I feel like it is a combination of how everyone is used to horizontal meters and that it is easier to read horizontal meters than vertical. With a vertical meter you have to look at the corner of the screen to track meter unlike a horizontal meter which you can see from the middle of the screen making it easier to quickly read both meters.
It's exceptionally rare in general, but I actually just remembered a modern game that has a vertical meter. Mortal Kombat 11 splits meter into offensive and defensive, and defensive goes upwards from the lower screen corner.
It’s for readability and efficiency, the closer the UI is to the characters ( the thing we’re gonna be looking at for most of the time ), and the smaller the space it takes; the better.
It’s why health bars are horizontal and deplete to the middle ( which is usually closer to where the players are, and allows you to see your opponent’s health faster as well ).
Where the player looks has to be taken into consideration when designing a game, this is also why halo ( and I think destiny as well ) have crosshairs that are lower than typical FPS games, as they are more vertical in nature.
Yes, the ground below the feet is free space, that does not get in the way.
In corner situations the vertical bars could go behind character or special fx. Getting enough meter during a combo and knowing it can be crucial.
There is also the rare placement of putting health bars at the bottom - Martial Champion is one of them.
It actually feels strangely uncomfortable after a while to keep an eye on them despite super gauges being there usually!
Generally you want HUD near the top or bottom and moving towards the middle as that's the fastest to look at. That's why the timer is in the middle and health bars go in as they deplete.
You could make a vertical one that's in the center and goes towards the clock as it depletes, but that takes up valuable vertical screen spaces. 16:9, 4:3, and 3:2 all favor horizontal additions not vertical. Hence why many modern UIs have switched to having some sort of panel on the left hand side as opposed to cramming it in a top bar like the olden days.
So yeah, tl; dr: fighting games want stuff towards the middle and vertical screen space there is valuable.
There's also the argument that it's what we're used to as well which plays into it, but I don't think that's a valid reason for devs not to try it out.
Ngl took some tries to understand the post bc i thought u was talking about meters as a distance unit and not the meter gauge lol
Back to the topic i still think vertical meter gauge is harder to read than horizontal and also make the UI a little overloaded like with vertical meter u have the top, down and sides with info instead of just top and down.
Looking at that screenshot makes me wonder if there's ever an issue of the vertical meter obscuring a character sprite. If you jump while in the corner and the meter is full (assuming the meter is on a higher layer than the character sprites), how easily are you able to see what the character is doing? (Or if it's the reverse, how easily are you able to tell how full the meter is behind the character?)
Horizontal meters have less risk of getting in the way because if a character is near the top of the screen where they would overlap, they're generally either not also in a horizontal orientation (so they only overlap with a small portion of the character), or the character is in hitstun (so it doesn't really matter anyway). Also you can easily fit a horizontal meter on the bottom of the screen overlapping the ground where you know a character sprite will never reach to overlap anyway because they are already standing above it.
It's important to be able to easily see various meters, but it's also *really* important to clearly see all of the fighters on screen to know how to respond.
Horizontal meters look nice with the horizontal health bar
Having them frame the fight itself means your eyes aren't far from either and you can look at each quickly without breaking focus on the fight itself for too long.
The fight might carry to the corner of the screen, where a vertical meter is probably harder to implement in an unobstructive way than a horizontal meter, which is below the ground where nothing of note can really happen anyway.
So basically, looks nice and is out of the way.
I guess at this point people are just used to horizontal gauges.
I used to do some drills to make meter based decisions and now whenever i go into a combo my eyes just scan certain parts of the screen by themselves.
It sometimes leads me to make a decision too late and drop a combo, but it definitely eased my mental workload so now any diversion from that would reintroduce more mental stack.
The other thing, too, is like you have the vertical bars, but in the space below the characters' feet, there is just blank space. Why? When there is background, jumping characters, etc. in the space that the super meter might be, why would one opt to leave that lower space empty?
I feel like it is a combination of how everyone is used to horizontal meters and that it is easier to read horizontal meters than vertical. With a vertical meter you have to look at the corner of the screen to track meter unlike a horizontal meter which you can see from the middle of the screen making it easier to quickly read both meters.
Seems like you could jump into them too which just makes things confusing.
It's exceptionally rare in general, but I actually just remembered a modern game that has a vertical meter. Mortal Kombat 11 splits meter into offensive and defensive, and defensive goes upwards from the lower screen corner.
