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Scribble Scramble - An Isometric Indie Crossover Fighting Game!

How loose should the nomination rules be?


  • Total voters
    11
  • Poll closed .

DragonRobotKing26

Smash Champion
Joined
Sep 26, 2021
Messages
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Earth-201769
Job 4: Cross Fighters

my idea for a title name is Cross Fight, and i was thinking on adding "Indie" on the title,but i think that could be cliché, and i was thinking that the title could be like the Fraymakers or Cross Impact

Job 5: 35 Fighters + a Random Slot

and for the roster,i think that could be 35 fighterswith a random slot, same from Smash
 
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KneeOfJustice99

Smash Champion
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Oct 29, 2018
Messages
2,296
Location
the building from smash mouth's astro lounge
Gameplay Discussion - Seems like a decent moveset to work with! The general vibe seems decent enough, though it'd be nice to see a more dedicated template around which character movesets should be proposed. One thing to note about Battle specifically is that there's actually not too many attacks to worry about - normals are limited to a multi-hit jab, a powerful anti-air "upper", a single aerial and a dedicated "pursuit" attack, while there's only three specials to worry about - so I do have to wonder if this is a little overdeveloped? Though, overall, not too many complaints. That aside, the idea of the hand-drawn look could be a lot of fun to work with, especially if we lean into a cute hand-crafted look.

Job #04 - I'm very deliberately going to just put this out there; I don't think we should have the word "indie" in the title of the game, like DRK26 pointed out. It just kind of feels... iffy, to me, somehow. With that in mind, I'll suggest something fairly unoffensive - Kitbash Clash, the idea being to capture the hand-crafted look while still giving a sort of "combative" feel.

Job #05 - ...perhaps controversially, I'm going to suggest that the game's actual playable roster should be pretty limited. Specifically; only thirteen playable characters (with five of them being unlockable, perhaps being more "unusual" either mechanically or otherwise?), and up to five being non-playable. The reasons for this are twofold.
  1. I think the Sonic Battle framework gives us a unique opportunity to maybe approach a loose story mode of sorts? It absolutely doesn't have to be some kind of sprawling narrative, but the different battles you'd have against mooks or even a boss in Battle feels like something it'd be neat to bring over. Of course, the Guard Robos and E-121 Phis you fight in that game are just reskins of Chaos Gamma and Emerl respectively - so, a quartet of "mooks" (each from a different series) coupled with a singular boss character of some kind feels like it'd be a lot of fun. Beyond that... it helps us expand a game's representation beyond just a character, a stage, and some music!
  2. Also, I feel like a lot of indie fan rosters trend toward being way too sprawling for their own good. It leads to them becoming almost... samey (as though checking boxes to see if every "icon" is present), but also kind of loses the appeal of capturing an indie project in terms of scope, too. If we look at other indie crossover titles, something like Fraymakers only has a small handful of playable characters - but each character plays their own role within the game in terms of function and style, so it really gives Fraymakers its own vibe compared to competitors like, say, Indie Pogo. Being able to really look at how the characters we pick would interact with one another, both mechanically and thematically, could be a lot of fun to explore... rather than just making the roster look like we browsed Gamespot by the "indie" tag and picked the most common games to come up.
Obviously a story mode is a big thing to propose, even if I'd very deliberately suggest it shouldn't be too major of a focus (compared to something like Battle, where it felt really drawn out.) Just, with a smaller-scale cast and taking more direct inspiration from the game we're already taking our gameplay from, it could be fun to explore that kind of thing. And hey, depending on what our roster looks like, I'm sure we'll end up with plenty of fun ideas for interactions.
 
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Bölverkaizer

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
Gameplay Discussion - Seems like a decent moveset to work with! The general vibe seems decent enough, though it'd be nice to see a more dedicated template around which character movesets should be proposed. One thing to note about Battle specifically is that there's actually not too many attacks to worry about - normals are limited to a multi-hit jab, a powerful anti-air "upper", a single aerial and a dedicated "pursuit" attack, while there's only three specials to worry about - so I do have to wonder if this is a little overdeveloped? Though, overall, not too many complaints. That aside, the idea of the hand-drawn look could be a lot of fun to work with, especially if we lean into a cute hand-crafted look.
I tried to mantain the idea of all people plus giving what I thought it could work that is basically the common system of arena fighters, I might agree it feels a bit too much and I'm willing to move away of the multicombo thing so the heavy attack turns into a proper upper (maybe bind the pursuit attack here too, considering games like Guilty Gear and MvC3 that does the same).

