Fighting Games And Music

2XKO is Out! And I am excited.

2XKO is the riot-formula applied to fighting games. Riot Games had it's breakthrough with the game League of Legends (which is "inspired" by DotA) known for it's mass appeal, which can be attributed to its accessibility 1 2. They have repeated this with Valorant (embodying the spirit of Counter Strike) and now 2XKO.

l have been waiting almost 6 months now to get my fingers on it ever since my first alpha lab registration. In the mean time I tried to get into the genre with countless other fighting games, learning their inner workings. And I fell in love! Which is why I am writing this article, while also pointing out parallels to another non technical passion of mine: Music.

Now I can finally play it. It felt odd at first. But playing some more with it, I had a blast. And I can say it with confidence: Riot has done it again.

But I am getting ahead of myself: What is 2XKO?
It Is a hybrid of an anime fighter (flashy 2D fighter with good air mobility and specials) and a tag-team fighter (where you control more than one character, switching between them at will for tactical maneuvers).

Ok. But what is a fighting game?

What is a Fighting Game

A fighting game is a collection of unique characters, which two players (facing each other) can select and use to reduce each other's life total to 0 by hitting the opponent with a set of moves. It has very short rounds (around 50 seconds to 2 minutes). Making it a very attractive hobby for modern day hustlers, like myself.

What makes fighting games unique is that almost every button of your controller is mapped to an attack. So similar to how you cannot Not communicate. You cannot Not attack.
Also you can move your character left and right always facing the opponent, jump and depending on the game, dash or have other movement options. This feels a lot like dancing. Your movement and orientation is always defined in relation to your "sparring partner".

The gameplay loop is about a conversation with your opponent. Most options have a rock-paper-scissors dynamic of guessing or anticipating. And while one person is speaking the other one has to listen, until they find a gap in which they can interrupt and take over the conversation. It is highly dynamic, flashy and unexpectedly strategic.

How do Fighting Games Work? An Abstraction

What makes this genre challenging is time. Every move you can input has a certain timing defined by it's very animation data. Generally speaking a move is structured the following way: startup (how many frames until the movement has been displayed until the moment of impact), active (for how many frames does the move hurt the opponent on contact), recovery (how many frames does the move need to return to a neutral position). Also each move hits the opponent in a certain location (low, mid, high), has a certain range (short, mid, long), has certain on hit properties (knock down opponent, launch opponent into air). But most importantly a move when it hits the opponent leaves said opponent stunned (unable to move), generally known as hit stun.

Over time new features have been discovered which makes understanding this timing very rewarding. Initially a bug, cancels are moves which can interrupt the recovery of another move. Now imagine the opponent was hit, is now in a hit stun. You skip your recovery with a cancel. And now if the move's startup, with which you just cancelled your previous move is shorter than the opponent's hit stun duration, you will hit him again. And he can't do anything about it. We are talking about frames here. Parts of seconds. This happens very fast.

But when one player hits the other player with a move which is inescapable, because of the timing -- a gapless sequence so to say -- it is referred to a combo. And while an unfamiliar reader might think this is unfair, this is the juice of a fighting game. This leads to an entire sub-discipline of finding the most creative and long combos. Which makes the combo a tool for player expression. However it can also turn the combo in a strategic choice1. Do I go for the simpler more reliable one, or do I try in the heat of the battle to execute that one super long and difficult one, potentially missing out when it fails.

There is an even more challenging timing sequence. When a recovery and startup together are fast enough for the hit stun of the opponent, then we have a link. However the problem of a link is that it does not cancel the previous move. So not only does the math have to hold up, but your input timing needs to be flawless. You need to hit the exact moment, the recovery of the previous move is over so that no time is wasted before the next startup.
This turns the game from a speed driven activity (who can mash buttons faster) to one of rhythm. Every combo then is a rhythmic pattern, inside the dance of two sparring partners jousting for their turn.

I think we are getting very close to the heart of this article now.

How this is like Music

Now, allow me to reframe this into concepts and language from music.
Any musical instrument has multiple keys, strings, holes or other parts that when interacted with produce a sound: a note. Similar to the fighting games, you can not not make a sound, no matter what you do.

