[Candescence]

If anyone complains about this not being Sonic or Sega related, it's still gonna be at SAGE. And I'm pretty sure this isn't the first non-Sonic game to end up here.


 
So, this is a thing I've been working on lately, as part of an effort to build up a mutiplayer platform engine in Construct 2, as well as experimenting with new methods of conveying narrative that don't rely on non-interactivity. I intend on releasing a demo for SAGE, with a single-player demo and a multiplayer mode capable of supporting up to four players.
 
As a Construct 2 game, the demo will be playable in all HTML5/WebGL-capable browsers. But, thanks to the power of Node-Webkit, there are also Windows, Mac and Linux executables if you prefer that.
 
Screenshots:
 
Work in progress, obviously, just to note.

Spoiler

 
Overiew
 
Digimon: Heroic Battle Spirit, made in Construct 2, is a fan-made 'expansion' on the three Digimon: Battle Spirit fighting games for the Wonderswan/GBA made by Dimps, one of which, Battle Spirit 1.5, never left Japan. The idea is to include nearly every existing playable character from the first two games at least, hopefully add more fighters from more recent Digimon series (Digimon Savers/Data Squad and Digimon Xros Wars/Fusion) , enable four-player multiplayer, and include a special Metroidvania-like story mode with innovative narrative mechanics that attempt to do away with the need for cutscenes in most cases.
 
The demo is an attempt to demonstrate a basic idea of the direction being taken for both single-player and multiplayer. It's not exactly 'polished', nor 'balanced', but very much playable.
 
Playable Characters
 
In the demo, there are three playable Digimon - Agumon, Gabumon, and Renamon, each with unique movesets.
 

 
Okay, that's not quite true - there's a fourth character, but he's not a Digimon - a special guest fighter for the demo. I'll be unveiling him when SAGE opens.
 
Story Mode Synopsis
 
The first thing you remember is waking up in a cell in a dungeon.
 

 
You manage to escape, but you find yourself in a castle filled with strange machines you've never seen before that are hostile to your presence.
 

 
And to make it worse, there's no way out... Without treading a lot of water. And you sincerely doubt you can swim that far.
 

 
An exploration of the castle finds you battling an old enemy, but even he is subservient to a greater power. Without your partner, you're left alone trying to figure out how to escape the castle, where he and your friends have gone, and who imprisoned you in the first place...

• Open-ended environments inspired by the likes of Metroid and its many imitators.
  
• Multiple characters with different abilities.
  
• Sub-weapons that augment your character's fighting abilites.
  
• A 'narrative button' that provides dialogue options ala Mass Effect, but in real-time, with an adjustable slow-down effect.
  
• A 'look' mechanic reminiscent of old-school adventure games.
  
• An adjustable, zoomable camera system that accommodates any number of screen resolutions.
  
• A 'fog of war' system that hides unexplored areas, and fogs explored but unoccupied areas.
  
• Beware, not all boss enemies will be content to sit around and let you walk up to their doorstep, and some may start hunting you on their own volition...
  
• Possible extra for later on: 4-player co-op.

Multiplayer
 

• Fully-featured classic Battle Spirit gameplay, now with 4 players! (In the future, depending on what happens with Steam Controllers and online multiplayer support in Construct 2, up to 16 players might be supported.)
  
• Dynamic camera system that keeps every combatant on-screen.

 
What about the future?
 
Well, what happens in the future is going to be a bit interesting. Right now, with this demo, I'm pretty much limited entirely to existing game assets (and not just from Digimon games) and open-source assets, which are both neat, but they have their limitations. Long story short, if I want to really complete this game as I envision it, I'll need help. Aside from presenting a demo, I'm using SAGE as a platform to advertise for artists and other people who are interested in making this whole thing work.
 
Primarily, I'm looking for an artist(s), an optional plural, because I intend to redo as many assets from scratch as possible, from level art to character animations. The existing assets are great, but I don't really want to be restricted to what there is right now, if I want to expand the gameplay, for example (the existing sprites were designed for a rather simple fighting game, let's be honest), not to mention I want a consistent art style across the board, which is important. And I'd like to be able to have higher-quality art assets, which would be neat.
 
