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Just an Idea I Had Today

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 07:02:00 +0000

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:

creating a screenpack
creating (or getting permission to use other creators' versions) the 12 characters
creating 12 stages (one per character)
making 10 simple game ending animations (one per playable character)
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.

Moving

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 02:42:00 +0000

Nothing new to say because we're in the middle of executing a 3000-mile move from the U.S. East Coast to the West Coast. Should have plenty to say next week, if I get the down time I'm expecting.

You'll never see him coming.

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:09:00 +0000

The eagle-eyed among my readers may have noticed that I created new projects this week on my Github page for Mandarin and Sinestro. The even more watchful may have noticed in a feed reader that I just created 19 issues on the Mandarin project.

Yes, that means I'm working on him.

Freezing Ray special

I felt like it was his turn.

Getting tired of Parasite posts?

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:51:00 +0000

One more post on Parasite, then I think I can move on and start talking about something else again. Promise.

This week I've been looking around the community, downloading a ton of Marvel/DC characters, and trying to figure out which, if any, to support in Parasite's power system. I've got a long text file with all of my notes, but I haven't made any long-term plans yet, because really, there's plenty still do with with the half-finished power sets he's already got. <_<

I am starting to get comfortable with the idea of certain classes of power sets -- for example, right now he has separate power sets for Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic, who basically have exactly the same powers, and there are places all over the code base that have to change if I ever add a third "stretchy character" power set, since it affects all of his basic attacks. Right now he only has one super-speedster power set, for Flash, and adding support for new speedsters like Quicksilver and Jay Garrick should be as simple as adding their names to the state controller that grants that one.

On the other hand... there may be times when otherwise-similar characters have a signature move (Hulk and Thing are very similar, for example, but Thing doesn't ever do the Thunder Clap that's such a common Hulk visual), or a particular passive (Ice can wall-jump, for example, but Iceman can't), and if we lump all "Hulking characters" and "Ice characters" into single power sets, we lose those distinctions. I don't know, maybe that's okay.

Needless to say, I'm still of two minds about the long-term plan. The short term plan is the same, though -- 30 power sets for DC, 30 for Marvel, all with finished, non-buggy moves. That'll keep me plenty busy for a while.

Of course, I also just added a Cable power set, because I thought it would be pretty easy to code (and it was):

Psimitar!

On another topic...

I've been using Github for several years now to host my open-source code (mostly web stuff), and a few years ago, I stuffed a couple of my MUGEN projects in a single Github project (which, in retrospect, was a pretty dumb idea), but never really used it. These days, I'm on different machines all the time -- my Windows7 laptop at home, my MacBook at work, and my Windows PC when I need to use a mouse (it's slower than the laptop, but better for sprite editing and that kind of thing). I've been using Dropbox to keep my MUGEN projects in sync across all those devices, and it works well enough, but is kind of a pain for other reasons: most of the time when I'm working on a character on my laptop, it's code-only, and the code of a character takes up a LOT less space than the entirety of one of my WIP folders (which are full of sprite rips, half-finished edits, sound rips, reference videos, etc), so putting everything in Dropbox is a bit of a waste, and a drain on performance when all that stuff has to get synced across all my devices, even though I never actually need it on most. So, long story short, I've come back around to the idea of hosting my MUGEN work on Github. I put Parasite up there a few days ago, and plan to do the same with my other unfinished characters like Sinestro and Mandarin. So expect more on that soon.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 31 May 2013 07:28:00 +0000

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.
– Buyog, Powerset Drain (May 24, 2013)

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:

!Apocalypse
*Blackheart
*Cable
#Captain America
*Colossus
#Cyclops
#Deadpool
Doctor Strange
Dormammu
#Dr. Doom
!Galactus
*Gambit
#Ghost Rider
Hawkeye
#Hulk
#Iceman
Iron Fist
#Iron Man
#Juggernaut
MODOK
*Magneto
#Marrow
Nova
#Omega Red
!Onslaught
*Phoenix
*Psylocke
Rocket Raccoon
@Rogue
Sabretooth
*Sentinel
*She-Hulk
*Shuma-Gorath
*Silver Samurai
#Spider-Man
#Spiral
#Storm
$Super-Skrull
Taskmaster
#Thanos
#Thor
#Venom
%War Machine
#Wolverine
^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:

I love the "Elastic Slam" special from Mr. Fantastic's power set. I especially love the irony that I got the idea from Super Skrull's MvC3 move. :)

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!

