Super Smash Bros. Battalion - Help Bring Us Out of Hiatus! Apply as a Coder Today!

[Capybara Gaming]

Hello Everybody!

Keybladeguy here to tell you all about an exciting new project: Project Super Smash Bros. X - a smash fangame where the fans are a part of the team.

What is Project: Super Smash Bros. X?
Project: Smash Bros. X is a made from scratch, built from the ground up Smash Bros. style fan title, made as a love-letter to Smash Bros. fans everywhere.

What makes Project: Smash Bros. X different from other Smash Fangames?
Project: Smash Bros. X intends to allow the Smash community take an active role in the develoment process, helping decide a portion of the roster and giving suggestions to the main development team.

A Love Letter to Smash fans, you say?
Yes, my friend! Our goal is to give the fans what they want, alongside finishing up what Sakurai couldn't. Our intentions include having all Smash fighters from the official series, including those Sakurai has told us were considered.

How many characters will Project: Smash Bros. X have?
As many as we can add! We want to make a massive player experience, and that means a ton of characters! However, at this time, we only feel it necessary to announce the six characters we intend to have in our first public demo. They are:
- Mario (Super Mario Bros.)
- Pikachu (Pokemon)
- Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles)
- Lip (Panel de Pon)
- Takamaru (The Mysterious Murasame Castle)
- Mega Man (Mega Man)
- PAC-MAN (PAC-MAN)
- Chorus Kids (Rhythm Heaven)

A lot of characters? Sounds like an awful big download....
You'd think that, but not quite! Part of our plan is to release characters, stages, and the like through add-ons, so no need to redownload when new fighters and stages become available!

Who's on the team?
Most of the team is on deviantART, but there's a few members based here on SmashBoards as well, including:
- Yours Truly
- @KingofPhantoms47
- @ZeldaMaster_1
@ JayTheUnseen
@ DimpsyVS

How far in development is the project?
We are currently running a very early alpha phase demo with a Mario that will not be released to the public. See the end of this post to see a preview of the test demo! We do, however, take alpha tester applications.

Can we see some sprites?
Of course! We have some nice sprites courtesy of several of our team members on deviantART.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg! We have more animations for these characters and will be showing them off periodically.

What program is the game being coded in?
GameMaker Studio.

Can I help?
We are always looking for people to help. If you can program in GameMaker Studio, sprite, voice act, or make music, send me a pm and show me what you've got!

Well, for now that's it, but thanks for reading and look forward to more updates!

One final note: this is not meant as competition to @APC99 's also in development Smash fangame, Super Smash Bros. Unity. Be sure to check their thread too. The Project: Smash Bros. X developers support Unity as well.

Keybladeguy plays the test demo in the video above!

Follow us on twitter @smash_bros_x !

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[Mega Bidoof]

Smash Bros. X is Brawl's Japanese name.

Also, most of those sprites are just from Deviantart.

 

[ClubbyBear]

I'd like to give you guys some constructive critism on the sprites, although I don't think you'd appreciate it so early in development.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Smash Bros. X is Brawl's Japanese name.

Also, most of those sprites are just Livsnoski's Smash 4 traces.

Untrue. Shulk's sprite is courtesy of dA's joltzen, Pikachu is courtesy of dA's Marezus, King Dedede is courtesy of dA's MasterHandG465, and Takamaru is courtesy of dA's TJmediaandmore.

I'd like to give you guys some constructive critism on the sprites, although I don't think you'd appreciate it so early in development.

Go ahead, but they weren't made by me.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Smash Bros. X is Brawl's Japanese name.

Also, most of those sprites are just from Deviantart.

Not meaning to DP, but all of those people are team members.

 

[Mega Bidoof]

I guess I'll give some cronstructive criticism.

Those sprites are just taken from DeviantArt. That's an awful idea. Deviantart isn't a spriting site.

The animations are choppy as heck. It's just the body parts moving up and down. It doesn't look good at all.

Worst of all, due to the fact you are taking these sprites from wherever you can find them, you will not have a unified art style. The sprites will all contrast and look nothing alike. It would like if Melee Luigi, Brawl Ness, and Smash Wii U Pikachu fighting on N64 Peach's Castle.