What I'm mainly looking at for animation work is the program Spriter, by Brashmonkey. It's tech that is similar to what is used in games like Rayman Origins/Legends, and anything Vannilaware's done (Odin Sphere, Muramasa, Dragon's Crown, etc), and when the tool is used properly, the results can look superb. As well, animations can be created and tweaked much more easily than traditional animation, scaled better, enables character customization, heavily reduces RAM usage, includes support for stuff like collision rectangles, and already has native Construct 2 support. I like traditional animation as much as anyone, but I'd like to save my time and my artist's time when it comes to creating assets, animations, and iterating on them. If nothing else, Spriter is great for easily prototyping animations.
 
Still, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I've got a demo to finish!

[Hinchy]

Oh, this is interesting! I was a big Digimon fan back in the day and I played the original GBA release a ton.
I had no idea that Dimps made it! (God, they were so much better back then...)
Anyway, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this. Keep up the good work.

EDIT: This really probably should be in Creative Works, rather than Sonic and Sega General > Fangaming Discussion.

This post has been edited by Hinchy: 15 February 2014 - 02:21 PM

[Covarr]

Hinchy, on 15 February 2014 - 02:18 PM, said:

I had no idea that Dimps made it! (God, they were so much better back then...)

It's not that they've gotten worse, they just never really understood Sonic. When they do fighting games they tend to do a pretty good job.

[Candescence]

Yeah, maybe creative works might be a better place, but... Oh, well.

Anyhow... Video previews of Heroic Battle Spirit!

Unfortunately, Camtasia decided to degrade the quality just a bit for no real reason, but oh well.





Enjoy!

[Candescence]

No comments? You're breaking my heart, everyone :p
 
But in all seriousness... Moar screenshots. Say hello to Kazemon, who is now the fifth playable fighter!
 
Just a note, she has an additional Down+Attack move, like in Battle Spirit 2, which sorta makes up for the fact that her projectile has limited range. Her inability to carry and throw objects/other fighters has, thankfully, vindicated my decision to not implement that for this demo (well, aside from the fact that the throw move is broken right now).
 

 
And, in addition, I've made some cosmetic changes to the speech bubbles and how the bubbles that aren't specific to any on-screen character are displayed. The font in particular is no longer a sprite font, it looks comparatively boring, but I won't lie, it's infinitely more readable, and I'd rather have dialogue as readable as possible over looking fancy.
 
Also, the dialogue wheel also looks a bit boring, but it's way less shittier than the original placeholder. Still a placeholder, but it has 24 slots, now rather than the typical eight.
 

 
 
Anyhow, having played Battle Spirit 2/Frontier, my need for an artist is increasingly apparent, if partly because the gameplay changes between the original Battle Spirit 1/1.5 and 2/Frontier make characters from either sets incompatible with each other. In Frontier, characters don't so much have a 'throw' mechanic as they do have a special move that has mostly the same function, but there's no items that can be picked up. Oh, and there's the Down+Attack move that wasn't in 1.5.
 
In addition, the evolution mechanic throws away the need for Calumon (who was basically a Smash Ball long before that was even a thing, except you simply needed to touch him), which prevents evolution from turning into what is basically a "wreck your opponent" mechanic by basically turning it into a variant of what could basically be described as a mixture of a super meter and a Devil Trigger mechanic, by only having your character rapidly evolve into Beast Form/Perfect Level when performing a move. Oh, and there's a hyper meter (filled by collecting 'diamonds') that, when full, enables a hyper move - get your opponent caught in it, and your character goes Mega/Ultimate, and wrecks them so hard that 15 points worth of spheres gets sent flying. Which is something of a huge deal.
 
So, yeah. I'll probably spend the next couple of days, trying to polish things a bit, no real new additions.

This post has been edited by Candescence: 20 February 2014 - 02:26 PM

[ashthedragon]

This is soo cool! I'm a huge Digimon fan, and the original Battle Spirit games were one of my favourite. I'll download the SAGE demo and play a lot, I'm sure! PD: Is Guilmon coming to the roster soon? He is my favourite