Powerset Drain

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:18:00 +0000

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.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:36:00 +0000

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

DC	MARVEL
Superman	Captain America
Batman	Savage Hulk
Wonder Woman	Thor
Flash	Spider-Man
GL	Iron Man
Ice	Crystal
Lobo	Sandman
Plastic Man	Wolverine
Etrigan	Carnage
Lex Luthor	Dr. Doom
Darkseid	Ghost Rider
Superboy	Strong Guy
Sinestro	Thanos
Bizarro	Deadpool
Aquaman	Juggernaut
Doomsday	Mr. Fantastic
Poison Ivy	Invisible Woman
The Atom	The Thing
Martian Manhunter	Human Torch
Shazam/Captain Marvel	Silver Surfer
Starfire	Venom
Bane	Cyclops
Eradicator	Elektra
Vixen	Nightcrawler
Mongul	Marrow
Red Lantern (Atrocitus)	Songbird
Agent Orange (Larfleeze)	Omega Red
Indigo Lantern	Rhino
Star Sapphire	Iceman
Black Lantern	Storm

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!

Refocus (Maybe?)

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:55:00 +0000

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. :)

Doucheness

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:50:00 +0000

So I got a message from a friend the other day, talking about how mistreated he felt he'd been on a prominent MUGEN forum he helped to promote and popularize.

I can't say I was surprised, knowing what I do about the guys that call the shots over there, but it still gives me a headache.

I think part of the reason I haven't been active in the MUGEN community for a while now is because of exactly this sort of drama. Why is it that the Internet amplifies people's bad characteristics? I mean, have you ever met a person in real life that behaves half as badly as a YouTube comment troll?

Anyway, I won't name names, but the forum formerly linked in my sidebar, which was only there for the sake of my friend, has been removed. It's the least I could do.

On a happier note -- it looks like I'll be having more free time to work on Parasite and Mandarin soon. So there's that to look forward to. :)

New Year, New Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:57:00 +0000

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.

What's Next? (Part 2 of 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:34:00 +0000

I got some good response to Part 1 of my "what's left to do with my MUGEN characters" update. Here's the rest.

Savage Hulk

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
need to incorporate SethZ's balance/changes
New/improved moves:

Gamma Tornado (spin-around-the-head throw)
Counter
Gamma Charge
Push-block
Tank Smash hyper -- Hulk reaches offscreen, grabs the barrel of a nearby tank, and starts beating the snot out of P2
Hulk Crush -- Hulk superjumps off screen, grabs a passing jet, and drops it on his opponent (MASSIVE damage, MONSTROUS lag)
Skulk Smash! (Amalgam hyper)

Sinestro

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
I've got a bunch of stuff finished that I haven't released yet:

added taunt
added fwd/back jumps
tweaked FX for strong standing punch
tweaked strong standing kick damage (does more with construct)
added weak & medium crouching punches
tweaked crouching strong punch (adjusted hitspark, added construct effect)
tweaked weak air punch (more damage with construct, less vertical bounce)
added construct effects to air punches
added superjump follow to launcher (press up immediately after hitting)
added collision boxes to Deadly Stare ending
lose/draw game anims

one or two more intros:

re-create his first oath scene from Sinestro Corps War #1
vs Hal, Guy, John, Kyle, etc

a couple of outros

stand & laugh

custom gethits

shocked
burned
stoned
frozen
fix SFF issues with linked images

basic attacks:

some attacks still need powered-up alternate versions with constructs

weak & medium crouching punches
crouching kicks
air kicks

add missing weak & medium crouching kicks
at least one throw

special attacks to be done

Morningstar
Armored Assault (low-damage Psycho Crusher style move)

hyper attacks

Sinestro Corps Attack!
Parallax Unleashed
Master of Fear (yellow core hyper assist)

bugs to fix

hair gray streak in most palettes should be toned down
teeth in most sprites should be white, not yellow/green/gray
falling axes in Fall Before Me don't have hitsparks
some moves need collision boxes (so he's less cheap):

standing medium &amp strong kicks
strong air kick

some construct sprites need to be folded into the core palette so they can be recolored
medium & strong crouching kick are too similar

Bizarro

Hmm. Me am totally sure about this guy!
Seriously. I have no solid plans yet, only that I know he's not done yet. Any suggestions?

