New Year, New Focus
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
So...
2012 wasn't much of a year for me, MUGEN-wise.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what McCready and I accomplished with the Strong Guy revamp, but that was about it, wasn't it?
We didn't even give you the traditional 12 Days of Christmas, which I know probably disappointed some of you. I'm really sorry about that one.
There are plenty of reasons why, but the most important can all be boiled down to one simple truism: there is paid work, and there is unpaid work, and if I have to choose between them, I prefer to get paid.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying I want people to pay me to release characters from my "secret hoard." Understand me clearly: no such hoard exists. Even long-in-development Scruffy characters like War Machine aren't sitting in a folder somewhere, waiting for some arbitrary brown-nosing quota from our fans. They're just unfinished and unpolished, and if there's one thing Scruffy has tried to stand for over the years, it's quality.
I'm also not saying that I won't do fan / for-fun projects anymore. That's clearly not the case, because last year saw the release of Infinite Dungeon, my love letter to the original Legend of Zelda game.
The truth is that I've spent most of the past year trying to improve my skills in my core area of interest: the creation of JavaScript-powered web games. For years, Flash and other browser plugins have been the platform of choice for that sort of thing, but the technologies collectively known as HTML5 are starting to change that. So I've been tinkering a lot in that space, and even though I have 15 years of experience in normal development, professional game dev is something I've wanted to do since I was a kid with the family ColecoVision, so it feels fresh and new to me in a way that a lot of modern web development doesn't.
So, what's a MUGEN creator with HTML5 gaming aspirations to do? My current answer looks like it's going to be a little side project I'm calling Fenjin.
Stay tuned for details; I'll try to blog more about this soon. Meanwhile, if you're on Github, you may want to watch this repository.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, Meta, news
On the 17th day of Christmas
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Feeding Frenzy special
Quick Snack hyper
Yeah yeah yeah, I'm slow and irresponsible and a promise-breaker for not delivering my "12 Days" gifts during the 12 days. Love it or hate it, it is what it is this year. So everytime I release stuff over the rest of the month of January will make fun of my lack of schedule-timeliness. Thus, today is the 17th Day of Christmas.
Earlier this month, I released an update to Parasite that wasn't quite as done as I'd hoped for. Yes, there are still quite a few unfinished power sets -- that's my next focus with him -- but I had a couple of things I wanted to do for better playability. Today I'm releasing a version that accurately captures that vision:
* 11 Jan 2012: v2.2.1 - new level-1 hyper: Quick Snack (QCB + PP/KK), steals a random powerset from someone off-screen - fixed this readme to include the command for Feeding Frenzy (weak kick + hard punch or weak punch + hard kick) - bugfix to Feeding Frenzy: air version didn't have any sound effect - bugfix to re-enable palettes 7 through 12 (which got accidentally disabled) - changed command for Power Overload: now it's F,D,DF + punch & kick of equal strength
Like I said, there's a lot still to be done with him, but I'm pretty happy with the playstyle changes made possible by the new Feeding Frenzy and Quick Snack attacks.
You can get Parasite v2.2.1 here, on his page.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, Parasite
On the 8th day of Christmas...
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
What's a Buyog event without a Parasite update? :)
Tonight (this morning?) I bring you an updated Parasite. He's mostly bug fixes and added support for our new Flash character, but I also gave him a new special, Feeding Frenzy, designed by Jet the Phoenix. It's got both air and ground versions, and allows Parasite to pounce on his opponent for a quick "snack" to boost his power. Took me a while to balance it, but I think it's in pretty good shape now.
You can download Parasite v2.2 on his character page.
Change list:
* 02 Jan 2012: v2.2
- new special: Feeding Frenzy
- bugfix to Superman/Heat Vision special
- bugfix: Lobo clones / Elektra shadows now behave properly on round end
- bugfix: Erradicator hyper beam wasn't being removed if you got hit out of it
Power set updates:
- added support:
- Wally West Flash
- new moves for existing power sets:
- Fernus the Burning (Martian Manhunter hyper)
EDIT: Added a link to the release thread for this version over at the ScruffyDragon forums.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, Parasite
On the 7th day of Christmas...
