Homestrife 4⅓ - The Homestuck fighting game

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-18-2011, 06:02 PM

(Logo not final)

Overview
Project Aggrieve is a fan-community made multiplayer fighting game project based on Homestuck. The gameplay is mainly based on Super Smash Bros, but we'll be injecting it with mechanics from more traditional fighters, like Street Fighter, Marvel VS Capcom and Blazblue, to attempt to make a deep, technical fighter that even high level players can appreciate and enjoy.

For the final version, we want to meet the following specs:

Run on multiple platforms--at absolute minimum including XP, Win7, Intel-based Macs, and Ubuntu Linux.
Up to 4 players at least; possibly more
Network play, so that people on the forum can play against each other
Adjustable gameplay parameters where possible, including configurable controls
Multiple input devices, keyboard/gamepad/etc

The full version will contain:

16 characters(The 4 kids and 12 trolls)
At least 1 stage per character
Several game modes, including:
- Arcade Mode(Maybe) - 1 player - random opponents leading up to a final boss?
- Local Multiplayer - 1-4 players
- Online Multiplayer - 2-4 players
- Training - 1-2 players

You can also visit our wiki to find more detailed information, especially regarding game mechanics.

Graphics
We're going HD for this project, so you'll be able to play it in a resolution of, up to, glorious 1080p(1920x1080 in 16:9, 1920x1200 in 16:10). It will be scalable, probably from 640x480 or something, so you shouldn't need to sweat getting a fancy computer to play it.

For sprites we're going with glorious HD, hand drawn(though aliased) sprites. Style-wise though, we're going with Hero-mode, as if they're ripped straight from the comic itself, giving the impression of a living, breathing comic.

WIP sprite examples can be seen here:

They are the right size, just not finalized yet.

Screenshot mockups:

Far from final HUD.

Character Select Screen mockup:

We of course won't forget our roots, so of course we'll have low-res things for effects and possible a lot of the GUI. An example of effects would be having the low-res Courier font popping up when you block(ABSTAIN), dodge(ABSCOND), when Equius jumps(STRONG JUMP), and wherever appropriate.

Sound and Music
We want a nice variety of music. We hope to get permission from the official music team to use official tracks from the official albums. Here is a list of most of the official tracks and comments on whether or not we think they're appropriate for a fighting game. We probably won't be able to cover everything with the official tracks(like menus, the official theme, etc.) so we'll enlist other fans to create original and remix tracks to fill any gaps.

Sound effects we aren't sure of yet, haven't really put though into it yet, but we will need to create and collect a bunch of sound effects to use. This will include menu sounds as well as battle sounds. We will also recruit voice actors to voice our intrepid heroes. Voice clips will include; selection quotes, entrance banter, grunts and exertions, attack quotes, victory quotes, etc.

Characters
There will be at the very least 16 characters playable in the game, those being the 4 kids and the 12 trolls. Since Bec Noir is the biggest villain in the story, it's likely he will be playable as well. Additional characters will possibly be DLC, either officially made or fan-made, created after the release of the final version.

There will be no costumes off the bat as each new costume is essentially a new character and with each character possibly having upwards of 1000 frames of animation, it's a LOT of work for a small team. Costumes aren't entirely ruled out though. Like mentioned in the above paragraph, costumes can possibly be DLC, either officially made or fan-made, created after the release of the final version.

But since the character art will be aliased, indexed art, there will definitely be multiple palettes/colors per character, ala every other 2d fighting game.

Milestone 1
The first publicly released demo to be released will be pretty light on content as it'll only contain:

Full movement and attack sets
Rudimentary network play
4 playable characters - John, Karkat, Rose, Vriska
3 stages - 1 gimmick free, 1 with damage and movement gimmicks, 1 being a closed cage

It'll be considered an Alpha, so there should be plenty of room for improvement, as indicated by you, the community.

Current Focus
Our current focus is getting the demo down. PLEASE don't discuss anything unless it's relevant to our current milestone.

Staff

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-18-2011, 06:02 PM

All current movesets can be found in the wiki.

Originally Posted by frozenMeatpopsicle

Okay, here's a list of all the voice auditions we've got so far, but note that if you auditioned but your name isn't listed here, it's because the links were broken.

Okay, here they are:

This list is for people who sent in auditions for multiple characters in a single video/track. Don't ignore these.

Give opinions and stuff guys. I'll compile all opinions as they come.

**IrukutheNinja** · 04-18-2011, 08:37 PM

http://www.sendspace.com/file/b5g4lc

I made this since I have nothing better to do.

**idioticRanter** · 04-18-2011, 08:41 PM

Originally Posted by IrukutheNinja

http://www.sendspace.com/file/b5g4lc

I made this since I have nothing better to do.

What on Alternia?

Anyways...

Did shit just get real?

