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[Soulliard]

Each stage needs three components- graphics, music and programming. Here we can discuss which stages we'd like to see and how we'd like them implemented, and eventually submit their graphics. You can submit music for stages here. Stages should be at least 512x384 pixels, but no more than 1024x768 pixels, unless the stage automatically scrolls. Generally, stages should keep roughly that aspect ratio.

One great thing about stages is that Indie Games that would otherwise not translate very well into a fighting game can almost always be made into a stages.

Stage Roster:
Knytt Falls

Minecraft

Canabalt

Heart of Chzo (Chzo Mythos)

Samorost- The island from Samorost.

Omega Darn (Noitu Love 2)

Sun Temple (Aquaria)

Death Worm Desert (Death Worm)

Amita Range (Rescue the Beagles)

Fisty's Bog or Regurgitation Pumping Station (World of Goo)

Bonesaw Stage

Pathspace (Immortal Defense)- The screen follows a single, fairly small platform that travels down a long line, the same way the enemies do in ID. There are a few other platforms in front of and behind the central platform, slightly smaller to show they are not the 'main' one. Depending on where the line is pointing, the platforms can be in all sorts of different configurations. Every so often you will encounter Points which each use their own iconic attack.

Crayon Physics Stage - Obstacles are periodically drawn onto the stage.

I Wanna Be the Guy

Nightwalk (An Untitled Story)

Rooftops (Iji) –

The characters spawn atop the top of the ruined research facility, with the post-apocalyptic metropolis of Earth in the red afternoon sky. There are four rooftops (w/ pits in b/w) players can fight on, but each one crumbles if hit by the stage's main hazard.
    That 'main hazard', of course, is the Alpha Strike. Every once in a while, the UFO's in the background will flash or give some indication of movement in unison, and, after a few seconds,  there will be flashing floodlights shined onto the targeted buildings, which will usually be three out of the four in the stage. The players will then all have a few seconds to scramble onto that one 'safe' rooftop, else they will take massive damage as, in an instant, three gigantic pillars of light will rain down onto the targeted rooftops, demolishing them and taking out a severe chunk of any player's life bar.
     For a while, players will only be able to stand on the one remaining building. Then, the camera will begin to scroll down, and the remaining building will be similarly targeted by an alpha strike. The cycle repeats itself from the beginning.

Among the Leaves (Seiklus)

Dwarf Fortress

VVVVVV - The gravity periodically reverses.

Cube Sector (Lyle in Cube Sector)



These stages are not planned for inclusion, but may be reconsidered in the future:

The Tower (Mighty Jill Off)- A vertically scrolling level.

Mondo Medicals/Cactus Stage

Deep Space- There are a few platforms in the middle of the stage. Ships and enemies from different shoot-em-ups will fly by and sometimes attack.

Tower of Heaven - Rules are occasionally issued which restrict what you can do. Breaking the rules results in being punished.

Eversion

Fez stage- A floating island where, at given times, you are switched to another dimension.

N Level (N)- A closed stage with lots of traps and enemies.

Something from Eternal Daughter

Randomly generated ascii dungeon- Doesn't have to be true random generation, but maybe the level could be divided into quadrants, each of which chooses from a selection of maybe 4 prefabricated

Hot Ninja Moon Moon stage

The Cleaner stage

Jetpack Brontosaurus - You fight on the back of the 'saur as it flies around, kinda like the Arwing stage in Smash.

I Was in the War- A simple horizontal stage. Pressing down+jump while standing on the line switches you to the other side of the line. Soldiers and tanks occasionally march down one side of the line, and deal some damage if they touch a player. Jump over them or switch sides to avoid.

Aether- You go from planet to planet fighting on clouds, and whatever addition platforms or whatever else the planet provides in its description.  To go from one planet (start at earth, then go to a random one, just making sure not to do the same planet two times in a row) and the stage then moves up from the planet till it is out of view, and then stage then lowers again, but it will be the next random planet.  The planets are:
Earth- Solid ground with a house.
BIBULON- This will have a planet on the bottom of the screen, and a moon taking up a considerable portion of the planet's screen.
MALAISUS- Water and a small island is on the bottom of the screen when on this planet.
GRAVIDA- Not really sure about this one, possibly your fighting over the mouth that covers about half the bottom, so people can fall through the mouth and die.
DEBASA- The bottom half of the planet's screen has a green haze over it, that makes everyone inside it move slower, so you have to keep high or pay the price.
I think the time that the stage spends on each planet will be have to be playtested to figure out what would be best.

Rooftop- An homage to Bytejacker. It could take place on the roof that the show is always on, and then could switch to a bunch of free indie of the weeks from the show. That way recognition could be given to a bunch of games that don't warrant their own stage. It could even have the music and everything! It sounds like it would be a hard stage to make though.

Poppenkast stage

Ruins (Lugaru)- The ruins from Turner's home village. The tall stone tower might actually make for a very interesting vertical landscape.

Space Funeral

Hydorah

Limbo

[Rory]

What about something from Warning: Forever?
Like maybe a destructible ship that hovers above the stage shooting down?
Or a round planet-type level like in Aether?

[Powergloved Andy]

A stage based on Eternal Daughter would be pretty cool, and Stargirl.

[neon]

you know, i think an owl country level is pretty much a must.

also oh my god we need an owl emoticon

[William Broom]

Suggestions:

1. Watery Place from Gish. (I forgot the name of the place) I mean the place with the water and the platforms on the ropes. If you attack the ropes you can break them, causing platforms to fall. I think this would make a good Gish level because we could include a physics-like mechanic without actually doing physics.

