Some years ago during my university days I realised that MAGES never really tried to make a project like this happen. The most they tried was with Phantom Breaker, but they didn't maximise the potential of what a "SciADV Fighting Game" could be. Not only it was very bare-bones with its game design, but also, Omnia clearly not having a good enough budget in order to compete in the modern market (didn't even launch with Rollback net-code after all) killed the project on release.
And even so, fundamentally from Phantom Breaker's original release only using Rimi and Kurisu as guest characters rather than a full roster of beloved characters makes it so there's not enough interest from the fanbase both old and new.
Being a programmer and aspiring indie dev I decided I wanted to try my hand at doing a little prototyping for this idea basing myself off of the design of French Bread and ArcSystemWorks' game design (think Melty Blood, Blazblue, Guilty Gear).
It took me a while to actually understand the inner workings of a fighting game (being a fan of many myself but never having programmed one) so it took a lot of iterations to get to a comfortable place. First trying to recreate Miyako Arima in Unity, I realised that modern game engines that are usually good for prototyping aren't necessarily good for the deterministic game design that a fighting game needs.
Then looking at how the MUGEN/IKEMEN community implements things I understood much better how the game would work programmatically. I ended up settling on Unreal Engine but working with a framework called "UF2D" by Leon which aims to port a lot of functionality from IKEMEN over to UE with its own original quirks. This helped me jump quickly into designing system mechanics, being faithful to an "airdasher"/"anime fighter" and testing of things since the framework helped tons with getting the fundamental functionalities down. I started testing the waters by recreating the basic moveset of Aoko Aozaki this time around. Which you can see in the following video:
As you can see, some of Aoko's animations are already with some test Suzuha animations. The original idea was to create a fully playable Suzuha as the main attraction of the prototype (I started off with her S;G0 design, but ultimately decided to change it to a new original design that would also fit animation standards), and make some dummy character that would eventually become the second playable character. At first it was Takumi but then I decided on changing it to Luka for some reasons relating my vision of their archetypes and effort needed for asset production (I'll get into it later but boiling it down, my vision of Takumi would be way more effort compared to Luka).
I'm no illustrator much less an animator, even though I've tried it before, so I've got the help of a friend to do some mockup animations and HUD designs. We've also done original designs for these two as you see, while trying to keep faithful to their characters that we love so much (Yes Suzuha is hiding a pistol in her pocket).
The weird colors that you see on Suzuha serve as a sort of "base palette" so the engine can later assign pixel color freely.
This is for a system that I would like to eventually implement if the prototype becomes a proper project. It would make it so people could create their own custom palettes for each character making it possible to express yourself as a player. For example, Luka's labcoat/cape would be a perfect place if you wanted to "color in" a flag. Unreal Engine has a system that helps with this, but the vision is to also make the system user friendly for players in-game and making it so people can share their palettes with each other.
Here you can see Suzuha with a bit of Aoko's palette without me changing the color map (the horror).
However, recently-ish I've hit a bit of a wall for the prototype. I realised that I really need someone that's well versed in not only pixel-perfect art, but also animation (ideally for fighting games) which is kind of a super niche craft not gonna lie. Even though the character's movesets would be heavily referenced from characters in other games, it is still VERY hard to animate frame by frame. And even with the help of my dear friend which is NOT an animator (sorry for putting you through hell) creating these new designs and attempting to animate them has been taking a lot of time off our lives that we aren't really able to keep up for long, as life becomes complicated and we have responsibilities to take care of (especially of the monetary kind, im broke LMAO).
This plus Unreal Engine deprecating some systems with its new version coming soon next year (which might or might not affect the prototype greatly), I've started wondering if I should just let go of the idea and move onto greener fields in my chase of releasing an indie project, or if there's genuine interest in making this a reality. I know I would like to play a game like this at least, it's why I started in the first place.
So instead of leaving on a negative note, I pass the ball onto the community with some questions and topics for the sake of discussion.
Would you play a SciADV fighting game?
If so, are you a hardcore fighting game player? Or just someone who wants to have a little fun with a game like this? And what are your expectations from such a game considering that?
Would you look forward to an original community-made story as a fan tribute to the series?
If so, should the community write this story "Death of the Author" style? I.e. an attempt at interpreting and connecting the franchise in a satisfying manner without attempting to overwrite the series' "canonicity".