**lief** · 04-18-2011, 11:48 PM

Figured I'd make an account and offer my services, assuming you are still doing this using vector art, if you give me a rough idea of what you want drawn I'm competent at using inkscape... I suppose I could use whatever the adobe equivalent is if needed but yeah, just offering. Pesterchum handle is technicalParadox

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-19-2011, 12:47 AM

That looks good Iruku. Nice motion planning. Needs tweaking and such so I'll chuck it on the pile of ideas.

@lief: While technically it is vector art at some point, at the moment I'm actually using Toon Boom Animate and a graphics tablet to hand draw the characters. Then it all gets exported out as bitmap images. I don't want a vector look, I want it looking hand drawn and organic like the comic, except high res and anti-aliased. I appreciate the offer of help though.

**lief** · 04-19-2011, 02:12 AM

Fair enough, if you want me to do anything let me know, I'm a mediocre artist if you want me to hand draw anything... I mean, I have a tablet and I can probably get the aforementioned program.

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-19-2011, 03:14 AM

For the demo I'll be animating the characters 100% all by myself, that way I can set a style and quality standard, then after that I'll get people to help with inbetweening and whatnot.

Which brings me to a new point.

Recuitment Announcement

We're currently looking for people to take the role of Stage Director and Music/SFX Director. They will essentially organize the resources for those respective departments, ie. sorting out the stages, and collecting/organizing the music and sound effects. These department directors will of course have to work smoothly with Darlos and I, since ultimately the buck still stops with us.

**Frost** · 04-19-2011, 05:54 AM

How is this going to be programmed, out of curiosity? That's a pretty demanding list of requirements in your op (full portability, fast enough to run at full resolution, cross-platform networking and gamepad support).

Java would solve all your portability problems (when it works), but I'm not certain it's fast enough to reliably render 1080p at 30-60fps. Nepetaquest is 480p (technically 240p), and the graphics rendering (bitmaps only, no vectors, no scaling, no rotation) is still a major speed bottleneck. I'm also pretty certain that Java won't let you make your game fullscreen, although that might have changed in a recent version.

C++ would most definitely be fast enough on computers with a half-decent graphics card, but it has some fairly major portability problems; you're never going to be as productive as in Java while still maintaining portability, not without writing wrapper classes around some good C libraries.

C would be fast and portable enough, but good luck finding somebody willing to program a fully-featured game in C. For both C and C++, you'd need to have access to programmers willing to recompile the same codebase on three different platforms, which would be difficult to find in the first place and turn each release into an organisational nightmare.

I guess Game Maker just might be able to handle 1080p, but it doesn't meet your portability requirements.

**Darlos9D** · 04-19-2011, 08:44 AM

My plans are the same as horosphere's were back in the old thread: C++ and SDL, plus whatever else I need to tack on in the future. SDL will enable cross-platform stuff, whatever resolutions we want, and even audio. So it's pretty win.

The only thing I'm currently unsure about is how I'm going to accomplish networking, but I'll figure that out. Maybe I can get in bed with these guys. They seem pretty popular and well-respected these days. The new fighting game Skullgirls (hasn't been released yet) is apparently going to use their net code because it's supposedly VERY good. Better than anything Capcom or Arc System Works has put out.

Long story short, I have everything under control. You don't need to worry.

**Frost** · 04-19-2011, 09:01 AM

In that case, just a word of warning, prompted by... how many hours has it been? Something like twenty hours of work and three weeks of delays to port Nepetaquest's room editor from Linux to Windows.

Don't use third-party C++ libraries. As it turns out, C++ isn't as portable as it should be; exceptions, in particular, often expose a completely different ABI based on the compiler with which they were created. I've just had to recompile about twenty large libraries from scratch (using the pretty-darn-weak MSYS compatability layer) because the only available precompiled versions wouldn't play nicely with a slightly different version of the exact same compiler.

Stick to C libraries. Writing custom wrapper classes will be a pain, but it'll save you a hell of a lot of agony down the road.

SDL_net seems like a reliable (if very basic) networking library, by the way.

**Darlos9D** · 04-19-2011, 09:20 AM

SDL is written in C, not C++.

**Shimbels** · 04-19-2011, 10:01 AM

I am volunteering to work on the stages. I can provide rough drawings of the stages and design them, so I think I fit the bill on that score.

In regards to sound, i thought we were using the music provided in the albums? Obviously we can't always do that since, for example, there is no (listenable) SBAHJ anthem, but I think we are mainly sorted out on that score. Sound effects are harder, but I'm sure there are numerous voice actors that wold love to provide grunts and unhs.

**Gana0** · 04-19-2011, 03:45 PM

I could maybe probably help with artwork or sprites for characters. Maybe.

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-19-2011, 04:16 PM

@Frost: Oops, I should have been clearer. I mean that that game will be scalable up to HD. It would be silly to have it ONLY in HD. My bad.

@Shimbels; Your welcome to run either department. As for sound/music, the Director of that department will probably be more about organising and collecting the resources than creating them. Though it would be a plus to have a musically inclined person to fill any resource gaps that we can't simply seek out.