Your game will look awful at this rate. The fact that you can get a playable demo up in a month means this is rushed.

Focus on quality, not time.
People will play a good game, not one that came out faster.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I guess I'll give some cronstructive criticism.

Those sprites are just taken from DeviantArt. That's an awful idea. Deviantart isn't a spriting site.

The animations are choppy as heck. It's just the body parts moving up and down. It doesn't look good at all.

Worst of all, due to the fact you are taking these sprites from wherever you can find them, you will not have a unified art style. The sprites will all contrast and look nothing alike. It would like if Melee Luigi, Brawl Ness, and Smash Wii U Pikachu fighting on N64 Peach's Castle.

Your game will look awful at this rate. The fact that you can get a playable demo up in a month means this is rushed.

Focus on quality, not time.
People will play a good game, not one that came out faster.

Again, you should really read first. (No offense) - Firstly, the spriters of these characters are members of our developer team, and these sprites are merely preliminary ones - they are not merely taken from deviantART, but there are many talented spriters there as well. They are not the finished product. Furthermore, our spriters are doing their best to make a similar art style to one another. Crusade had the same art problem too, you know, but they got plenty of fans.

I never said we would get a playable demo up in a month. I said we have a very early alpha phase demo we can play with that is not nearly complete. It has a test character who is still in development.

However, I do appreciate the constructive criticism, and I'll pass on your recommendations to the spriters.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Added a new question regarding helping with the project to the OP.

 

[Antonykun]

I'm curious if the Miis will be in this game.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I'm curious if the Miis will be in this game.

Whether we use the Miis or not is currently a hot subject of debate amongst the dev team, so we can't give any insight on this.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Your game will look awful at this rate. The fact that you can get a playable demo up in a month means this is rushed.

There is some misinformation here.Let me explain.

Firstly, as @ Capybara Gaming said, this demo is far from being a game.It is only a small first step.
Secondly, I officially joined the team for this game on December 23, 2014.That WAS roughly a month ago,
but I actually began development on this engine separately from this project( I.E.,before I joined the team, and actually maybe before this project even existed. )

I may not have actually had very much done once I joined the project and began working on this engine again, but I had something to work off of at least.

Also, this is being made in GameMaker:Studio, which as you may know is well-known for its fast development times.

Anyways, now that that is cleared up, thanks for your feedback.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

There is some misinformation here.Let me explain.

Firstly,as @ Capybara Gaming said,this demo is far from being a game.It is only a small first step.
Secondly,I officially joined the team for this game on December 23,2014.That WAS roughly a month ago,
but I actually began development on this engine separately from this project( I.E.,before I joined the team,and actually maybe before this project even existed. )

I may not have actually had very much done once I joined the project and began working on this engine again,but I had something to work off of at least.

Also,this is being made in GameMaker:Studio,which as you may know is well-known for its fast development times.

Anyways,now that that is cleared up,thanks for your feedback.

Quick tip: There's a space after all commas.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Ladies and gentleman, I ask your forgiveness in the slow matter of trying to get a video up. Bandicam is being particularly stupid and not putting the videos in the output folder. Please stand by.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Test video finally up. Enjoy!

 

[ClubbyBear]

Mr. Game and Watch rings into battle!

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Test video finally up. Enjoy!

Disclaimer:
The sprites in this video are made by me and not a team spriter.
In other words,our spriters can actually sprite,and this video does not represent their work.

 

[ClubbyBear]

Disclaimer:
The sprites in this video are made by me and not a team spriter.
In other words,our spriters can actually sprite,and this video does not represent their work.

As harsh as this may sound, I feel like the spriters you currently have need to improve quite a bit.

On Dedede, alone there's a multitude of problems. Not all of them are on that image, as I noticed it after.
The green is all the pillow shaded areas I found. Pillow shading is essentially when the lightsource comes from the front. It usually just doesn't look as good as the lineart could, so it should generally should be avoided, or done in VERY small amounts and in the right places. Not only that, but it conflicts with the shine on Dedede's hat's beak, and the uncircled hammer area.
The Hammer also has a problem, that even though it appears the top goes inwards, there's still lighting there as if it's the same depth as the middle of the hammer. On the handle of the hammer, if it's in front of Dedede, there should be some kind of shadow from it on his chest. This also plays into the illusion. The handle is a pretty bad case of banding, but it's everywhere. There is also what appears to be no anti-aliasing, and if it's there but no noticable it hardly does it's job.

