Buyog's Lair

There are HOW many Capcom-original Marvel characters?!?

Friday, May 31, 2013

So last week, in talking about the long-term plan for Parasite's stolen-power moves, I said I was planning to support:

… a plurality of DC and Marvel heavy-hitters, hopefully all Capcom-produced Marvel characters and all the great MUGEN-only ones. Then I'll do like TwinImage suggested, and implement a handful of generic power sets for all other characters he might encounter, including things like strength, speed, super-armor, etc.

Seems reasonable, right?

Earlier this week I actually sat down and compiled the rosters of all the Capcom-produced fighting games with Marvel characters, and guess what I learned?

All Capcom Marvel characters (to eventually support...? Eeek!)

X-Men:Children of the Atom

Cyclops, Psylocke, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Iceman, Omega Red, Sentinel, Spiral, Silver Samurai, Juggernaut, Magneto

Marvel Super Heroes

Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Psylocke, Magneto, Shuma-Gorath, Blackheart, Juggernaut, Dr. Doom, Thanos

X-Men vs Street Fighter

Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Storm, Sabretooth, Juggernaut, Magneto, Apocalypse

Marvel Superheroes vs Street Fighter

Cyclops, Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Hulk, Shuma-Gorath, Blackheart, Omega Red, Apocalypse

Marvel vs Capcom

Captain America, Gambit, Hulk, Spider-Man, Venom, War Machine, Wolverine, Onslaught

Marvel vs Capcom 2

Cyclops, Doctor Doom, Sentinel, Blackheart, Captain America, Gambit, Hulk, Iceman, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Magneto, Silver Samurai, Omega Red, War Machine, Rogue, Sabretooth, Colossus, Shuma-Gorath, Wolverine, Cable, Storm, Thanos, Psylocke, Spider-Man, Marrow, Wolverine (Bone Claws), Spiral, Venom

Marvel vs Capcom 3

Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Galactus, Ghost Rider, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, MODOK, Nova, Phoenix, Rocket Raccoon, She-Hulk, Super-Skrull, Taskmaster, Thor, X-23

WOW.

So then I filtered through all of that and got a single list of all Capcom-created Marvel characters:

1. !Apocalypse
2. *Blackheart
3. *Cable
4. #Captain America
5. *Colossus
6. #Cyclops
7. #Deadpool
8. Doctor Strange
9. Dormammu
10. #Dr. Doom
11. !Galactus
12. *Gambit
13. #Ghost Rider
14. Hawkeye
15. #Hulk
16. #Iceman
17. Iron Fist
18. #Iron Man
19. #Juggernaut
20. MODOK
21. *Magneto
22. #Marrow
23. Nova
24. #Omega Red
25. !Onslaught
26. *Phoenix
27. *Psylocke
28. Rocket Raccoon
29. @Rogue
30. Sabretooth
31. *Sentinel
32. *She-Hulk
33. *Shuma-Gorath
34. *Silver Samurai
35. #Spider-Man
36. #Spiral
37. #Storm
38. $Super-Skrull
39. Taskmaster
40. #Thanos
41. #Thor
42. #Venom
43. %War Machine
44. #Wolverine
45. ^X-23

That's a big list!

Looking over this list, I had several observations:

• # – These are the ones I support already; 18 out of 45... :-P
• * – I've had tentative plans to support these ones in the future, and in many cases have ripped sprites / drawn (or been given) power set icons, etc
• ! – These ones are huge boss characters; maybe I won't support them, since even though they may be playable, they're not going to be common
• $ – Super-Skrull I can kind of punt on, and just cough up a random FF-based power set ;)
• % – War Machine is more or less just a copy of Iron Man, so maybe I can cheat and use the same power set for both...?
• ^ – X-23, I might be able to get away with just treating like Wolverine... #maybenot
• @ – ... and then there's Rogue. I really have no idea how to deal with the Rogues out there, since, as a power-drainer herself, she doesn't have many original attacks. Ranked easiest to hardest, here are my options:
  1. ignore her / treat her like an unpowered opponent (i.e. just get a random health/power boost)
  2. treat her like my MarvelTemplate character, and get a random Marvel power set
  3. create a custom power set based on her few non-stolen moves
  4. try and figure out what power set she's got and copy it (ugh, HARD)

This week, I went ahead and added support for Super Skrull, giving up a random power set from one of the Fantastic Four:

Even with all of these caveats and special-cases, that leaves me with more power sets to add than I a) have room for in my power-stealing code, and b) have time to actually implement! Plus, it completely leaves out any of the other community-created Marvel characters that I'd like to support, like Luke Cage, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, Giant Man, etc.