By the way I haven't casted my vote on the characters yet! So here they are:

  1. Quote: I really value Quote on a historical level, while I don't think on this as a project to "rep indie game's history", I do think people tend to overlook him too much. Cave Story is for me the most amazing game I can think considering it was made not just by a single person but someone who had barely any knowledge on programmation and learned most things on the fly. I also think considering the gameplay concept he has a lot of potential, maybe introducing a level gimmick? Thought maybe that's too much? Who knows.
  2. Cirno. My bones feels that Reimu or even Sakuya feels more proper for a first Touhou character, but Cirno is funny so I think it's acceptable. I can see her having a lot of play considering what I know about Touhou (the two fighting games and Lunalights).
  3. Peppino: Funny italian guy and I was feeling a bit odd how all my nominations are games with more than 20 years of existence. He sounds like a damn fun rushdown and the lean to cartoonish artstyle feels on the point here.
  4. Akatsuki: A bit of a self indulgent vote since I knew from the very start he wasn't going to win but I just wanted to show him so people might mantain him in their minds, maybe next time we can CHESTO.

JOB 4 SUBMISSION: PLAYROOM ARENA
Agree with the general sentiment that including "Indie" in the name sounds weird, so I decided to name it under my suggestion of making this game basically a bunch of toys fighting (it might also work as a way to justify why characters who wouldn't be able to fight against others or even fight at all can do now).

JOB 5 SUBMISSION: 20
I agree having a huge roster doesn't feel that something that can work here, but I feel 13 a bit too small, so I bumped it to 20, thought I have been wondering if maybe we could allow "clones" eventually. If that's the case then maybe 16 characters + 4 clones would feel right.
 

osby

Smash Obsessed
Joined
Apr 25, 2018
Messages
24,134
JOB 4
Board Battle

While I think having "Indie" in the title would be good for clarity's sake, I can also see why that wouldn't be very descriptive. Instead, I went with a title that reflects the isometric perspective, likening the battles to a board game to fit with the aesthetics.

JOB 5
28

I don't think the current movesets are particularly complicated so we have room to expand the roster a bit. I'll go with 28 characters assuming each fighter will be from a unique series. If we were to expand the franchise representation (which I'm not in favor of), I'd prefer a slightly bigger roster.
 

Kirbeh

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Job 4: Based on the art style and proposed gameplay, I'll go with Scribble Scramble.

The scribble is for the hand drawn art style and scramble is pretty good at describing the chaos of a 4-player match.

Job 5: 16 characters

Not too big or too small. A pretty standard starting point.
 

darkvortex

Smash Champion
Joined
Jul 1, 2023
Messages
2,480
1 - Quote - Iconic. Kinda feels like a forefather to the modern indie game.
2 - Akatsuki - A fighting game rep seems like a good move. I do wonder if some of the 'imagery " of this franchise might be off putting to some of the other companies and creators involved, but I don't think it's a big issue.
3 - Globule - I like the idea of using lesser known characters in here.
4 - Shovel Knight - I don't want to fill our roster with the same picks that always get in these games, that isn't very interesting to me, but I do think Shovel Knight has his place here>

Job 5
20 Characters

I can't promise I'll be very active
 
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Bölverkaizer

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Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
Sorry for the delay on the votes results, the reason for that is because I had an idea....

Drawing the winners.

QUOTE, SANS & PAPYRUS AND SHOVEL KNIGHT JOINS THE FIGHT
Just for fun and cuz I really need to take my tablet more, I decided to draw all the of the roster whenever a new character is added! Now perhaps you might noticed something, "Hey Kaizer, but you said there it would be 4 winners and Sans with Papyrus are just one slot! Where is the fourth one?" Well thanks for asking and for your answer let's check the voting count.
  • Sans & Papyrus 18
  • Shovel Knight 19
  • Cirno 10
  • Bendy 1
  • Peppino 12
  • Globule 2
  • Quote 24
  • Akatsuki 12
  • Ironclad 1
  • Elster 0
As you can see, we had a draw. Due that I would like to ask, would you guys prefer to let both of them enter to the game or we need to decide one, if that's the case then which one? Due the nature of this votation, this will be managed in Strawpoll instead, you can look for the poll here.
About the gameplay, while it seems to have been mostly accepted, I would like to make a better write up as well to give a proper template for have the final decision asap.