Flash

Like Bizarro, Wally needs more specials & hypers, but I honestly haven't thought much about the movelist yet. Thoughts?

I hope to have some new screenshots to show off soon.

What's Next? (Part 1 of 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:03:00 +0000

So this took me a while to get back to. Sorry, I'm kinda preoccupied with things I'm not prepared to talk about here (yet).

Anyway.

As Acey predicted in the comments on my last post, my enthusiasm for MUGEN creation has returned this week, at least in part because I had to go and test all of my unfinished characters so I could write this post about what they still need. So without further ado, here's the first part of the list (more coming soon; I have a few characters still to evaluate):

Blackest Night Hal Jordan

I'm pretty happy with him as he is. I just went back and added a Black Lantern power set to Parasite (see that below), and the test fights I staged between those two were a ton of fun. This is probably the creation I'm proudest of (well, Luthor is probably a close second :) ).

Elektra

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
intros

"Skrullektra" (a la Secret Invasion)
vs Daredevil
vs Wolverine
vs Catwoman

winposes

add transition frames to current turn-and-pose
take a cue from Marrow's "perfect" winpose (sai throw at screen)

basics

swap medium & strong standing punches
animate / tweak vertical jump
strong standing kick
crouching medium punch / medium kick
weak air punch / air kick

special attacks

air sai throw
spin kick (like chun-li's)

hyper attacks

finish Death's Touch (hyper sai throw): better FX, knock-back, recovery time, etc
finish Ninjitsu (Parasite's version is better right now)
Focused Chi - temporarily boost damage, speed, and reduce damage taken
Inner Calm - temporarily raise attack damage
Catsai & Dare (Amalgam hyper)

Green Lantern

Blackest Night Hal basically has all the Green Lantern stuff — with SethZankuten's balance tweaks to boot — so I'm not going to do anything else to this old version.

Ice

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
finish Iceberg (Amalgam) hyper
Pillar of Ice hyper
Fire & Ice team hyper

Invisible Woman

(I'm taking my cue for her movelist from Avengers Alliance; there are a ton of great ideas in that game, and if you're not playing it, you should be)

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
Basics

her stance and jump anims should be redone
standing medium/hard punch & kick
all crouching attacks
air medium/hard punch & kick
One or more throw(s)

Specials

Change Bubble to be more like Force Spheres (Avengers Alliance move)
Force Field

Hypers

Rename Bubble Storm to Force Volley (and tweak it for better FX)
Force Cage (Avengers Alliance move)
Fantasticar charge? (meh, maybe not...)

Required sprites

her get-hits / being thrown sprites need quite a bit of polish. -_-

Custom intros

vs Dr. Doom
vs Namor
vs Reed
vs Johnny
vs Ben

Lex Luthor

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
I'd like to add a few more helper characters to the Personal Superhero hyper, for non-Orange Lantern palettes (e.g. Bizarro, Mercy Graves, maybe Luthor-Superboy or Everyman)

Lobo

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
Lobo the Duck (Amalgam) hyper
more intros & winposes, maybe...

Mandarin

(Most of this movelist was actually planned out by McCready a looooong time ago)

Basics still missing

fwd/back jumps
standing medium punch
weak & medium standing kick
all air & crouching basics =P
finish the rest of the get-hits

Specials

freezing ray -- stand = freezes
electro blast -- stand = shocks
flare burst -- crouch = burns
holographic illusions = creates 2 doppelgangers...the 3 attack (the real one that hits is determined by button)
light blast -- stand = knocks P2 back to the wall
sonic wave -- air = makes P2 dizzy
teleport
solidify gas = rocks appear on air and fall (different distances)
force field generator = superblock, repels P2

Hypers

Mental Paralysis.... hyper level 1, stand, = paralyzes P2 and hits him on walls and floor
black light.... hyper level 1 = screen goes dark(palfx) and mandarin gets in custom combo mode
desintegration beam.... hyper level 3 = big beam
vortex ring (flight).... flight mode
force blast.... hyper level 1, stand, air = hit w/ knockback
magnetic waves.... hyper level 1 = like Magneto's
poison gas.... hyper level 1 = P2 loses energy by degrees

Marrow

I still want to replace her sprites and recode her moves, but realistically, I think this may not happen. -_-

Parasite

MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
Then, it's all about the power sets!