So I guess I'm going to have to think long & hard about this.

Meanwhile, there's plenty to fix in the power sets he already has! Guess that means it's time to get back to work!

Labels: Parasite

Powerset Drain

Friday, May 24, 2013

Last week, I asked for ideas on new power sets to give to Parasite, and you guys came through, thanks!

Two commenters, one anonymous and one my friend TwinImage, pointed out that I can't keep adding power sets forever, or else Parasite will never be "done". They're both right, but I don't want to pull out all the power sets I've put in, because I've grown quite attached to some of them. I think what I'm going to end up doing is this: I'll provide complete support for a plurality of DC and Marvel heavy-hitters, hopefully all Capcom-produced Marvel characters and all the great MUGEN-only ones. Then I'll do like TwinImage suggested, and implement a handful of generic power sets for all other characters he might encounter, including things like strength, speed, super-armor, etc.

I'd hoped to have some screenshots of new stuff to show this week, but I've been working out of town, and MUGEN doesn't work on my Mac. So next week, we'll see what we see.

Labels: Parasite

Parasite says, "What's new on the menu?"

Friday, May 17, 2013

Someone mentioned last week in the comments to my previous post that they're excited to see if I add support for any new DC/Marvel characters to Parasite. At first, I kind of mentally resisted the idea, thinking that I had a huge list of buggy & incomplete moves to finish before I think about anything new.

And that's true. BUT...

This isn't a promise that I'm going to actually implement any new power sets, but I'm asking you all to comment below: what's new and cool in the past few years in the DC/Marvel MUGEN world? Also, what characters have you downloaded that you think Parasite should already support, and doesn't? (for example, I'm pretty sure if I tried to power drain Verz & Loganir's new Astonishing Cyclops that I wouldn't actually get a Cyclops power set in return)

As a reminder, here's his current 60 power sets (30 DC, 30 Marvel):

Parasite's power sets

I've got room for 20 more from each side (not that I'm going to tackle 40 more, sheesh), so let the suggestions fly!

Labels: Parasite

Refocus (Maybe?)

Friday, May 10, 2013

It's no secret to anyone that I'm fighting a bad case of MUGEN burnout. I thought when I quit my job back in February to follow my passion and join an exciting new startup in Silicon Valley, I'd have way more free time for MUGEN and freelance game development than I did before. Turns out I've been so excited about the stuff we're building (hopefully more on that soon), that I haven't done much else, code-wise.

Plus, getting a house ready to sell is a HUGE time-sink.

Anyway, I wanted to say that I'm going to try something that I haven't attempted for a few years: making myself a blogging schedule.

Like here, my writing over on my other blog has crawled to a standstill, but like here, I want to keep blogging, and keep doing interesting work worth blogging about. Here's what I've started trying to do this week, after my sweetheart & kids are in bed (so far so good):

• Monday & Wednesday: MUGEN character work
• Tuesday & Thursday: Web work (mostly JavaScript game development lately)
• Friday: new post here on my MUGEN blog
• Saturday: new post on my Palagpat Coding
• Sunday: rest

So, with that bit of site news out of the way, what did I work on this week? Two words: Parasite bugs. Namely, play testing the most current version of his code, identifying issues, and starting to fix them. He's slowly but surely getting better, which makes me happy.

I've also got an idea for a new Spoiler Alert (if you remember that old feature of the blog, you've been around here a while), inspired by my going to see the awesome Iron Man 3 with my comic-loving kids last weekend. I think it'll be fun. :)

Labels: Meta, news, Parasite