JOB 4
VOTATIONS
We had multiple names here! All of them sounds fun, but only one can be the final one, so let's take a look to our options!
This time we will go back to only vote for 3, so go for your favorites!

JOB 5
VOTATIONS
We had multiple numbers around, since I think it's a bit difficult use the regular format for this votations, instead I'll put your answers in another Strawpoll that you can click here!

Both votations will come to an end this Monday.
JOB 6
SUBMIT OUR FIRST STAGES!
Well, now it's time to talk about scenarios, and I think this time they are more important than ever because our concept plays a lot with the idea of stages being 3D mockup enviroments, so try to be creative and not limit yourself to just give a name! It's necessarily to dive too much on it but putting a little of work in your submission is appreciated. Just as an acclaration, the stage doesn't need to be about the winners. Feel free to submit a stage from any game! Don't worry that also wouldn't affect their chances to be selectable in the future for a fighter submission.

The submission period ends next Tuesday.
 
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Oracle Link

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Indie games, everyone loves them, these small (and not so small) games that brings more variety to the game market. A very common idea is trying to bring all these games and their iconic characters into a single game with a Fighting Game being the most popular one, we have seen some attempts like Indie Pogo, Bounty Battle or Fraymakers, thought while some of these are good (and its up to you decided who), I think neither of them has being able to bring this ultimate satisfaction of what it should be a "complete" crossover on pair with games like Smash.

So here we are not going to create a real game, but still move our brains a bit and try to come as a community with an idea the most ingenous to decide how this hypotetic game might look,! The format is the usual one in these type of threads, a seriesof jobs will be providen with a timelapse before starting the next one alongisde to votations for the previous job to decide the winner! The general rule is always put the respect first even if its between screens.

This game will be an Isometric Platformer Fighter, where the fighters moves in a 3D enviroment but with a more 2D movement.
QUOTE
Origin: Cave Story (2004)
Submitted by: Megadoomer Megadoomer
SHOVEL KNIGHT
Origin: Shovel Knight (2014)
Submitted by: DragonRobotKing26 DragonRobotKing26
SANS & PAPYRUS
Origin: Undertale (2015)
Submitted by: @FazDude
This post will be further edited once new things gets added.
I dont know if he counts but if you want you can include Videospiel-Man afterall the original plan for him (after it just being a playground game) Was a videogame!
Obviously that depends on you guyses opinion!

Also i could provide some simple doodles! (if you want?)
 

DragonRobotKing26

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Messages
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I dont know if he counts but if you want you can include Videospiel-Man afterall the original plan for him (after it just being a playground game) Was a videogame!
Obviously that depends on you guyses opinion!

Also i could provide some simple doodles! (if you want?)
This thread is we creating a fighting game with indie games characters,not original creations
 

Bölverkaizer

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
I dont know if he counts but if you want you can include Videospiel-Man afterall the original plan for him (after it just being a playground game) Was a videogame!
Obviously that depends on you guyses opinion!

Also i could provide some simple doodles! (if you want?)
I respect your enthusiasm and I cherish it, but as another user pointed out, we are focusing exclusively in published indie games. If you want you can participate however! Just sticking to the theme of the thread.
 

KneeOfJustice99

Smash Champion
Joined
Oct 29, 2018
Messages
2,296
Location
the building from smash mouth's astro lounge
Sorry for the delay on the votes results, the reason for that is because I had an idea....

Drawing the winners.

QUOTE, SANS & PAPYRUS AND SHOVEL KNIGHT JOINS THE FIGHT
Just for fun and cuz I really need to take my tablet more, I decided to draw all the of the roster whenever a new character is added! Now perhaps you might noticed something, "Hey Kaizer, but you said there it would be 4 winners and Sans with Papyrus are just one slot! Where is the fourth one?" Well thanks for asking and for your answer let's check the voting count.
  • Sans & Papyrus 18
  • Shovel Knight 19
  • Cirno 10
  • Bendy 1
  • Peppino 12
  • Globule 2
  • Quote 24
  • Akatsuki 12
  • Ironclad 1
  • Elster 0
As you can see, we had a draw. Due that I would like to ask, would you guys prefer to let both of them enter to the game or we need to decide one, if that's the case then which one? Due the nature of this votation, this will be managed in Strawpoll instead, you can look for the poll here.
About the gameplay, while it seems to have been mostly accepted, I would like to make a better write up as well to give a proper template for have the final decision asap.