Flash: finish Speed Force hyper
Lobo: Rotgut special
Plastic Man: Stone Fists special
Etrigan: Dancing Blazes hyper
Darkseid: Omega Sanction hyper
Aquaman: whale/shark summon hyper
Doomsday: adaptive evolution special / asteroid smash hyper
The Atom: Subatomic Adventure hyper
Shazam: Electric charge special / lightning strike hyper
Starfire: Koriand'r Special
Bane: charging fist special / bat-breaker hyper
Vixen: Elephant Charge hyper
Mongul: Earthquake special / Mongul's Insanity hyper
Orange Lantern: Orange Corps hyper
Star Sapphire: Love Conquers All hyper
Black Lantern: Corrupting Touch special / Lifeforce Boost hyper (DONE THIS WEEK, WOOHOO!)
Hulk: Super Armor
Thor: Mystic Rainfall hyper
Spider-Man: finish/fix Maximum Spider hyper
Iron Man: finish/fix Nano Assault hyper
Crystal: Element Storm hyper
Wolverine: Weapon X hyper
Dr. Doom: finish/fix Photon Array hyper
Thanos: Stone Walls hyper
Juggernaut: Power Up hyper / Super Armor
Mr. Fantastic: finish Elastic Slam special / Pliable Pounder hyper
Venom: Venom Fang special / Death Bite hyper
Nightcrawler: Triple Threat Teleport hyper
Songbird: finish Decibel Barrage special / Shatter Scream hyper
Rhino: Rampage hyper
Storm: Lightning Storm hyper
Daredevil: finish Radar Sense special / ??? hyper

Strong Guy

Nothing; I'm satisfied. :)

Stay tuned for part 2; I promise it won't take me 3 months to write it!

Standing Still, but Still Standing

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:30:00 +0000

So this post will come as no surprise to anyone who's still paying attention (is anyone still paying attention? I have no idea...). I've done virtually nothing MUGEN-related since releasing Strong Guy back in February. The reasons for this are too complicated (and, frankly, personal, so none of your business, dear readers) for me to go into here. Suffice it to say that I haven't felt inspired for a long while now.

I just popped in to the ScruffyDragon forum yesterday for the first time in a while (I drop in every week or two to check my private messages, but that's really been about it), and found what amounted to a flamewar between Magus and somebody that was asking, basically, where all the cool stuff was that we were supposedly working on. July has come and nearly gone with nary a sign of ScruffyVersary, and I'll admit that makes me sad. But not sad enough to kill myself to release stuff that gets very little attention, feedback, or gratitude, mind you.

That was the gist of Magus and this guy's dispute. Magus's argument boiled down to this, basically: why should we (the Scruffy Dragon team) kill ourselves to release stuff when only the smallest handful of people give us any kind of feedback at all, other than to say "meh, okay, what's next?" Of course the other guy misinterpreted him (Magus gets misinterpreted more than anyone else I know) as saying that people should be kissing our butts and paying us money to keep working on stuff. Um, no, that's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying, and I agree with it, is that quality MUGEN creation takes a TON of effort when done right, and most of us senior Dragons have lost sight of the fun. It's become a freaking JOB to maintain a quality pipeline of output, and when the job takes us away from our families, doesn't pay, and isn't fun anymore, why on earth should we keep doing it? No one in their right minds would. That's why Loganir, Wucash, McCready, Seth Zankuten, and now Magus and I have all pretty much come to a standstill.

Oh, sure, occasionally we'll all still crank out something for the sheer fun of it (witness Loganir's recent reappearance), but the days of us sacrificing our lives, health, and time with those we love for the resounding "MEH" of the Internet are probably done.

I have a post in draft that I'll try to finish in the near future, detailing all of my not-yet-finished MUGEN projects, and what my plans are for each. See you then.

The Outer Limits

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:57:00 +0000

It's been an... interesting couple of weeks. Work at my day job has been busy (and mildly stressful), I've had to drive to work several times recently (eliminating that carpooling time I use to work on stuff like MUGEN), our family vehicle was at the mechanic for a few days, and to top it all off, my (rather expensive) smartphone got stolen right out of my rental car last Friday! AARRRGGGHHHH!

So, yeah, MUGEN has taken a bit more of a back seat this month than I had hoped. Sinestro 1.0 is still coming — relatively soon, but I'm not going to give a target date. Instead, I'll get back to posting a Release Watch for him as he progresses. Look for that later this week.