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Tonight we kicked off a week-long spriting contest with a twist—it'll take two spriters to win! We think it's a cool idea (Danilokao's, actually), and I'm interested to see how it turns out. Even if you're not an excellent spriter, go give it a shot! The tag team aspect means anyone has a shot at winning, whether they're a long-time expert spriter or not.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011
On the 6th day of Christmas...
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tonight one of Scruffy's most talented and prolific spriters, Danilokao, uploaded an awesome e-book tutorial on how to get started with pixel art / character spriting. It's really, really well done, and worth your time to go check it out.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, tutorials
On the 5th day of Christmas...
Friday, December 30, 2011
Tonight Magus put up a bunch of preview pics of his & McCready's upcoming War Machine character project. It's been slow going due to McCready's work schedule and Magus's broken arm, but they hope to have a release coming up soon.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011
On the 4th day of Christmas...
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Today we started a new educational / newbie outreach initiative at ScruffyDragon.com we're calling Scruffy University. It includes a dedicated section of the forum for help, FAQs, and (this is the really new bit) tutorials. The first one up is a rewrite/update of the "how to make your own DCvM" post I did here a while back. More coming soon.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, tutorials
On the 3rd day of Christmas...
Today x-boy released a preview of his MUGEN-based Dungeons & Dragons beat-em-up. It's pretty awesome, go check the release thread and try it out. :)
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011
On the 2nd day of Christmas...
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Today over at ScruffyDragon we released a stage McCready built a while ago for our co-owned Mandarin character project. It's pretty awesome; superjump-enabled and, like Loganir's stages, it's really, really large.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, Mandarin
On the 1st day of Christmas...
Monday, December 26, 2011
I just posted the first gift of this year's 12 Days of Christmas over at ScruffyDragon.com. Thought you all might like to know. ;)
Kicking things off today is the first release of a long-running Scruffy project, the Flash (Wally West). Years ago, the bulk of these sprites were donated to the project by a young spriter by the name of Flaco. At the time, we as a team decided that the style wasn't a good fit with the more "Capcom Versus" style characters we were making for the DC vs Marvel project (he's based on Radel from Rage of the Dragons). While that still holds true (Sic-1's Flash is better proportioned for DCvM), we decided a few months ago that it was a shame to leave Flaco's work unreleased. Since then, I've been working on and off to mash up his sprites and Magus's code from Pocket Flash. This is the result so far.
He has all his basic movements and attacks, one each of intro/winpose/lose/taunt (more in the next release), and these special & hyper moves:
Specials- Whirlwind - QCF + punch
- Flurry of Fists - QCB + punch
- Hyper Tornado - QCF + 2 punches
Flash Wally West is available in the ScruffyDragon.com Downloads section, or you can download him from his WIP page here
More to come!
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011, Flash
Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
(cross-posted from my post at ScruffyDragon)
Team ScruffyDragon would like to thank you all for your continued interest in our efforts here. As I'm sure most of you know, most of the senior Dragons are pretty busy these days with "real life" duties in their jobs, families, and communities. Plus, we like to actually PLAY games sometimes, and a couple of pretty engrossing titles have dropped this year, so there's that (I'm looking at you, MvC3, Skyrim, and Arkham City). Add accidents and injuries to this pile of distractions, and you'll find that things here on the forum have tended to be a little more subdued than in years past. Even so, we didn't want to cancel our now-traditional "12 days of Christmas" event, because after all, we ARE working on things... they just take a little longer than they used to. ;)
Anyway, that's a long way of saying, day 1 of our little soiree will kick off later today with the beta release for a new character we've been teasing for a little while. Not every day will feature character releases--there are some other types releases on the agenda too, plus a few days with other stuff we think you're going to like--but you can look forward to at least a couple of good ones, depending on how much Magus gets done with his broken arm and Danilokao with an arrow in his knee (yeah, okay, he's just playing Skyrim... LOL).