JOB 4
VOTATIONS
We had multiple names here! All of them sounds fun, but only one can be the final one, so let's take a look to our options!
This time we will go back to only vote for 3, so go for your favorites!

JOB 5
VOTATIONS
We had multiple numbers around, since I think it's a bit difficult use the regular format for this votations, instead I'll put your answers in another Strawpoll that you can click here!

Both votations will come to an end this Monday.
JOB 6
SUBMIT OUR FIRST STAGES!
Well, now it's time to talk about scenarios, and I think this time they are more important than ever because our concept plays a lot with the idea of stages being 3D mockup enviroments, so try to be creative and not limit yourself to just give a name! It's necessarily to dive too much on it but putting a little of work in your submission is appreciated. Just as an acclaration, the stage doesn't need to be about the winners. Feel free to submit a stage from any game! Don't worry that also wouldn't affect their chances to be selectable in the future for a fighter submission.

The submission period ends next Tuesday.
Job #04
  1. Scribble Scramble - I love this! It's so funky - and the sibilance is scintillatingly satisfying.
  2. Board Battle - Alliteration is cool too!
  3. Playroom Arena - And this is still a great encapsulation of what this game really is.
Job #06
Stage Name: Keep of the Lead Lord
Stage Origin: Enter the Gungeon (2016)

Something about Sonic Battle's levels to bear in mind is that a lot of them are pretty simple, and while one or two of them might have particular gimmicks here and there, these tend to be on the simple side. So, for this gimmick; the layout (specifically, where "blocks" are placed) is semi-randomised at the start of each round; the idea being, it's our defacto "roguelite/roguelike" representative in terms of stage mechanics. Plus, in terms of appearance, it's a pretty fancy looking castle, so it's certain to lend well to the artstyle we're going for!
 

osby

Smash Obsessed
Joined
Apr 25, 2018
Messages
24,134
JOB 4 VOTES
  1. Kitbash Clash
  2. Cross Fighters
  3. Board Battle
JOB 6: Inlaid Library (Vampire Survivors, 2022)
1739003448651.png


Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot 'em up developed and published by a single person (poncle). Heavily inspired by Castlevania, the game features several memorable gothic locations, in an isometric view similar to our game. I chose Inlaid Library simply because of its setting - how often do you see a library as a fighting game stage?

1739003272250.png


The Inlaid Library would be a large but vertically shorter stage. There would be a few walls scattered around in the form of bookshelves. As our first stage submission, I went with no stage hazards other than breakable candelabras, which can give players any items.
 

darkvortex

Smash Champion
Joined
Jul 1, 2023
Messages
2,480
  1. Scribble Scramble
  2. Kitbash Clash
  3. Board Battle

71xP0fWddbL.jpg

Skeld (Among Us)
Takes place inside the space ship. Like Knee stated above, this would be a pretty simple stage, with it being a flat plane that takes you across each room, though it would be heavily shortened to make it less of a treck. You can stand on tables and the coms table. For a gimmick, there are vents you can jump down into, letting you hide, but it only works for a short time before it spits you back out.
 
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Bölverkaizer

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
JOB 4: MY VOTES
  1. Scribble Scramble (It's really fun to say it!)
  2. Kitbash Clash (also very fun to pronounce)
  3. Playroom Arena (and my own submssions :p)
JOB 6 SUBMISSION
CITY OF TEARS (HOLLOW KNIGHT)
The capital city of the eternal kingdom of Hallownest. The arena itself will be the center where the statue to the Hollo Knight resides.

Asides of the constant rain, the corners will be flooded, making it dangerous to go off the borders, there are also some floating platforms to gain higher ground and as a final touch the players can destroy the lamps and signs of the place, just for fun. Outside that it's a very standard stage, thought the statue makes the center of the stage unavailable to play so the arena is more donut shaped.
 

Bölverkaizer

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
Hello everyone! Time to make the announcements.
JOB 3.2:
RESULTS
We ended in another dilemma, the votes ended in yet another tie.
1739211623692.png
However, as a solution and as a way to not do yet another tiebreak, I decided that while everyone agrees on adding Peppino, not everyone agrees on adding Akatsuki. So the ending resolution will be just Peppino, congratulations! I'll soon post his art for the project.