Strong Guy 2.1

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:23:00 +0000

Yesterday Snakebyte and Oldboy alerted me to a couple of playability issues with our recent Strong Guy release. I've updated the download to address these problems, so you'll probably want to grab the new version from his page.

Change list

* 2 Feb 2012: v2.1
  - minor patch release to address bugs reported in 2.0
  - Megaton Fury and X-Factor Attacks both prevent premature KOs now (which can cause weird end-of-round timing issues) (thanks, Snakebyte!)
  - Megaton Fury now works properly when triggered in a corner (thanks again, Snakebyte!)
  - fixed victory portrait & added win quotes (thanks, oldboy!)

On Groundhog Day...

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:01:00 +0000

Yeah, not so much for Christmas... this may as well be a Groundhog Day release! =P I know that I said a few weeks ago that any additional releases I made in January as belated parts of our 12 Days of Christmas event would get sarcastic titles like "on the 36th day of Christmas," but I managed to drag the polishing and beta cycle into February, so here we are. :-\ (note: I do still have two more holiday gifts, which I'll blog about soon)

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of beta testing with McCready and a few of my other ScruffyDragon teammates (thanks, guys), I'm proud to present Strong Guy 2.0! He's been almost completely restructured from bottom to top, with new sounds, effects, intros & outros, attack chains, and special & hyper moves:

"Up You Go!" anti-air special

Spinning Piledriver hyper

X-Factor Attacks hyper

Megaton Fury hyper

Here's the (abridged) change set from his readme file:

* 1 Feb 2012: v2.0
  - revamped all basic attacks (changed the chain order, timings, etc)
  - MUGEN 1.0 compatibility
  - new voice samples
  - new intro w/ Lila Cheney
  - new KO animation (heart attack if KO'ed by health loss due to kinetic overload)
  - new "nearly heart attacked" winpose
  - new lose / draw game animations
  - new round-end effects (especially if winning by hyper)
  - heavily tweaked combo code
  - tweaked Touchdown hyper damage, movement, timing and kineticE effects
  - new special: Up You Go (anti-air) (F,D,DF + P)
  - new hyper: Spinning Piledriver (F,DF,D + PP)
  - new hyper: X-Factor Attacks (QCB + P and K of equal strength)
  - new hyper: Megaton Fury (F,DF,D + KK)

Anyway, we hope you enjoy him, and as always, feel free to let us know (here or over at Scruffy) if you find any bugs or unexpected behavior.

You can get Strong Guy v2.0 here, on his page.

[Release Watch] Sinestro, Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:42:00 +0000

Now that I'm all but done with Strong Guy 2.0 (expect a release very soon), it's time to turn my attention back to Sinestro 1.0, so welcome to my next Release Watch!

Late last year I posted a Dev Plan for Sinestro. That, plus a few other things I've since added to the plan, will form the outline I'll be tracking here:

Sinestro 1.0 progress

Dev Plan

~~forward jump~~
~~backward jump~~
~~taunt~~
new intro: oath scene from Sinestro Corps War #1
new intro: ???
new win pose: stand & laugh over P2
lose / draw game animations
add missing basic attacks:
- ~~crouching weak punch~~
- ~~crouching medium punch~~
- crouching weak kick
- crouching medium kick
- at least one throw
add "powered" versions (with constructs) for basic attacks that don't have them yet:
- crouching light punch
- crouching medium punch
- ~~crouching hard punch~~
- crouching light kick
- crouching medium kick
- crouching hard kick
- ~~air light punch~~
- ~~air medium punch~~
- ~~air hard punch~~
- air light kick
- air medium kick
- air hard kick
special attacks to be done:
- Morningstar
- Armored Assault (low-damage Psycho Crusher style move)
hyper attacks:
- Sinestro Corps (helper gang attack)
- Parallax Unleashed
- Master of Fear (yellow core hyper assist)

Bugs

~~sound for standing hard punch sometimes doesn't play~~
~~Tweak basic attack damage to be stronger with the constructs~~
~~Launcher needs superjump follow~~
no landing sound on jump
hair gray streak in most palettes should be toned down
teeth in most sprites should be white, not yellow/green/gray
falling axes in Fall Before Me don't have hitsparks
cpunch3 and taunt constructs need to be folded into the core palette so they can be recolored
Some animations need collision boxes:
- 240 (skick2)
- 260 (skick3)
- 660 (akick3)
- 1120 (deadly stare end)

Completed tasks: 9 of 29
Fixed bugs: 3 of 9
Total tasks remaining: 26

Still a lot to do, but my ScruffyDragon teammate Bizarro Toro is helping a lot. I'll show off some of his contributions soon.