@Gana0: The more the merrier. We'll keep you posted.

**TheifofTruth** · 04-19-2011, 04:17 PM

For the music, I could give some guitar parts, cause strifing just needs some heavy metal.

**Leowilliam** · 04-19-2011, 06:03 PM

i will help you guys with images from the comic for stage and anything you need

**S0upNBread** · 04-19-2011, 06:20 PM

This project looks extremely promising and I'd love to help out with testing if you ever need help on that. Although I'm not too big of a Smash player(play melee casually with friends), I do happen to play Guilty and MvC2 competitively and dabble in just about every other fighter out there. Although I'm curious as if you will go with Melee's more weighty feel or Brawl's floaty feel.

I'm kind of curious on how moves of similar priority will cancel out, since the way it's worded on the wiki makes it seem like moves will have some sort of 'priority' number. This is slightly concerning since priority is technically just a relation to the move's hitbox size and placement, ie. Tron's fire assist in MvC3 would be considered high priority due to the large damage hitbox and the small and low damageable hitbox plus other things like invincibility frames and whatnot.

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-19-2011, 06:38 PM

@TheifofTruth: When we need to make original music, we'll let you know.

@Leowilliam: Help with stages will be wanted, especially since I'm strictly a character animator.

@S0upNBread: I'll say we're going for Melee as opposed to Brawl, as we want a smooth, fast-paced game. I'm not sure about priority. I was going to suggest using damage as the main variable, so higher damage hitboxes will go through weaker ones, and equal strength ones will simply clash. I don't know how it should work, so it's something we can play with.

**Darlos9D** · 04-19-2011, 06:43 PM

We'll probably have things moving at a more Melee speed since I think that matches up better with the other traditional fighter elements present in the game.

I haven't thought too much about attack priority. I figure it'd just be an issue of relative hitboxes, like you're saying. There will be reversals that are fully invuln on startup, anti-airs with upper body invulnerability, and maybe even some "anti-from-below-airs" with lower body invulnerability since you can be attacked by people below your current platform. (shit I forgot about that, we need to think about that)

**Shimbels** · 04-20-2011, 03:52 AM

Originally Posted by frozenMeatpopsicle

@Shimbels; Your welcome to run either department. As for sound/music, the Director of that department will probably be more about organising and collecting the resources than creating them. Though it would be a plus to have a musically inclined person to fill any resource gaps that we can't simply seek out.

Am I right in thinking our gimmick-free stage is to be LOWAS? Personally I would rather not have it as that, as I think it would be a good idea to have the plain arena stage as the final unlockable stage, and I think maybe Beat Mesa or The Battlefield fits better as a sort of final stage.

**Leowilliam** · 04-20-2011, 05:11 AM

Idea: If you play with Jade, you can use Bec powers to teleport to other stages

**double-b** · 04-20-2011, 05:23 AM

His air mobility is no-frills. He has a double jump, and that's it. No air-dash or flight.

John is the Heir of Breath, with his god tier abilities revolving around controlling wind. His air mobility should be incredible since he can pretty much fly. He should have either air-dashing or some form of flight.

**frozenMeatpopsicle** · 04-20-2011, 05:48 AM

@Shimbels: Our demo gimmick free stage doesn't necessarily have to be the flat, no-frills, "Final Destination". Probably something along the lines of a "Battlefield"(not the Homestuck one) would be more appropriate. You know, "Final Destination" with a couple of floating platforms.

As for the "Final Destination" stage itself, I feel this one seems the most appropriate.

Anyway, if you want to take the role of Stage Director, it'll mostly be up to you anyway.

@Leowilliams: Interesting idea. I'd rather use it as a "Jade's House" stage than something involving the character herself.

@double-b: Technically John never truly got control of his windy powers until he went God Tier, and God Tier will only been seen in his Final Flip-out, so...

**Darlos9D** · 04-20-2011, 09:17 AM

@double-b & frozen: You know, I'd actually like to include some wind powers with John here and there. Sure we're not drawing John as god tier, but you know what, people will likely want to be able to play with his wind powers and I think we should provide that, for more than just a super attack. Does it make sense if we go by strict story canon? No. But nether does all the characters coming together to senselessly beat the crap out of each other. Just like most fighting games, this thing runs on Rule of Cool. As such, we should just do whatever the hell we want. Really the only standard should be "is the character capable of X thing SOMEwhere in the story?" If the answer is "yes" then X thing is viable for adding to their set of abilities in this game, even if it's seemingly incongruous with other things according to the story.

So yeah, I actually agree with double-b that John should actually have at least somewhat above-average air control. Definitely at least an air dash, and maybe even possibly an 8-way dash. Also perhaps a temporary flight mode activated by some kind of command, like some characters in MvC3 have. It wouldn't actually be that broken, considering how much I imagine the other characters flipping all over the place.

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