- 01Start an action
- 02Confirm the hit state
- 03Input during the window
- 04Check transition and cost
Action-cancel windows
Specific phases allow one action to overwrite another and skip recovery. Allowed transitions matter more than merely speeding animations.
The player's decision
Commit after confirming a hit or stop to avoid punishment on block?
Original scenario
Original setup: a thrust can cancel into a retreat only on hit; a miss must recover, preserving commitment.
Start with this prototype
Build one attack and one cancel, displaying startup, active, recovery and cancel phases. Toggle dummy hit/block states and log inputs; omit a complex combo tree.
Change one variable
Vary window length, comparing success and accidental cancels; retain slow practice.
What to observe in a playtest
Test inputs before, inside and after the window. Does the old action stop resolving?
Take the full design card
Includes rules, scope, tuning questions and sources for further planning. It does not create a project automatically.
Original analysis · version 1
Common pitfall
Changing animation without updating hitboxes and costs creates duplicate hits or free attacks.
Observations and sources
Cases refer to public documentation. Developers and community wikis are credited separately; document review is not a claim of hands-on testing.
- Street Fighter V
The official lesson distinguishes cancels from waiting for recovery and limits eligible normals and timing.
- Street Fighter IV
The manual describes special inputs during eligible normals as cutting the original action short.
Brief for the studio
Opens the AI studio with the brief below in the input. You can edit it. Nothing starts automatically.
Build one attack and one cancel, displaying startup, active, recovery and cancel phases. Toggle dummy hit/block states and log inputs; omit a complex combo tree.
Covers are original AI-generated style illustrations. Game names reference publicly visible design choices and remain the property of their owners. This atlas does not supply screenshots or assets from those games. Prompts and combinations are original drafts for new games.