This is the thread to discuss the Indie Brawl game idea from the
Smash Bros. Brawl thread! To recap:
Here's an idea for a new collaborative project: A beat-em-up starring characters from Indie games! Imagine - Quote versus Juni! The Nikujin versus Lemeza! The Death Worm versus Primo Varicella!
Heh, thanks, Pacian!Let's assess if there's anything to the idea, and if it's worth taking on as a group project. I volunteer to program it - but if anybody better than me wants to do it instead, go ahead, heh. It will be open source, anyway (all my stuff is). If it takes off, we'll need artists and musicians and all that too
The way I see it, the first consideration is how big the game's going to be.
Approach:There's the minigame scale: this is where the game is implemented just enough to prove the concept. We get a few well known characters, rip the sprites and music directly from their respective games and get a solid (but basic) beat-em-up working. And then leave it at that. The only real advantage to this is that the developement time will be very short - and it might be kinda fun, in its own, quirky way.
Then there's the most likely scale: We decide on a cast of characters, redraw them so that they match one consistant style for the game (comparible size, and so on). We design little battle arenas based on each character's game. We remix the music, all that. Basically, we just make a very polished version of the above. We could also put together a character maker so that people can add their own fighters to it as time goes on.
Then there's the masterpiece scale. That's a hugely ambitious approach where we have online multiplayer with lots of people in an arena at one time, and a story mode for each character, consisting of levels designed in the vein of each individual game as interludes between the battles. Quote's story mode would look and play like a short version of Cave Story, for example, only with boss fights every couple of minutes!
These are just suggestions, by the way : feel free to suggest other big picture ideas for the scale of the game. I think the third one could be a lot of fun to go for, but it would probably be a ridiculous amount of work
Characters:We should definitely decide on a cast of characters as soon as possible
It would be easy to get carried away and have hundreds of playable characters - but I think that's a bad idea (remember the way Mortal Combat went? With millions of rubbish anonymous characters?). It would be better, I think, if there were only, say, 10 main characters, and maybe 4 or 5 extra bonus characters so that it didn't feel too swamped. This would also keep the resources down and make it easier to put together.
I'm going to list a few candidates that I've thought about. Please suggest your own characters in the thread! once we have enough, we can have a poll or something and finalise the line up
Ogmo (from the Jumper games)Only problem is that Ogmo doesn't have any offensive moves, unless he can deal damage by jumping on someone's head. Along these lines, the egg thingy from Untitled Story might be more appropriate.
Lemeza (from La Mulana)
A Darwinian (from Darwinia)Actually, I've never really played Darwinia (only the demo). Can these guys actually fight?
Gish (from Gish)
Quote (from Cave Story)I think this one's a given
Mickey R. Dole (aka. The Attractor, from Clean Asia)I think this guy could work really well - the idea being that he can't attack, but he can destroy the terrain as he moves about and shoot it at his opponent. There'd be a wee bit more work implementing him, but I think it would be worth it.
Thor (from God of Thunder)Might be a bit obscure, but I think he'd make a good beat-em-up character.
Juni (from Knytt Stories)Like Ogmo, Juni can't attack. So I dunno if it would work.
Harry Flowerpower (from Banana Nababa)Or Poyo, maybe?
Talan (from A Blurred Line)In ABL, Talan has the ability to absorb other people's abilities. I figure this makes him a perfect wild card character.
Nikujin guy (from Nikujin)Does he actually have a name? If he's included, he'll have to be balanced a bit (seeing as he has a one hit kill move).
Kitty (from Game with a Kitty)I can see this one working really well! Would have to change the controls a bit though, so that his "sky punch" move is easier to do.
Some other considerations: * There are way too many platform characters here. Partly due to my own bias, partly due to the fact that platform characters lend themselves quite easily to this genre...
* It would be nice to have someone from Interactive Fiction, but I can't really think of anyone suitable. Varicella won't work, on reflection (honestly, can you picture the guy in fight?) Suggestions welcome!
* I tried not to take more than one character from any game. Curly, Balrog and Misery would all make great candidates, though. Maybe as bonus characters?
Again, please suggest your own characters for the game! We need loads and loads so we can narrow it down to some really good ones!I don't know if there's anything to this game yet, but I think it's worth talking about. If it takes off, maybe we can move it to the group project board?
Right so.
DISCUSS! :D
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