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 12

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:37:00 +0000

Guido's officially in private beta! I've gotten feedback from McCready, Magus, and BizarroToro, all of which I will be using tonight to make a final beta. Then when I have the Big Mac's sign off, maybe by tomorrow, he'll go up for download here and on Scruffy! :)

Stay tuned later for the first Release Watch for Sinestro.

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 11

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:01:00 +0000

I finished the camera trickery for Strong Guy's hypers today. He's in McCready's hands now for final review, beta testing, and approval; I expect this to break loose in a day or two.

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 10

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:18:00 +0000

So, this is likely going to be the last installment of Strong Guy Release Watch! I've got the perfect sound effects for Havok and Polaris now, and have revamped how the Quicksilver part works as well. Then this morning I did an audit through all of his hypers to add the KineticE damage multiplier apply to all of his physical force-based hypers: Touchdown, Cannonball (Hyper Blanka Envy), and Pinhead. Finally, I've revamped Touchdown (again) to make it more visually appealing and to distinguish it a bit more from Hyper Pinhead in terms of how it affects player 2.

That just leaves the tweaks to camera behavior for Megaton Fury and Piledriver.

Remix tasks

~~code cleanup (move basics/specials/hypers to their own .st files)~~
~~add lose on time over anim~~
~~add draw game anim~~
~~fix hypers to not give back power meter~~
~~Revamp Kinetic Energy Bar (new sprites & code tweaks)~~
~~Revamp basic attacks (strong kicks replaced with punches, reordered progression of attacks)~~
~~De-cheapify basic combo chains~~
~~Fix kinetic energy effects of grapples~~
~~new special: Up You Go~~
~~tweak damage/effects of Run Deep special~~
~~new intro: Lila Cheney teleport~~
~~tweak Touchdown hyper~~
~~add recovery roll~~
~~new audio for jacket-ripping intro~~
~~new winpose: fatigued when kinetic energy level too high~~
~~add dizzy state & effects~~
~~improve heart attack (KO via heart damage from too much kinetic energy)~~
~~new hyper: Spinning Piledriver~~
~~"Hyper Combo Finish" hyper names displayed when win by hyper~~
~~new hyper: Megaton Fury~~
new hyper: X-Factor Attacks

Quicksilver entrance/attack/get-hit/exit/sound

Wolfsbane entrance/fastball special/sound

Madrox drop-kick/exit

Polaris entrance/attack/exit/sound

Havok entrance/attack/exit/sound

Bugs reported in beta testing

~~Change Touchdown hyper's custom hit states~~
Add better camera control for Megaton Fury startup
Better camera control for Piledriver
~~Bug: Lila isn't casting a shadow in the intro~~
~~Tweak Touchdown hyper to a 2-hit attack: grapple, carry, smash into the wall~~

Completed tasks: 24 of 26
Tasks remaining: 2

I'll be giving it over to McCready tonight for final review. And then... :)

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 9

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:28:00 +0000

Welcome back to our ongoing Release Watch for Strong Guy! I had to drive to work Monday, effectively eliminating my MUGEN time for that day. Yesterday, I spent some time tweaking things here and there, adding missing "lost by timeout" anims, aligning messed-up custom hit animations for the Piledriver hyper, that sort of thing. As for the final remaining hyper, X-Factor Attacks, I've been hunting down appropriate sound effects; developing during my commute means I've been testing him with the sound off, and didn't even notice how quiet the attack seemed until last night! :-P I've got Polaris's and Havok's part done, so the sound effects are all that's left there. So close now I can almost taste it!