Now similarly to a new fighting game player, you would at first produce a cacophony by wildly flailing at your instrument to make a lot of sounds. Only the motivated scholar will sit down learn the concepts of the note scale (low, mid, high, short, medium, long) and rhythmic training (quick moves, I mean notes and long notes, I mean moves. No I meant notes actually...)

After a while you would learn, that certain nodes go well together. You learn the concept of chords. This is because of harmony or the teaching of overlapping oscillation layers of the single notes sounding good together, or consonant. We have a deliberate overlap of compatible moves, I mean notes. Sounds like a sequence. Well chords, are played simultaneously. But chords can be broken, into single notes over some time. Throw in some embellishment and passing notes and you start to form motives, and phrases. Your musical combos. This simpler more fundamental "combos" are also called BnB (no not bed and breakfast), which is short for Bread and Butter. Or your must-know sequences. Which is why the comparison to chords fits well. You, the musician, you the fighting game player of a said character need to know and understand your bnbs, I mean chords, or motives. Depends if you are a simultaneoulist or a sequentialist (no no, these words do certainly exist, i surely did not make them up!)

Ok. So combos are chords. You learn that combos are essential, as you learn that chords need to be consonant, to sound good. However the more you grow familiar with the system of music, you realize that what makes your music really spicy is to add the occasional dissonance. In terms of fighting games that is a sequence of moves that is not quite gapless.
That actually has a few frames for your opponent to react to. Leading to things like frame traps and stagger pressure. Also concepts you only learn through experience. And similar to dissonance in music, they help making you unpredictable and more surprising.

Then you start chaining your simpler phrases together into a full melody. Interchanging the simpler pieces, varying them in timing to discover new compositions. This is what a full combo feels like. You have all these pieces and you explore how to put them together.
Integrated into the gameplay you combine it with the dissonant, gapful sequences to make your opponent guess and become very unpredictable.

This is for me what the time component of fighting games relates to in music. Now let's combine it with the spatial component. You are continuously moving back and furth, not randomly, but by reacting to your opponent's movement. You are dancing. Also you can not randomly use every move. Because as I said every move has different properties.

When at a distance you select the slower ones with a wider reach. When the opponent jumps at you need to choose a move that not only hits upward but one that from it's animation loop actually covers and converges with the jump trajectory of the opponent.
You are not playing an instrument that produces notes, but one that produces movement.

My Fascination with the Genre

Every character interprets this idea in it's own way. It is a motion designers dream. Every character a cohesive set of carefully designed moves in line with it's main aesthetics. When designing a new fighting game character you must think: how does this character move, and how does he hit the opponent. If you allow yourself to drift in such an abstract problem space. You can suddenly find very fascinating solutions, like fighting deers or ponies. You can translate a franchise as diverse as pokemon.

But at it's core the game is so pure. There is no complicated background mechanics. No snowballing gameloop, or knowledge driven skill ceiling of what to build. All you have is a set of animations and states and the game is your canvas.

Every additional system is built on top of this basic understanding. For example, two special character interactions are a counter hit and a punish. A punish is when you hit the opponent during their recovery frames. And a counter hit is when you hit them during their startup.
These are special moments, climaxes during your dance, in which by extended hitstuns an opportunity is born for maximum expression and strategic payoff. You can string together chords that are usually not possible. You start jazzing on to your opponent.

One additional mechanic that many fighting games share, is that of a stratetig resource often represented as a meter that for certain conditions fills up. Knocking down an opponent, hitting him, blocking, moving towards the oppoent. This is up to the game designers intended feel of the game. However this strategic resource can be used to access so called super moves or ultimates. Which often lock the players into a premade cutscene resembling an aesthetic orgasm. This special resource however usually can also be used to implement a fighting game series' signature mechanic, which is usually another tool for you combo making. But similar to counter hits and punishes are not always available.

This leads to an intense mindgame, strategic jousting of positions and rhythmic skill execution, all accompanied by a mesmerizing choreography of beautiful pixels in motion.
I hope this has convinced you, that fighting games are not only strategic, but they are fundamentally musical.