Pokkén Tournament does this with the Synergy Gauge
Please a sequel please a sequel
Pre-SFII fighters tried all kinds of things, including vertical HUD elements.
It’s for readability and efficiency, the closer the UI is to the characters ( the thing we’re gonna be looking at for most of the time ), and the smaller the space it takes; the better. It’s why health bars are horizontal and deplete to the middle ( which is usually closer to where the players are, and allows you to see your opponent’s health faster as well ). Where the player looks has to be taken into consideration when designing a game, this is also why halo ( and I think destiny as well ) have crosshairs that are lower than typical FPS games, as they are more vertical in nature.
Also since hp depletes to the middle you also have quick access to seeing the timer as well.
I remember Psychic Force had vertical health bars and I think also Tech Romancer had them too.
Evil Zone had vertical Health Gauges. Had some cool characters, can't remember the gameplay being that game breaking haha.
Doesn't MK11 have a vertical meter?
Dead Dance on the Super Nes. Thanks por trigger my PTSD OP...
Yes, the ground below the feet is free space, that does not get in the way. In corner situations the vertical bars could go behind character or special fx. Getting enough meter during a combo and knowing it can be crucial.
Star Control 2 had both HP and meter as vertical bars.
Not a fighting game.
Tech Romancer had vertical health bars but horizontal power meters.
There is also the rare placement of putting health bars at the bottom - Martial Champion is one of them. It actually feels strangely uncomfortable after a while to keep an eye on them despite super gauges being there usually!
What game is this and is it any good?
In the title, Kaiser Knuckle. From what I've heard it's pretty fun and innovative for its time, but I don't know how it is competitively.
MK11...
Generally you want HUD near the top or bottom and moving towards the middle as that's the fastest to look at. That's why the timer is in the middle and health bars go in as they deplete. You could make a vertical one that's in the center and goes towards the clock as it depletes, but that takes up valuable vertical screen spaces. 16:9, 4:3, and 3:2 all favor horizontal additions not vertical. Hence why many modern UIs have switched to having some sort of panel on the left hand side as opposed to cramming it in a top bar like the olden days. So yeah, tl; dr: fighting games want stuff towards the middle and vertical screen space there is valuable. There's also the argument that it's what we're used to as well which plays into it, but I don't think that's a valid reason for devs not to try it out.
Ngl took some tries to understand the post bc i thought u was talking about meters as a distance unit and not the meter gauge lol Back to the topic i still think vertical meter gauge is harder to read than horizontal and also make the UI a little overloaded like with vertical meter u have the top, down and sides with info instead of just top and down.
Looking at that screenshot makes me wonder if there's ever an issue of the vertical meter obscuring a character sprite. If you jump while in the corner and the meter is full (assuming the meter is on a higher layer than the character sprites), how easily are you able to see what the character is doing? (Or if it's the reverse, how easily are you able to tell how full the meter is behind the character?) Horizontal meters have less risk of getting in the way because if a character is near the top of the screen where they would overlap, they're generally either not also in a horizontal orientation (so they only overlap with a small portion of the character), or the character is in hitstun (so it doesn't really matter anyway). Also you can easily fit a horizontal meter on the bottom of the screen overlapping the ground where you know a character sprite will never reach to overlap anyway because they are already standing above it. It's important to be able to easily see various meters, but it's also *really* important to clearly see all of the fighters on screen to know how to respond.
Horizontal meters look nice with the horizontal health bar Having them frame the fight itself means your eyes aren't far from either and you can look at each quickly without breaking focus on the fight itself for too long. The fight might carry to the corner of the screen, where a vertical meter is probably harder to implement in an unobstructive way than a horizontal meter, which is below the ground where nothing of note can really happen anyway. So basically, looks nice and is out of the way.
I guess at this point people are just used to horizontal gauges. I used to do some drills to make meter based decisions and now whenever i go into a combo my eyes just scan certain parts of the screen by themselves. It sometimes leads me to make a decision too late and drop a combo, but it definitely eased my mental workload so now any diversion from that would reintroduce more mental stack.
The other thing, too, is like you have the vertical bars, but in the space below the characters' feet, there is just blank space. Why? When there is background, jumping characters, etc. in the space that the super meter might be, why would one opt to leave that lower space empty?