Looking Back at 2009, Looking Forward to 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
This past year has been a notable one for me personally, and for the ScruffyDragon team as a whole. I know you've probably had your fill of "end of the year"/"end of the decade" posts, so I'll try not to bore you with that (much), and instead focus on my plans for the new year.
But first, a brief recap on 2009:
- In January, as part of last year's "12 Days of Christmas", BobStarsky and I released Savage Hulk
- In April, as part of our Scruffyversary event, I released the first public version of Parasite, updated betas of Elektra and Sinestro, and "remixes" of both Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Ice
- In May, I picked up a great new partner for Parasite work, in the form of Jet the Phoenix
- Things got quiet for a little while, until I got an idea for a new "Blackest Night" edition of Hal Jordan. That effort is still ongoing, and should bear fruit soon.
Now, here are my goals for 2010:
- Blackest Night Hal Jordan (here's a list of the planned changes)
- Mandarin needs my attention before the new Iron Man movie comes out in May. At least a beta if not more.
- I'll be assisting the SGM team with the coding on tenchimuyo4ever's Green Skull character (he's an Amalgam of Red Skull and Lex Luthor; how could I say no? ;))
- Get Sinestro to a 1.0-level release before the end of the Blackest Night crossover.
- XFields and I are planning to work together again on Elektra, and bring her up to that 1.0 level as well.
- Finally get to that Marrow remix I had planned two years ago
- Invisible Woman: maybe, maybe not. Honestly I'm not very motivated to work on her right now.
- Bizarro: possibly collaboration with Kal-Elvis will re-ignite my enthusiasm here, but Kal's busy working on his music career, so I have no idea how likely that is.
So, that's the plan. I'll try to keep up the pace I set last year of posting something here at least weekly (usually on the weekend, Friday or Saturday), and we'll see how things go. I'm looking forward to a great 2010, and I wish the same for everyone here.
Labels: Elektra, Green Lantern, Mandarin, Marrow, Parasite, Sinestro
BOO! (Did I scare ya?)
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
So, it seems like I should post something here tonight, since I missed an update last weekend, and since I'm working on a couple of pretty creepy villains, Sinestro and Parasite, that are somewhat Halloween-appropriate.So what should I tell you about? Hmmm...
Sinestro:
- no new screenshots yet, but I've gotten some great inspiration lately from the Blackest Night / War of Light storyline. Plus I've had several contributions from folks that have potential. Expect to see screenshots soon. :)
Parasite: some new stolen moves I can show off:
There are a few others I can't show yet because they're not coded, like Batzarro's Rhino Charge special he sprited for me in support of his cool Rhino character. Plus still quite a bit of "smart palette" re-editing still to do. Always more to be done with this guy... <sigh>
Oh! And I've started a site redesign that will integrate this blog with my other two into one big great ball of awesome. So far all I've done is move the navigation from the sidebar to the top, but there will be more tweaks, large and small, in the near future.
Promising character updates
Friday, May 15, 2009
As I mentioned earlier today, there have been some pretty cool things happening with my in-progress characters in the past few weeks. Here are a few of them:
New Thing 1
* I recently received an email from Jet the Phoenix with a very generous gift, and a great idea. The gift was a large subset of Parasite's sprites, edited to include the white stripes that his modern incarnation usually sports:
The idea was for a very sophisticated "smart palette" for Parasite, which would enable me to not only have the green shorts and white stripes versions, but a ton of other character-inspired variations as well:
Shortly after JtP sent me this stuff, I shared it with my friend and talented sprite artist Sei, and completely unsolicited, she generously sent me a new, more aggressive stance for Parasite, using the smart palette JtP had designed!
New Thing 2
* In another unsolicited and generous offer, Sei sent me this new stance animation for Lobo, which I will be adapting to the character soon:
New Thing 3
* Lots of people have been sending me their ideas for Sinestro moves. Some have been really good, and I'm looking for ways to incorporate them into the character. No screenshot this time, but trust me when I say he's looking pretty promising.
Sinestro Alpha 2 Released
Friday, April 24, 2009
As part of Scruffyversary's Villain Week, I wanted to share with you the latest version of Sinestro, which I'm calling Alpha 2.
As an alpha release, Sinestro's still got quite a lot of missing stuff, but from the beginning he's been a public WIP, so he gets released in very raw form whenever there's new stuff worth sharing:
- added fwd/back dashes & effects
- added standing hard kick
- new special: Chains of Despair
- new hyper: Needle Storm
- added guard animations & shield effects
- added standing and crouching get-hit animations
Be warned that he is still pretty raw: he's still missing his thrown and falling sprites, as well as basic attacks when crouching and jumping. It's still very much "early days" with this guy, so if you have some great ideas you think would fit, feel free to let me know via email or the ScruffyDragon forum.
Go get him on his page.