Your spriters appeared to have tried to use selective outlining, but they managed to break the illusion on the feet, for some reason. There are too many colors. The red circles point to one of the easiest things to fix; for some reason the yellow on his shirt are different from the yellow on his hat. I've seen it before, "we wanted to be accurate" is a common one, but when you have so many similar colors managing them for animation becomes a huge issue. The colors in general are very dull, and have almost no contrast which makes it appear to have no shading from a distance.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

As harsh as this may sound, I feel like the spriters you currently have need to improve quite a bit.
View attachment 36738
On Dedede, alone there's a multitude of problems. Not all of them are on that image, as I noticed it after.
The green is all the pillow shaded areas I found. Pillow shading is essentially when the lightsource comes from the front. It usually just doesn't look as good as the lineart could, so it should generally should be avoided, or done in VERY small amounts and in the right places. Not only that, but it conflicts with the shine on Dedede's hat's beak, and the uncircled hammer area.
The Hammer also has a problem, that even though it appears the top goes inwards, there's still lighting there as if it's the same depth as the middle of the hammer. On the handle of the hammer, if it's in front of Dedede, there should be some kind of shadow from it on his chest. This also plays into the illusion. The handle is a pretty bad case of banding, but it's everywhere. There is also what appears to be no anti-aliasing, and if it's there but no noticable it hardly does it's job.

Your spriters appeared to have tried to use selective outlining, but they managed to break the illusion on the feet, for some reason. There are too many colors. The red circles point to one of the easiest things to fix; for some reason the yellow on his shirt are different from the yellow on his hat. I've seen it before, "we wanted to be accurate" is a common one, but when you have so many similar colors managing them for animation becomes a huge issue. The colors in general are very dull, and have almost no contrast which makes it appear to have no shading from a distance.

I appreciate the constructive criticism, but I don't think they look that bad, especially considering everything is 100% customed. Imagine oneself as a player of the game, and not as a spriter. Would you notice that the light source is odd while Dedede is moving around, swinging his hammer? No, you'd be too focused on the fight at hand. Perhaps work should go into victory animations and such, but for a 100% custom game, I think they are fine. But, in the end, I'm gonna leave it up to the spriters to fix their style more like that or not.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

I appreciate the constructive criticism, but I don't think they look that bad, especially considering everything is 100% customed. Imagine oneself as a player of the game, and not as a spriter. Would you notice that the light source is odd while Dedede is moving around, swinging his hammer? No, you'd be too focused on the fight at hand. Perhaps work should go into victory animations and such, but for a 100% custom game, I think they are fine. But, in the end, I'm gonna leave it up to the spriters to fix their style more like that or not.

I agree somewhat with the ideal that people should be fine with sub-par sprites (no offense to the people spriting in this project,) but I don't see why it's alright to half-ass even the sprites. As a spriter, you should be constantly striving to be better, and I think that it's something that should be applied to everything. The spriters are the team will hopefully take that post ClubbyBear made and learn from it.

A better looking game will always attract more people. I personally don't play Crusade or Smash Flash 2 because a lot of the sprites look bad. It's a personal thing, yes, but it's important to people you may not realize it's important too.

 

[Antonykun]

I've noticed something strange about Shulk, the Monado doesn't move with him despite the fact that Shulk is breathing like he just ran a marathon. It's just suspended in space behind him
I also want to add what Zao said about Smash Flash with the fact that I think Wario is the biggest offender of this.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I agree somewhat with the ideal that people should be fine with sub-par sprites (no offense to the people spriting in this project,) but I don't see why it's alright to half-*** even the sprites. As a spriter, you should be constantly striving to be better, and I think that it's something that should be applied to everything. The spriters are the team will hopefully take that post ClubbyBear made and learn from it.