2. Shit-Soaked Mansion from Tarenagasi. It must be done.

[Rostiger]

So the stages can be from any indie games or should they also be fitting to the characters that are implemented?
Because in my opinion, if you have the game - character - stage connection it would feel a lot more pulled together than arbitrarily choosing any stages from any cool indie game (allthough I must admit I really like the Tarenagasi stage idea, chutup )

Also: what about the graphical style of the stages? Should they be continous like with the characters or more in the style of the original?

Anyway, here are my ideas:

The egg corridor from Cave Story would be great (the destroyed version) with stalagtites falling from the ceiling.

A Lugaru stage. Maybe rather flat at the bottom, like a grassy plane, with stone boulders in the background that are used to "hold" stone plattforms in the foreground.

[Soulliard]

Also: what about the graphical style of the stages? Should they be continous like with the characters or more in the style of the original?

I think it's okay for stages to be closer to their original graphical styles.

[moi]

Also: what about the graphical style of the stages? Should they be continous like with the characters or more in the style of the original?

I think it's okay for stages to be closer to their original graphical styles.

On the other hand too much graphical disparity between stages would look bad.
Playing MUGEN taught me that. There must be some sort of general grpahical style, although with little differences between stages to bring them close to the original games.

[Soulliard]

I think as long as we kept to a few key elements of the art style- pixel art, unsaturated colors, cell-shading... it will still be fairly coherent.

[Oracle]

So there won't be any type of scrolling whatsoever? i think some kind of zoom-in zoom-out of action would work out great.

[William Broom]

So the stages can be from any indie games or should they also be fitting to the characters that are implemented?
Because in my opinion, if you have the game - character - stage connection it would feel a lot more pulled together than arbitrarily choosing any stages from any cool indie game (allthough I must admit I really like the Tarenagasi stage idea, chutup )

I think every character should have at least one home stage, but after that, there should be plenty of stages without characters as well. Because like Nightshade said, a lot of indie games (such as Tarenagasi, Samorost and Knytt) aren't suitable for providing a character, but would work well as a stage.

[Soulliard]

So there won't be any type of scrolling whatsoever? i think some kind of zoom-in zoom-out of action would work out great.

Automatic scrolling is easy to implement. Zooming in and out might be a little more jarring, but would be possible, I imagine. Still, you can make pretty large and in-depth stages with just a 640x480 area (the sample level seems a little smaller because the platform takes up half the level). Much larger, and it would be too easy for characters to camp, unless the stage was well-designed.

[Xion]

Much larger, and it would be too easy for characters to camp, unless the stage was well-designed.

Camping levels could actually be pretty cool, if there were something to force the campers into the open every once in a while. Like, a relatively safe/distant area that catches on fire/collapses every so often (with warning, of course) that forces those within/upon out/away and into a very open/melee, dangerous place.

I think zooming could be okay if done sparingly. Like, as a level element and not as a result of the natural fight flow. Like, say, maybe every once in a while, something happens in a level to expand it. The death worm level, for example. Every so often it could zoom out to reveal more of the desert, and the incoming/underground death worm, caravan, or military forces. Then after they do their thang the view could zoom back to normal.

Also,
Liero's randomly generated, fully destructible, dirt-and-rock level,
Cave Story's "outer wall" level could be a vertically scrolling one.
stdbits level?
Randomly generated ascii dungeon! Doesn't have to be true random generation, but maybe the level could be divided into quadrants, each of which chooses from a selection of maybe 4 prefabricated environments/rooms/sections/what-have-yous that snap together. Randomly placed traps, maybe.
A Treasure Treasure map.

[Mentalpatient109]

An Aether stage would be awesome. 

Or what about HNMM?

[William Broom]

I get the feeling that programming a spherical stage would be an absolute nightmare, and even if you did, everyone would have reversed controls on the bottom of the planet so they would just stand on the top anyway. Maybe you could have an Aether stage that's in space with little planetoids to stand on, but normal gravity.

Hot Ninja Moon Moon I like, though. Silhouette traps would work well.

[Mr.moo]

for the sexy hiker stage we could make glitch6y areas....

[William Broom]

Not a bad idea... as long as the glitches are consistent so people can learn how to avoid and/or exploit them. It could be something like in SHIT GAME where you could slide up through platforms.

Another idea: How about Sandbox of God? I don't know how popular it is but it's one of my favourite indie games. It could be a wide, flat stage resembling the planet from the game, and every so often you would have to avoid things like comets, plagues of flies, and nuclear strikes.

[Gainsworthy]

Rom Check Fail. We need a Rom Check Fail stage. In fact, this entire game needs more TIGER Compo Loving.

Oooh, and something from The Cleaner. Some wonderful, eerie stages there. Hmm, speaking of the Cleaner...

[William Broom]

I was kind of avoiding compo material a lot because it would bring the whole game closer to 'Tigsource Brawl' rather than 'Indie Brawl'. But some stages would be nice. Dyson could make a good one, though perhaps too similar to Aether. Gunlimb could make a good character, actually - he'd have the same movement style as Sexy Hiker but with projectiles instead of melee attacks. And his melee moves could be like, biting and stuff.

[Rostiger]

I was kind of avoiding compo material a lot because it would bring the whole game closer to 'Tigsource Brawl' rather than 'Indie Brawl'. But some stages would be nice. Dyson could make a good one, though perhaps too similar to Aether. Gunlimb could make a good character, actually - he'd have the same movement style as Sexy Hiker but with projectiles instead of melee attacks. And his melee moves could be like, biting and stuff.

Haha, that would be totally insane! :D
Also I have to second that opinion to make it more and Indie Brawl, not a TIGSource Brawl. I think it would be could if there weren't too many 'Insider jokes' type of stages, but something also people outside of TIGSource can appreciate.

Also most important thing is to get the first couple of characters done and working as well as their corresponding stages. All else is really just brain jerking...