This puts my remaining task count at 0.2 subparts of the hyper (sounds for Quicksilver and Wolfsbane), and 2 camera bug fixes (which really are both the same issue in two different places, so when I fix one the other will be trivial):

Remix tasks

~~code cleanup (move basics/specials/hypers to their own .st files)~~
~~add lose on time over anim~~
~~add draw game anim~~
~~fix hypers to not give back power meter~~
~~Revamp Kinetic Energy Bar (new sprites & code tweaks)~~
~~Revamp basic attacks (strong kicks replaced with punches, reordered progression of attacks)~~
~~De-cheapify basic combo chains~~
~~Fix kinetic energy effects of grapples~~
~~new special: Up You Go~~
~~tweak damage/effects of Run Deep special~~
~~new intro: Lila Cheney teleport~~
~~tweak Touchdown hyper~~
~~add recovery roll~~
~~new audio for jacket-ripping intro~~
~~new winpose: fatigued when kinetic energy level too high~~
~~add dizzy state & effects~~
~~improve heart attack (KO via heart damage from too much kinetic energy)~~
~~new hyper: Spinning Piledriver~~
~~"Hyper Combo Finish" hyper names displayed when win by hyper~~
~~new hyper: Megaton Fury~~
new hyper: X-Factor Attacks
- Quicksilver ~~entrance~~/~~attack~~/~~get-hit~~/~~exit~~/sound
- Wolfsbane ~~entrance~~/~~fastball special~~/sound
- Madrox ~~drop-kick/exit~~
- Polaris ~~entrance~~/~~attack>~~/~~exit~~/~~sound~~
- Havok ~~entrance~~/attack/~~exit~~/~~sound~~

Bugs reported in beta testing

~~Change Touchdown hyper's custom hit states~~
Add better camera control for Megaton Fury startup
Better camera control for Piledriver
~~Bug: Lila isn't casting a shadow in the intro~~

Completed tasks: 22.8 of 25
Tasks remaining: 2.2

I may have good news for y'all tomorrow or Friday. :)

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 8

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Welcome to today's Release Watch update for Strong Guy. I've finished the segment of the X-Factor Attacks hyper involving the Madrox clones, tweaked Quicksilver's (again, I think for the last time now), and started building out the stubs for the final segment of the hyper, with Havok and Polaris, which should be pretty straightforward, because they're both just beam attacks, and I've done plenty of those. Oh, and as I promised yesterday, I have screenshots of the finished portions of the hyper:

This puts my remaining task count at 1.6 of 5 sub-parts to the hyper, and the 2 camera bug fixes (which really are both the same issue in two different places, so when I fix one the other will be trivial):

Remix tasks

~~code cleanup (move basics/specials/hypers to their own .st files)~~
~~add lose on time over anim~~
~~add draw game anim~~
~~fix hypers to not give back power meter~~
~~Revamp Kinetic Energy Bar (new sprites & code tweaks)~~
~~Revamp basic attacks (strong kicks replaced with punches, reordered progression of attacks)~~
~~De-cheapify basic combo chains~~
~~Fix kinetic energy effects of grapples~~
~~new special: Up You Go~~
~~tweak damage/effects of Run Deep special~~
~~new intro: Lila Cheney teleport~~
~~tweak Touchdown hyper~~
~~add recovery roll~~
~~new audio for jacket-ripping intro~~
~~new winpose: fatigued when kinetic energy level too high~~
~~add dizzy state & effects~~
~~improve heart attack (KO via heart damage from too much kinetic energy)~~
~~new hyper: Spinning Piledriver~~
~~"Hyper Combo Finish" hyper names displayed when win by hyper~~
~~new hyper: Megaton Fury~~
new hyper: X-Factor Attacks
- Quicksilver ~~entrance~~/~~attack~~/~~get-hit~~/~~exit~~
- Wolfsbane ~~entrance~~/~~fastball special~~
- Madrox ~~drop-kick/exit~~
- Polaris ~~entrance~~/attack/exit
- Havok ~~entrance~~/attack/exit

Bugs reported in beta testing

~~Change Touchdown hyper's custom hit states~~
Add better camera control for Megaton Fury startup
Better camera control for Piledriver
~~Bug: Lila isn't casting a shadow in the intro~~

Completed tasks: 22.7 of 25
Tasks remaining: 2.3

Nearly there, folks. :)

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 7

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:41:00 +0000

Today was a reasonably productive day for progress on Strong Guy. I've finished Wolfsbane's part of the X-Factor Attacks hyper, tweaked Quicksilver's, and made the changes McCready suggested for the Touchdown hyper. That puts the remaining task count at 3 of 5 sub-parts to the hyper, and 2 bug fixes:

Remix tasks

~~code cleanup (move basics/specials/hypers to their own .st files)~~
~~add lose on time over anim~~
~~add draw game anim~~
~~fix hypers to not give back power meter~~
~~Revamp Kinetic Energy Bar (new sprites & code tweaks)~~
~~Revamp basic attacks (strong kicks replaced with punches, reordered progression of attacks)~~
~~De-cheapify basic combo chains~~
~~Fix kinetic energy effects of grapples~~
~~new special: Up You Go~~
~~tweak damage/effects of Run Deep special~~
~~new intro: Lila Cheney teleport~~
~~tweak Touchdown hyper~~
~~add recovery roll~~
~~new audio for jacket-ripping intro~~
~~new winpose: fatigued when kinetic energy level too high~~
~~add dizzy state & effects~~
~~improve heart attack (KO via heart damage from too much kinetic energy)~~
~~new hyper: Spinning Piledriver~~
~~"Hyper Combo Finish" hyper names displayed when win by hyper~~
~~new hyper: Megaton Fury~~
new hyper: X-Factor Attacks
- Quicksilver ~~entrance~~/~~attack~~/~~get-hit~~/~~exit~~
- Wolfsbane ~~entrance~~/~~fastball special~~
- Madrox drop-kick/exit
- Polaris entrance/attack/exit
- Havok entrance/attack/exit

Bugs reported in beta testing

~~Change Touchdown hyper's custom hit states~~
Add better camera control for Megaton Fury startup
Better camera control for Piledriver
~~Bug: Lila isn't casting a shadow in the intro~~

Completed tasks: 21.5 of 25
Tasks remaining: 2.6

Tomorrow I should be able to post another screen shot or two.

[Release Watch] Strong Guy, Day 6

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:44:00 +0000

I've been busy dealing with non-MUGEN stuff the past few days, so haven't had a ton of time to work on our Strong Guy release. That said, I've finished the Quicksilver part of the X-Factor Attacks hyper, coded most of Guido's part, and started doing the segment with Wolfsbane. So now I'm down to 3.5 of 5 sub-parts to the hyper, and 3 bug fixes:

Remix tasks

~~code cleanup (move basics/specials/hypers to their own .st files)~~
~~add lose on time over anim~~
~~add draw game anim~~
~~fix hypers to not give back power meter~~
~~Revamp Kinetic Energy Bar (new sprites & code tweaks)~~
~~Revamp basic attacks (strong kicks replaced with punches, reordered progression of attacks)~~
~~De-cheapify basic combo chains~~
~~Fix kinetic energy effects of grapples~~
~~new special: Up You Go~~
~~tweak damage/effects of Run Deep special~~
~~new intro: Lila Cheney teleport~~
~~tweak Touchdown hyper~~
~~add recovery roll~~
~~new audio for jacket-ripping intro~~
~~new winpose: fatigued when kinetic energy level too high~~
~~add dizzy state & effects~~
~~improve heart attack (KO via heart damage from too much kinetic energy)~~
~~new hyper: Spinning Piledriver~~
~~"Hyper Combo Finish" hyper names displayed when win by hyper~~
~~new hyper: Megaton Fury~~
new hyper: X-Factor Attacks
- Quicksilver ~~entrance~~/~~attack~~/~~get-hit~~/~~exit~~
- Wolfsbane ~~entrance~~/fastball special
- Madrox drop-kick/exit
- Polaris entrance/attack/exit
- Havok entrance/attack/exit

Bugs reported in beta testing

Change Touchdown hyper's custom hit states
Add better camera control for Megaton Fury startup
Better camera control for Piledriver
~~Bug: Lila isn't casting a shadow in the intro~~

Completed tasks: 21.5 of 25
Tasks remaining: 3.5

Tonight should be a good, productive night. As always I'll post my progress as I go.

SOPA/PIPA and MUGEN

noreply@blogger.com (Rylee Corradini) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:27:00 +0000

You may have noticed that my site was offline yesterday in support of the protests against the SOPA/PIPA ~~internet censorship~~ anti-piracy legislation being drafted in the U.S. Congress. If you're an American citizen and you haven't gotten involved yet, please consider doing so. If these bills pass, there's a very real chance that fan gaming — including everything we do at ScruffyDragon — would suddenly become illegal under U.S. law, and we'd be shut down. :(

I know a lot of my readers are not U.S. citizens, and you might be a little irritated with all this nonsense. Why should you care? Well, the fact is, other nations often take cues from the United States on this type of law, so if these bills pass here, there's a nonzero chance that your country will consider passing something similar. And the Internet would be a sadder, grimmer place if that happens.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast, already in progress.