Just an Idea I Had Today

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

So we're mostly moved in here in beautiful northern California, and my new job is going well, thanks for asking. Today, on the drive into the office, I was listening to J.B. Blake's awesome soundtrack he made for DC vs Marvel, and I thought (as I often do when I listen to his awesome album) about how I wish we could actually, y'know, finish the game.

(Trolls, start your engines...)

Yeah, I know. I wish we'd gotten it done a long time ago too, back when the fire and the enthusiasm (and the spare time!) were flowing freely. I can't help that now; what's past is water under the bridge. What I can do, though, is try and find a way forward, and another old idea came back to me:

DC Super Heroes

I'm not sure if I've ever publicly talked about this, or if it was always just a topic of private conversation among my fellow Scruffy Dragons. The idea was this: "Marvel Versus Capcom 3" didn't just spring, fully formed, from Capcom's skunkworks. In fact, even the first MvC was the culmination of many years' effort, and many games: X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, and Marvel vs Street Fighter. Not to mention the Capcom fighters! Yes, there were a few new characters and new mechanics introduced in MvC, but a lot of the content was carried over from previous games. So my thought went, why not do the same with our project? DC vs Marvel was always an audacious plan, and history has proven it to be more elusive than Duke Nukem Forever (a game that I never thought I'd mention on this blog, but there you go) -- why not start smaller? Especially given all of the DC-focused work that myself, my fellow Dragons, and others in the MUGEN community have produced over the years, it's actually pretty surprising that nobody's done this yet.

The original Marvel Super Heroes (hereafter MSH) had 10 playable characters (6 heroes and 4 villains), a sub-boss (Dr. Doom), and a main boss (Thanos). If anyone wanted to do this (I'm not sure anyone ever did), you could re-create that game by:

  1. creating a screenpack
  2. creating (or getting permission to use other creators' versions) the 12 characters
  3. creating 12 stages (one per character)
  4. making 10 simple game ending animations (one per playable character)
  5. modifying the 12 characters to add support for the Infinity Gems mechanic that's unique to the game

Okay, not exactly the work of a lazy Saturday afternoon, but for some reason, that feels a little more doable to me. A DC analogue might look something like this:

Premise:
storyline loosely based on JLA: Rock of Ages
Playable characters (heroes):
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, & Plastic Man
Playable characters (villains):
Parasite, Etrigan, Lobo, Mongul
Bosses:
Lex Luthor and Darkseid

What's interesting about this roster is that it's almost all done already. The Flash and Plastic Man betas need to be finished, and Parasite needs to be cleaned up (the version for a closed-roster game like this would naturally only include power sets for the other 11 characters on the roster). That just leaves coming up with a good unifying game mechanic to bring these 12 characters together, making a screenpack, then making sure the characters all have stages & logical endings that fit in with the overarching storyline of the game (Grant Morrison's JLA comic had some good world-shattering story arcs that could work. I like Rock of Ages, and it has the benefit of having the bad guys that already exist for MUGEN: Luthor and Darkseid.

Also -- I remember now -- we actually did talk about this as a team a while ago, and DNGR made a screenpack for us and everything. We even had a video showing it off as part of Scruffyversary that year, and had grand plans. Unfortunately, the team was already kind of semi-retiring at the time, so that never went anywhere.

So am I actually going to do this now? What's different this time?

I don't know. I'd need to get buy-in from the creators of the characters that I didn't make (Magus, Alucard, Loganir, Mambojambo, and Wucash), not all of whom are still around anymore, and not all of whom even seem to like each other much anymore. -_- Plus, I'd need to either make my own screenpack, or use DNGR's. Still seems like a lot of work...

But maybe it's a small enough project that it could be done by one person with a vision.

We'll see.

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That's actually an awesome idea! This one seems more feasible at the present. Plus, it seems it is in good hands.
-Zaxis
 
This sounds like a pretty good idea. :) I don't know anything about mugen drama, but you could use Sick's Flash, it's much more complete, and uses MvC style sprites. I remember, he was a good friend of scruffies, saw him at infinity a few days ago. You could also use Hawkman or Aquaman by Zvitor instead of Plastic man. Z seems like a cool guy, and still around. But I say it again, I don't know anything about mugen drama. Anyway I hope we can play this game one day! ;)
 