Meanwhile, relax, log off your computers, and spend some quality time with those you love. (Or, if you're alone this holiday season, fire up Netflix and watch a season of your favorite "guilty pleasure" TV show. We won't tell. ;)) We'll be here waiting when you come back. :)
Happy Holidays! Let the gifting commence!
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011
You'd better not shout...
Friday, December 23, 2011
Looks like it's almost Christmas... :)
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2011
On the 12th Day of Christmas...
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Today, on the 12th day of Christmas, Magus and his team have given the gift of their first completed game in the Pocket World series, Pocket World DC!
As I said a few weeks ago, I'm aware of how some people feel about pocket characters, but frankly I don't care and don't want to hear any whining about people feeling "cheated" somehow. This is, by far, the biggest Scruffy release of the 12 Days, in terms of the sheer amount of work that has gone into its creation, and deserves its spot of honor on 12th Night. It's a heck of a lot of fun to play, and anyone who simply rejects it out of hand because "pocket characters are dumb" is only cheating themselves out of a fun game that they might otherwise really like, if not for their preconceived notions.
Anyway, enough preaching. What are you waiting for? Head over to the release thread at ScruffyDragon to download the game, as well as read feedback and troubleshooting information if you need help getting it to run. Congrats to Magus and the rest of the Pocket team for a job well done.
What of Hal Jordan? Well, the holiday's not over yet... ;)
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 11th Day of Christmas...
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Today, on the 11th day of Christmas, as Magus promised in the 12Days promo, Wucash has returned to "bring the darkness" — in the form of the Lord of Apokolips himself, Darkseid!
There have been Darkseids released before. Kal-Elvis and I famously released one as an April Fool's joke a few years ago. Fellow ScruffyDragon Isela released one a while back. But this, the official Darkseid of the DC vs Marvel project, well, this just takes it to the next level. Once again, Wucash has stepped up to the plate and knocked a home run out of the park.
Go here to download Darkseid, then go to his thread at the ScruffyDragon forums to talk about this release.
What could day 12 possibly be? Stay tuned.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 10th Day of Christmas...
Monday, January 03, 2011
Today Magus released the next character for the ScruffyDragon "Capcom Pocket Battle" project, Jill Valentine!
Download Jill Valentine, in the Pockets section of the ScruffyDragon forums, and go to today's thread to talk about this release.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 9th Day of Christmas...
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Today Dr.Strange of ScruffyDragon's Pocket Mojo World (a.k.a. Pocket Marvel) posted a progress video of Pocket Phoenix, and released her stage. You can check out the thread here, or just watch the video I've embedded here:
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 8th Day of Christmas...
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Happy 2011! Today Zvitor and Jet the Phoenix have shared with us all their latest version of Magneto, fresh from his appearance in ProjectX's release last month!
As always, hit ScruffyDragon to download the character and share your thoughts about this release.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 7th Day of Christmas...
Friday, December 31, 2010
A few days ago, we introduced you to our newest team member, Orphen, and the soundtrack he's making for the official DC vs Marvel project. On that day, we gave you all but two of the DC tracks (Batman and Darkseid were both notably missing). Today, I can reveal those two tracks, as well as the 8 tracks for the Marvel side of the DCvM Phase 1 roster!
Click here to get the complete DCvsMarvel soundtrack!
As I said on the 26th, we're excited to have Orphen as a member of our team, and we can't wait to see what he cooks up next. :)
Click here to visit Orphen's website, or here to watch his YouTube channel.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010
On the 6th Day of Christmas...
Thursday, December 30, 2010
On the 6th day of Christmas, Twinimage has given us a video WIP report of his characters!
Head over to ScruffyDragon to let Twinimage know what you think about his upcoming releases!
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010, video
On the 5th Day of Christmas (part 2)...
Today, to go along with my Hal preview video, ZVitor has given us the latest version of his Omega Red character!
You can get him right here.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, 12Days2010