYTHING in your scene is perfect, delete the signal, and start placing enemies.
As you do each section ending in a camlock, test.
Yeah... try actually testing your scenes. Don't just toss enemies in and call it a day... you need to do test fights with them to see if they appear correctly, the waves flow correctly, etcetera.
Test on each and every difficulty mode that you can.

One Last Thing
When using the 'Position' intro, put it low, because player 2 will always spawn way above player 1, and often gets stuck in walls because of putting the position high.

[charco]

Good stuff, nice basics and a great way to start. Nothing wrong with Paint though, I created every scene in V4 Remake with Paint

[CajNatalie]

Yeah some people can use Paint and use it well... there's an exception to almost every rule.


Anyway, very important tip here...
SCALE FOR EASY MODE
Not only does this make your mod accessible to people who want to just do a casual walkthrough, but if you ever need to retest your scenery long after enemy placements, you can switch to easy mode and you'll barely have any enemies to get in your way while you check what needs fixing/improving with your scene graphics/layers.

[Benny26]

Good stuff, nice basics and a great way to start. Nothing wrong with Paint though, I created every scene in V4 Remake with Paint

I agree. All the hard editing i did in my mod was with paint. Great tool.

One thing about difficulty i think people should not forget is the V5 engine's own changes: Some mods out there have drastically different enemy placements for each difficulty, when most of the time it is not even needed due to the fact that the engine itself changes all the enemies speed and aggression automatically on choosing a difficulty.

[CajNatalie]

The thing about difficulty in V5's engine... this is exactly why you should almost never scale up to a difficulty you cannot test, because you don't know how the engine will use those extra enemies at that difficulty very well. Get someone else to do those difficulties for you. =P

[xRainmakerRSx]

I read this topic before starting my mod and it helped me understand many things were not as I wanted, it is a great topic!

here's a tip (not a rule, just my perspective):

learn to create colors!

I perceive a problem in most mod's that I have downloaded, the colors are saturated in the characters! There is a certain color tone in order not to deface a char ... "the lightest color to the darkest color = the center of the body to the outer contours" if you do not respect that the character will appear displaced anger and out of the game losing all its originality, in consequence, it will look something be moved out of scenario. To my way of thinking there is a certain pattern in sor that should be respected, there is a standard 90 'years that must be present or not be a sor style =]