Design in Indie Games: Nidhogg
Nidhogg is a 16-bit action-fighter side-scrolling arcade-style game known for its simple clash between a yellow and orange swordsman. The two swordsmen who are controlled by you and a friend fight to the death in a castle, mineshaft, forest, and in the clouds themselves as you try to outwit your opponent through various methods. The players are able to roll past their opponents in order to sweep them off their feet allowing for a neck-breaking execution, parkour of the wall in order to knock out their opponent’s sword with a flying kick, and block both high and low in hopes of stabbing their foe first while the constant threat of a sword being thrown is eminent. Do you attack high or low, do you go full offense or try to rush past your opponent, do you back off the screen as the defender to teleport to the next spawn? When playing Nidhogg my friends and I were constantly faced with these choices as we fought in our gladiatorial combat with a simple goal: to progress to our opponent's side, going from stage to stage until we finally passed the final screen to achieve glory and jump into the jaws of a giant worm (the victory condition). The concept to us is so bizarre but I feel that and the game’s combat design is why we can play it for hours, week after week, where there was no A.I./cybernetics or luck, but just our skill.
Now the beauty behind the combat design in Nidhogg mostly comes from how once you learn its controls in the tab which is located in the main menu, anyone can play the game to a decent proficiency. This strength also is due to the fact about how certain rules are conveyed to the player. You have the operational rules like how you control the player as I just mentioned, but you also have things like the arrow at the top of the screen that tells the players which direction the game is moving, and whoever is on offense is shown by the arrow being their color. To clarify, this feature works off the design choice that if a match starts or both players die at the same time, the only way to progress is if you kill the other player, but if you achieve this you can attempt to dodge the player or attack given you usually have the advantage via momentum (I will touch on this more with feedback loops). Nidhogg also has very prominent constitutive rules, usually between the players and the environment. Take for instance the parkour opportunities on the levels. If there is a vertical surface in the game, the players can usually jump to these walls and jump off them to get the additional height and change direction. The player can also choose if they don’t want to jump off the wall immediately which results in them slowly sliding down the wall until either they fall off the wall or jump. All of the stages also have in common the ability for the defending player to travel backward to teleport into the path of the other player (this prevents the attacker from getting too far ahead). This resulted in a mix of strategies between my friends and me, usually through the sword throw and its speed that worked well as a strategy to throw before you would teleport with a new sword in front of the attacker. Throwing your sword then as the attacker would create a valid countermeasure because you would know where the defender would spawn (you also run faster without the sword which works well for parkour kills). Last, I would like to mention one of my favorite rules that are exclusive to the forest level. With the addition of the tall grass on the map, usually, if you don’t move in it or crouch, you can hide from the enemy sword fighter. It helped promote awareness between us, and prompted a whole new set of strategies when my roommate Jaeden went low with his sweep kicks and I went for parkour and dive kicks to knock his sword out of his hand and him to the ground. I just find it fascinating that with even just one of these constitutive rules, the gameplay changed so drastically to create a more action-packed and high-octane play session. And this is why I feel Nidhogg is so strong as an arcade fighting game.
All of the primary choices the player makes in Nidhogg decide if they win or lose the duel, usually due to a very complicated system or rock, paper, scissors: low-attacks (sweeps) beat mid-attacks, mid-attacks beat high attacks (you end up jumping onto the defender’s sword), and the high-attacks (jumps) beat low-attacks. This gets even more complicated with swords (defense usually) versus fists (speed), and high block and low block sword stances affecting the action relationships. These interactions lead to the discernable outcome of the opponent’s death resulting in a corresponding orange or yellow paint splatter across the ground. If the opponent is killed with a sword usually it makes a stabbing noise rather than the usual clink, and if the opponent is killed through a sweep kill combo there is a satisfying snap (which is quite graphic in hindsight) to end the confrontation. Then, after this kill the direction of the fight changes in favor of the victor until the victor reaches the enemy’s side. The interesting thing about this set of events is that it is centered around a positive feedback loop. Usually what happens is when a given player wins an engagement, they are moving which for the most part means that they attack faster and have better parkour options. Also usually with the knowledge of spawns, the attacker can pre-emptively either attack, defend, or parkour over the spawning opponent. If a player is really good they can either throw their sword to hit the opponent or set up another sweep and neck-break combo when landed is the most reliable way to kill an enemy. This even ignores the psychological aspects of the system, sometimes resulting in a match in which one player is constantly the aggressor. The nice thing is that this feedback loop is usually not too extreme and the defender can either get lucky with a spawn in a doorway or outwit their foe by high-blocking a thrown sword or landing a jump kick.
I first heard of Nidhogg on YouTube as a popular arcade game that allowed friends to play against each other. It had a solid few weeks of glory as it spread across all of the gaming channels. It was known for how easy it was to pick-up and it’s very unique art-style while being easy to learn. I was ecstatic when I had the chance this year to buy the game and play it with my suitemates. We had a blast for hours, week after week, pairing up and fighting each other in the lounge for the title of beast Nidhogg player (I was known as being the best with parkour and high kicks, while Jaeden mastered the art of the devastating low-kick combo). I am positive if I put Nidhogg on the TV in the lounge tonight, everyone would come out to play. Nidhogg is just a strong game that is simple, artistic, action-packed, and different every match which makes it so strong even compared to its successor. I would even argue that it’s better because in Nidhogg 2 the combat system is overcomplicated and the art style is too complex, Josh and I both said it looked like puke or barnacles and warts grew over everything. The developers had reached the point where they had entered the uncanny valley. This helped me acknowledge the meaningful play that Nidhogg (1) provides though. It is a simple side-scrolling arcade game with a wacky plot, that focuses on the rivalry between the two players playing the game. I found these choices very reminiscent of traditional arcade games like the Mortal Kombat and ASStreet Fighter franchises. The actions of the orange and yellow fencers and the outcome of the duel to the giant space worm gain meaning because of how you overcame your rival with that epic sweep kick or how you got past your friend with a parkour jump off a wall into that dive kick that made them drop their sword. This is why Nidhogg has had such a unique impact that brings everyone their own meaningful story.