JOB 4
RESULTS

1739211902679.png
The base roster will be of 20 characters! Which means we have 16 characters left, wonder who will made it!

JOB 5
RESULTS
The winner title is Scribble Scramble! A very fun title, I'll quickly change the thread name to this name.
  • Cross Fighters 2
    Kitbash Clash 14
    Playroom Arena 7
    Board Battle 8
    Battle Colosseum 0
    Scribble Scramble 18
JOB 6
VOTATIONS
Make your votes! As usual you vote for your top 3.
JOB 7
HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?
This time our question will be about how many stages should we add, I decided to make this one after the decision of how many characters we will have because it's very likely we will end with a different series for each character, and if that's the case, should all of them get their own stage? But if that's the case then the amount of stages should be bigger than the amount of characters we have, something that while it's not strange by itself I do wonder what are your opinions about it.

JOB 8
ITEMS? ASSISTS?
This is another question I had in my mind, let's think first on the type of game this is, it's an ISOMETRIC platform fighter, there are not really that much games to take inspiration for but my guess is that using these stuffs would still be possible but we should add them? That's what we will discuss here.

The Jobs 7 and 8 will finish this wednesday while the job 6 votations will end the day after.
 
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Kirbeh

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1. City of Tears
2. Keep of the Lead Lord
3. Stardew Valley Farm

25 Stages

Items: Yes

Assists: Maybe? I know it's a yes or no, but I think there could be ways to make them different from other games that use them. Rather than a big pool of assists anyone can pick, the assists could be tied to the characters? Three assists per character sort of like how characters have 3 assist moves in Marvel vs Capcom. Just, instead of three different attacks it's three different assist characters per fighter.

I think it's worth exploring though so I'll go with yes.
 

KneeOfJustice99

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Messages
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the building from smash mouth's astro lounge
  1. Inlaid Library
  2. Asphodel
  3. Farm
As for stages, I'll propose 18. I don't necessarily think every character needs their own stage, and it'd be nice to focus more on variety in style and origin rather than just filling out quotas - to the point that I think it'd be neat for the majority of the stages to be from games not represented with a fighter. It might seem odd, but the indie space specifically lends really well to that kind of thing.

For items and assists... I'm going to say no on both accounts, with one exception; it could be pretty cool to lean into our Rakugaki Showtime inspirations and include some kind of "dodgeball" that can be thrown around, or maybe explodes after either hitting someone without being caught or after a given time. We've done items and assists in projects like this before, and I don't think traditional items would be the best call for a game like this. Just my call, though!
 

Bölverkaizer

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Joined
Dec 11, 2024
Messages
49
Welcome! First for all I want to show to you guys the artwork for Peppino!
Even if Pizza Tower has a very doodleish style, I don't think I was able to capture its charm, horver I still hope you guys like it!

I also cast my votes now.
  1. Inlaid Library, just in time now that I'm finally playing Vampire Survivors.​
  2. Keep of the Lead Lord, I can't help myself I love Enter the Gungeon.​
  3. Asphodel, I'm also very keen on Hades.​

JOB 7
SUBMISSION
My personal believe is 26 stages, IMO characters should have some sort of "home" stage, even if it is just trying to fill a checklist in comparison to other sort of stuffs it does sounds more important, thought I count with the possibility of double dip in some series, and if thats the case, then some characters might share a stage, thus allowing for other interesing franchises be repped in this way.

JOB 8
SUBMISSION
I think I mantain the popular possition of saying yes to items and no to assists. My only reason to make this job was thinking in the possibility someone might share their personal reasoning for why X could work. But nowadays, seems assist are an accepted no-no for everyone while items seems more justificable, I don't think they should be exactly like those of Smash due very easy to understand reasons, we might discuss better how they will work later.

I know I said that the jobs would end to day but thinking better it should end at the same time to the stage votations, so see you tomorrow!
 

Megadoomer

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1. Inlaid Library
2. Asphodel
3. Skeld

Job 7: 28 stages - I figure I'll at least offer an option that's on the higher side. (I'm guessing we'll aim to give each playable franchise a stage, even if that might not pan out, and I figure we can leave extra room to represent more franchises through stages)

Job 8: yes to items, no to assists
 
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