Would you be OK with certain characters in the roster having the potential of "spoiling" major plot-points in the series?
Would you be willing to consider supporting/working on a project like this if you had a demo you could play and try out yourself?
And also for the fighting game heads out there, here's some concepts and archetypes I have for some of the roster:
Nishijou Takumi - Moveset unlocker style character, with difficult to pull off insta kill (inspirations: BBCF Susanoo, Fate UC Archer, DBFZ Gogeta SS4)
Sakihata Rimi - Reinterpretation of her Phantom Breaker design. Delusion system with resource charge mechanic. (BBCF Tsubaki)
Kishimoto Ayase - Rhythm game gimmick (P4AU Rise)
Okabe Rintaro - Reinterpretation of Phantom Breaker Kurisu, but edgier and mechanics relating Divergence/Time Leap and undoing cause&effect. (JoJo's Diavolo, Xrd Bedman)
Makise Kurisu - Mid-to-Fullscreen Zoner with Amadeus clones and install super with the Amaterasu Kurisu concept from that one seasonal event. (BBCF android girls, Izayoi, Izanami)
Shiina Mayuri - Setup character with Robo Upa pet that you control at the same time (XX/Xrd/ST Zato-1)
Faris NyanNyan - Maid swap archetype with maid Mayuri, one is mixup heavy, one is trap/setup heavy (MB Maids)
Yashio Kaito - All rounder "shoto" with assists. Kai controlling an AR projection of Gunvarrel. Aki controlling TanegashiMachine (SF Ryu, GG Sol, DBFZ style A,B,C assists)
Hidaka Subaru & Daitoku Junna - Separately they would be their own version of a puppet character (BBCF Carl & Relius, JoJo's HftF stand system)
Yuta Gamon - Always wants to be airborne, setup heavy, high speeds, screen teleports. Playing off the ghost mechanics with a "damage mitigation" stance. (Xrd Raven / Chipp / Answer)
Takuru Miyashiro - Balance between Positive and Negative delusions gimmick for different attack properties in moveset. (GGST Nagoriyuki)
Kagari - Assault Rifle and Machete, Berserker type character, super scary when they get on their special state. Super defensive when not.(XX/ST ABA but also a little of TL Vlov)
Daru - Hacker type grappler. Can debuff you under the right circumstances as setup for easier big damage grappling. (BBCF Tager, GG Potemkin, ST Lucy kinda)
Takaoka Pollon - Hacker rushdown. Can disable your moveset and steal system mechanic resources for himself, mixup heavy.
Ah and if you're wondering about the first two:
Suzuha would be an ammo management and ammo enhancement kind of character, think Eltnam in Uni2 with Type Lumina Aoko's kicks and knife attacks like Terumi in BBCF. Obviously more delusion based armaments would come into play and things like her trusty bike as special/super moves.
Luka would be a stance based odachi character like GG Johnny and Uni2 Yuzuriha, with shinto seals as projectiles, having parries, cutting projectiles with the sword and some stuns with a Gohei staff.
I feel like I could really turn anyone in the series into a playable character, and don't even get me started on the antagonists!
Still, If I missed a favorite of yours, don't worry, I've probably considered them and already have at least a rough draft of their archetype, I even had to simplify my notes for everyone that's listed on here! I didn't type everyone out in full detail out here because I would make this post way longer than it already is, maybe I should consider making a question form and design document in the future to showcase the vision for the project if there's enough interest... But yeah... I could be here legit forever talking about this stuff.
Well, thank you for the read through, and let me know your thoughts, maybe tell your friends and have discussion about it too!
All in all, from what I've gauged over the years, there's not much of an interest in the community for a project like this BUT It's still nice to talk about it from time to time because fighting games are quite a strong passion of mine (and SciADV too).
If I leave the prototype as it is so be it, it was still fruitful for my own knowledge on game dev.
But if there is legitimate interest out there, then let me know! It would definitely make me more determined to keep refining the prototype to a state where it could be shared as a "proof of concept" and played by people to perhaps push this into a bigger project! At that stage I would be very open for people to put their own work into the game, be it code, design, writing, sound/music, animation, fan illustrations, translation & localization, etc. making it a true fan tribute.
Looking forward to all of your fruitful observations,
El Psy Kongroo.
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