Labels: Scruffyversary, Sinestro
Stuff in the pipeline
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Whew! Just like last year, the "12 days" event kinda burned me out for wanting to work on MUGEN stuff for a few weeks. But I AM doing some stuff, and a lot of things are starting to take shape in the "release pipeline", so to speak. Here are a few notes on what's in there.Hulk
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm working on a Hulk update for all y'all:- It'll have AI, thanks to the very talented assistance of Tunglashor.
- It'll have the alternate select screen portraits I posted about recently.
- It'll have some minor bug fixes.
- It'll have custom "frozen" animation for when he's fighting Ice/Bizarro/etc.
- It'll most likely have another finished hyper (the "Hulk Crush" that's about half finished and disabled in the current release).
- It'll have an arcade intro.
- There's a good chance it'll have ground and air throws.
- And, the superarmor code will likely be a little tweaked to make him slightly tougher.
Possible Betas
I'm also considering kicking out another beta of Sinestro and/or Elektra, if I can get more of their get-hit sprites finished soon. Truth be told I hate doing those kinds of sprites, so they're both kind of slow going. -_-Bone girl
And... following up on something I mentioned over a year ago, I'm feeling the need to give Marrow some attention. Her code needs an overhaul, and she could use a few new/tweaked moves, plus of course I want to add the DCvM-style to her so she plays similarly to my other characters. This one will take more work, but it really really needs to be done.The purple elephant in the room
I know that probably my most-anticipated WIP right now is Parasite, and don't worry, I haven't forgotten about him. But he needs more spit and polish before I feel comfortable releasing him, he's my baby right now and I'd hate for another unfinished version of him (like the craptastic leaked/stolen one floating around on eSnips) to get out in the wild. But he IS still being worked on, fear not.DCvM
Plus of course my teammates and I are still working on pulling everything together for the official DCvsMarvel "Phase 1" release. Seth Zankuten is currently working on play-balancing the other characters, particularly the ones like Dr. Doom and Wonder Woman that are otherwise essentially finished. For my part, I've got Amalgam hypers to finish for Lobo, GL, Luthor and Hulk. Still quite a bit of work to do on that front, but progress is being made:
Watch this space...
Labels: DC vs Marvel, Elektra, Marrow, Parasite, Savage Hulk, Sinestro
Been too long
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Yeah, it's been a while since I posted something. Larramones, my partner in crime on Sinestro, had a hard drive failure and lost a bunch of work. But he's back at it now, and has sent me a new kick, and a new guard:
I'm also adding the "Needle Storm" hyper I prototyped for him as part of Parasite's "Sinestro" power set:
Oh, and I'm getting ready to move my family over 2000 miles cross-country next week. So expect updates to be pretty thin on the ground for the next little while.
Labels: Sinestro
The 4th Day of Christmas
Friday, December 28, 2007
The 12 Days of Christmas continue with the eponymous leader of the Sinestro Corps. As I originally stated when I started this WIP, I'm going to be trying something a little different with him. Since anyone is open to contribute to Sinestro, I feel everyone should have access to him as he progresses. So expect frequent alphas as I progress... consider it something of an experiment into a different way of thinking about MUGEN WIPs. Anyway, enjoy this VERY early taste of what's to come... like with Elektra, this is Alpha 0.1. Unlike Elektra, though, he's not that far along yet... what you saw in the YouTube video yesterday is pretty much all he's got so far. <_<
Go get Sinestro here.
As with the other chars I've released in this 12-days blitz, please feel free to post any feedback you have over at the ScruffyDragon forum (the release thread is here). This is ESPECIALLY true this time, because the more people contribute ideas & sprites, the faster he'll progress. ;)
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, Sinestro
The 3rd Day of Christmas
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Forgot to post this earlier. Mixing it up a little, day 3 isn't a release, it's a new YouTube video. This time, it's a tease of Larramones' and my Sinestro WIP:
He's progressing fairly well: about half of his basic movement animations, 3 standing punches, and a special move. But that said, he can't hold his own against Hal Jordan (yet), so for the purposes of the video I've turned off Hal's AI.
Labels: 12 Days of Christmas, Green Lantern, Sinestro, video
In Blackest Day, In Brightest Night...
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Beware your fears made into light!Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn like my power, Sinestro's might!
Yep. With Smogon, McCready, Larramones, and whoever else wants to help, I'm making Sinestro for MUGEN. Click on his fantabulous portrait (donated by the talented Mr. Pychewing) for his newly-minted (but not yet very populated) WIP page:
Oh, and I recently revamped my characters front page, too:
Select your champion here...
Finally, there are minor updates to the WIP pages for Hal and Parasite. Both are progressing quite nicely, but thanks to both being leaked and shared on YouTube and other places as "ultra rare charz", I'm not going to releases betas until they're finished. You can thank the leakers and those who support them for that. =P
Labels: Green Lantern, Parasite, Sinestro