Buyog I've been following the project since high school.I've seen the ups and downs read most of the forum posts, and tried my hardest to learn some art or drawing skills to contribute to the community (that died as fast as my finances out of school). I want you to know if any person could pull something together, out of all the creators on the team it would be you. Your that perfect mixture of dreamer / realist on your projects. And more then anything your persistent in the best way possible. You don't ever overwork yourself but you never let something truly die which impresses me to no end. If anyone can pull that off it would be you.
And if there is anyway a small time mugen lover / video editor could do to help you out hit me up at brighton2007@yahoo.com
 
Something I've wondered is exactly the scope of the DCvM project really entailed. I feel like I didn't fully get the "whole picture" of what you guys had in mind. Most of the characters appear to have been created for Phase 1. I know you guys wanted to have a story mode, but I don't know if that's all that was holding things back. :/

Your plan sounds really interesting. Sounds like you have a set roster already in mind for DC, which is logical. Take the already made characters to build the game. I have an Aquaman WIP in the works. You're welcome to use it for the game if you like.
 
Thanks, everyone. @Twin: I think you may not have seen the thread on the old forum where we tried to hash out what was left to actually "ship" DCvM Phase 1. I thought we were closer than we actually were, too, but when you factored in the characters that needed to be balanced, all the characters still missing Amalgam hypers, and a 2nd form for Dr. Strangefate round 2. Not to mention all the story mode stuff (custom intros/outros for particular matches, etc), missing/unfinished stages, and tweaks Seth still wanted to do to the common.cns and hitsparks.

I think ultimately the problem was that Team Scruffy's standards were so high that most of us preferred the reality that we got (i.e. no official release) to the one that we all feared (crapping out a "full game" that felt like a half-baked fan project, rather than a legitimate extension of the series).
 
That's understandable. I'm not sure if I remember seeing that thread or not. Perhaps this DCSH game will lead to new and exciting possibilities. If you need an extra programmer for DCSH, I may be able to help. Programming isn't as time consuming as spriting is. Let me know...

Oh, and I think the size of the roster you've got there is a good one. That size IMO (around 12 characters) is often just the right size for a good fighting game. Not too big, not too small. Just right. lol
 
Do you think steam will ever pick up for DC vs Marvel again?
-Zaxis
 
Hi, Buyog I was wondering about your Savage Hulk was there any plans to complete this Character? If possible I'd like to ask permission regarding your Savage Hulk.... If I could finish your work on him.I know I'm new on this and this will be my first time to update a character.... Can I have your permission :)
 
@Zaxis: I don't know. If it does, it'll probably be with new people who aren't married with jobs & kids. <_<

@Krishjan: I have a folder full of sprites and designs for Hulk. He's still on my list.
 
Buyog Hey what do you think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzfRqz_ad9Q
 
Wendel -- the sound quality isn't very good, but the rest is cool.
 
earned bro thank you also I have it I made a new video and I think the sound got better and he got another video with bad sound because fraps does not record sound well but here at home and I handle perfect and wish you could see my new video for you exhale a bit because the DC vs Marvel is not dead yet and because I think its very good chars and hope you keep bringing this fun thank you :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGLB_Joyx-o
 
Well, when I saw a video you guys did a long time ago showing off a bunch of mechanics with Hulk vs Superman and some of the new stuff you guys had on Ironman and GreenLantern. It was very impressive to the point that you guys exceeded what the MVC series had done. It generally looked like epic battles choreographed in a video game. It was something that I personally used as a milestone to set my projects to. As I have yet to obtain that level. Just the DC game that you have planned out there would be well appreciated. The only thing I would do personally is add 2 new characters to the mix so it does not seem like a rehash of things that we already were playing around with for years. Excellent idea though. I have a similar idea that requires some updates of things I've been working on and in light of some recent projects may change the roster to resemble something more of Justice League International if I get it going with good quality I may ask for perms on Ice but you can check it out. Its really early though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnDPeqiNs80
 
That's a really nice-looking screenpack, man! Good luck with your project.
 
Any special original gameplay mechanics you plan on introducing?
 
@Zaxis: good question. I haven't thought about it too much (yet?), actually.
 
Buyog please don't give up on mugen. You are so close to a complete Sinistro and Savage Hulk.
 
Hey Anon: just because I don't have time right now doesn't mean I'll never have time. ;)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCfO3F47shE

DC Universe Online - Parasite Voice Clips

:)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUUrWqFe-pg

DC Universe Online - Sinestro Voice Clips

:)

 
Thanks for the links, @anon. I'll see if I can make use of them when I get my MUGEN computer fixed.
 
I'm assuming this fell through...
 
Yeah, Anon, it did. I'm pretty much retired from MUGEN at this point, sorry.
 

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