McLeodGaming, the studio behind the Super Smash Flash series of Smash fan games, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for an original platform fighter titled Fraymakers. First teased with a title reveal in October, Fraymakers is an all-new indie crossover platform fighter with built-in modding tools. The campaign is set to run until December 17th, 2020 and has a goal of $46,000, which they reached in their first three hours.
The game is set to feature a roster of six playable characters, consisting of Welltaro from Downwell, Commander Video from the BIT.TRIP series, the Watcher from Slay the Spire, Octodad from the series of the same name, Ultra Fishbunjin 3000 from Ittle Dew and Slap City and Orcane from Rivals of Aether. While this roster is relatively small, it will also be bolstered by a variety of guest assist characters, featuring everything from indie gaming icons like The Kid from I Wanna Be the Guy, Fancy Pants Man from the Fancy Pants series, Captain Viridian from VVVVVV and the Newgrounds Tankman to deeper cuts like Aine from Renaine, Pizza from Chicory and Birthday from King of the Hat. These assists can be called upon once you've filled a meter by dealing damage to your opponent.
Fraymakers is also set to include five stages, each with a hazards-on mode geared for casual play and a hazards-off mode for competitive play. Judging by early footage, the difference seems closer to the difference between Rivals of Aether's Basic and Aether stage modes than it is to Smash Ultimate's stage hazard toggle, with some stages having completely different layouts between their hazards-off and hazards-on modes. The game will also feature a soundtrack from Super Soul Bros., with two tracks—a BIT.TRIP medley and an Octodad medley—available on their Soundcloud page already.
In terms of gameplay, McLeodGaming is targeting the same sort of fast, freeform feel the platform fighter genre is known for. Unlike Super Smash Flash 2, their previous platform fighter outing, Fraymakers will run at 60 frames per second, as is typical for the genre, and will feature a homegrown rollback netcode solution. There are also a few tweaks to the game's core mechanics meant to set it apart from Smash. Air dodges have been replaced with air dashes, which can be canceled into attacks at any time. Shields only cover the front of the character, meaning crossups are possible like in traditional fighters. Fraymakers also features parries, universal counters performed by pressing shield and special at the same time.
Fraymakers will also come with FrayTools, a toolkit to aid in developing custom content, consisting of the very same tools McLeodGaming built to develop their own official Fraymakers content. Not only will it be possible to create custom characters, stages and items in FrayTools, but also custom menus and game modes as well. It's designed to be robust enough to serve as a general 2D game development workflow, complete with plugins for exporting content to other engines, but also intuitive enough that someone without programming experience can learn the ropes quickly.
McLeodGaming also has a few stretch goals lined up, including an additional character, stage and song at $60,000 raised. The other stretch goals, whose funding goals have not been announced yet, include another four stages, alternate soundtracks from FamilyJules and OCRemix, and several mystery goals that have yet to be revealed. Pledge rewards include an early copy of the game, a digital art book, in-game cosmetics and custom sketches and sprites from the game's artists.
Fraymakers is set to enter early access by early 2022.
Credits:
Graphics (McLeodGaming)