While finishing BlastRaptor, their attacks and projectiles weren't working. I didn't know why. Tried for hours to fix it, couldn't get them working, I had no one to ask at the time and I got super pissed off at being hard stopped.
Refusing to not make progress, I threw my hands up and started working on another character concept I had if I wasn't gonna progress Blast. After a 14 hour Aseprite session; when the other characters took one or two weeks, I finished the fourth character completely!
And right after that I realized Blast wasn't working because I forgot to switch a flag that defined the moves as an attack.
I love coding.
Once they were all done, I nabbed a friend to play online with me using Ikemen's network features.
Turns out when your characters are full of placeholder values, values based on vibes, things that sounded good on paper, and with no ability to test them against competent AI, you see a whole lotta issues.
(Also we unknowingly played on the delay-based netcode build of Ikemen which resulted in a lot of lag and dropped inputs.)
But but but but but but.
I had fun. I really did. Seeing all of this come together was a power trip.
It made me reflect on how I wanna approach this. I realized that starting with four characters from the start meant that there wasn't much of a baseline to balance around. Cleeve, despite being designed as the standard, wasn't developed enough that the other characters could be adjusted in relation. That play session was a MESS.
Mirror matches specifically were fun as hell though and nailed the gameplay I was looking for.
SO. My plan for right now? Get Cleeve up to snuff. Everything from frame data, velocities, base movement height and speeds, how long invincibility lasts, all that, get it sorted, then move on to the other characters and get them to Cleeve's standard. Then we see where we go from there.
All this yapping wouldn't be interesting without any gameplay footage though, right?
You can watch the matches we played here!
Fair warning, its kinda jank. Jank I found fun, but jank.
As for Elephanny, the fourth character, I'd rather elaborate on them in another post. You can see their gameplay in the link above, but their design is unique (and personally fun) enough that I want to talk about it at length on a post that isn't already long as hell.
though I already said I was chipping away at it in another post I wanted it to have a slightly more formal introduction
Memento Melee, which was a name that I was throwing around that became the official title, is a Bearsus inspired two button fighter developed in the Ikemen engine, a continuation of the ever so popular Mugen engine.
there's no meter, no supers, and no combos as every hit knocks you down without the ability to be juggled, making every match a test of pure player fundamentals
Bearsus was a one of a kind game for me that scratched an itch that Divekick personally couldn't. It felt like a lot of the fluff was taken out and the bare essentials of what makes a fighting game appealing to me were all that was left. Movement, neutral, Footsies, the ability to play as whoever the hell you want; I loved that, and always have about fighting games in particular.
Being able to get a friend knowing how the game works after a match or so was refreshing. They spent less time tripping over themselves trying to understand the controls and the mechanics and more time playing. Usually the skill gap prevents either of us from having any sort of fun, but the skill floor and ceiling were so low that I was fighting them at what was, for now, their best, with all the skill expression that comes with it.
All of the art so far has been drawn by me. I ain't the best artist which is why the artstyle is the way it is, but I like it.
The coding template for the two button style was done by dionednd, someone I met in the Ikemen Discord server who's made several useful modules for the engine already. While he supplied the template, the coding of the attacks themselves have also been me, who is very lucky that the game is so simple.
With what I know now, I can make the roster of characters I intend to, but the real question is whether or not I get to that point or whether or not I suffer from scope creep. As of this writing, I don't know how to do grabs or unique hit reactions which, for the grabs, I can live without as I don't have anyone that uses those on the drawing board, and for the unique reactions, would be nice but are ultimately cosmetic.
With that out of the way, why not introduce the three starting characters?
Cleeve
The sword wielding wolf.
Drawn on a whim one day as I was trying to decide what I wanted the artstyle of the project to even be. Due to immense personal bias and being the first character I actually finished the sprites for, they've sorta been the mascot for the game as a whole.
Was throwing around designs in Aseprite. Cleeve was the second one made and the one I got attached to for some reason.
Drawn 4-9-2026
They have a sword. They swing it at you. Simple enough, right? Cleeve's meant to be the character you go for when you want to keep it simple or you want to get your bearings when you first boot up the game.
Moboss
Fatty fat fat FAT fish. Fatass.
Everyone can see what's on this account; if I didn't have a fat fuck on the roster you'd best assume I got kidnapped.
Unlike Cleeve, Moboss is more meant for being in the opponent's face and being annoying as much as possible. Sort of the joke character of the three in presentation.
BlastRaptor
oh god the zoner
That's right, the zoner. You're gonna get shot in the face then it'll happen again.
Projectile from the back, to the front, from under your bed.
These three are the ones I intend to be available in the first public release. All of them have the art done necessary to be playable, but as of this writing, BlastRaptor only has one attack implemented codewise. Even then, I wanted everyone to have unique attack landing animations if it was necessary but that'll have to wait for now.
I don't usually reveal stuff like this until substantial progress has been made and is solid buuuuut some people already have the characters as they are now. Not saying they'd leak or that there's something to hide but I'd rather you hear it from here first, y'know?
Anyway.
Who knows where this project goes? Don't wanna say it's gonna be the next Tekken killer or anything. Don't wanna make promises I can't keep either. For now though, 3 playable characters and a stage to put them on. That's the goal. If it goes further than that? Hell yeah. If it doesn't? I can at least say I tried.