A better looking game will always attract more people. I personally don't play Crusade or Smash Flash 2 because a lot of the sprites look bad. It's a personal thing, yes, but it's important to people you may not realize it's important too.

But what if the game itself is good? Why should the quality of a few sprites affect your judgement. These sprites take a long time to make. They are certainly not half-assed.

 

[Antonykun]

But what if the game itself is good? Why should the quality of a few sprites affect your judgement. These sprites take a long time to make. They are certainly not half-*****.

I don't think that the sprites are actually half assed rather that I think that they are inconsistent with each other. Like looking at pikachu and Takamaru (btw I love your Takamaru sprite) you can make an argument that they are for two different games.
I also want to say that I am full of hype that I have nothing better to do than criticise the sprites.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I don't think that the sprites are actually half ***** rather that I think that they are inconsistent with each other. Like looking at pikachu and Takamaru (btw I love your Takamaru sprite) you can make an argument that they are for two different games.
I also want to say that I am full of hype that I have nothing better to do than criticise the sprites.

Arguably, that's to be expected. The two are technically from different games. That's like saying anyone in the Smashverse is out of place.

 

[DimpsyVS]

Just for the heck of it since Keybladeguy has shown off these sprites on the deviantArt page, here's the item sprites made by myself.

No I will not be discussing all the items here, I wanna keep some things secret!
Also just as a note, no these sprites were not technically pulled from deviantArt, they are sprites the team has made specifically for this project and simply uploaded them for viewing purposes.
I will agree on many critiques tho, especially the one for Shulk.
For Pikachu, just has to do with fatness which is getting fixed soon.
Takamaru looks pretty decent, Dedede is getting some more updates too if I'm not wrong.

And yes guys just as a confirmation, Mario will be in this game (Yea, no ****) and will be around the first playable fighter to be worked on.
For now we'll be using GregarLink's Mario sprites, which you might recognize from Crusade. This is mostly temporary unless he decides to join the team and help more, and yes he gave us permission to use his work on the project, not even just for Mario.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

Personally, I think having some minorly mismatched sprites adds an innocent charm to it.

 

[Antonykun]

Just for the heck of it since Keybladeguy has shown off these sprites on the deviantArt page, here's the item sprites made by myself.

No I will not be discussing all the items here, I wanna keep some things secret!
Also just as a note, no these sprites were not technically pulled from deviantArt, they are sprites the team has made specifically for this project and simply uploaded them for viewing purposes.
I will agree on many critiques tho, especially the one for Shulk.
For Pikachu, just has to do with fatness which is getting fixed soon.
Takamaru looks pretty decent, Dedede is getting some more updates too if I'm not wrong.

And yes guys just as a confirmation, Mario will be in this game (Yea, no ****) and will be around the first playable fighter to be worked on.
For now we'll be using GregarLink's Mario sprites, which you might recognize from Crusade. This is mostly temporary unless he decides to join the team and help more, and yes he gave us permission to use his work on the project, not even just for Mario.

Just for the record, I love old/fat Pikachu. My love for fat Pikachu is so strong that Dedenne is one of my favorite Pokemon of all time

 

[ClubbyBear]

Arguably, that's to be expected. The two are technically from different games. That's like saying anyone in the Smashverse is out of place.

This is exactly why I have a huge distaste for spriters on deviantart generally, they usually never try to improve, and end up being in the same spot for years. In the end, making up excuses so the spriters can be lazy will hurt their future work.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

This is exactly why I have a huge distaste for spriters on deviantart generally, they usually never try to improve, and end up being in the same spot for years. In the end, making up excuses so the spriters can be lazy will hurt their future work.

Remember these sprites are very early work.No one said they wouldn't be improved upon.In fact,the spriter working on Shulk stated he would be touching up the spites after he got the animations done.

 

[Antonykun]

I'm just going to say that after this post I'm going to stop arguing about the sprites mostly because for all I know they could animate way better than a disney flick.

Arguably, that's to be expected. The two are technically from different games. That's like saying anyone in the Smashverse is out of place.

Well yeah but one of the most wonderful things in Smash is that the fact the characters are from different games is never something you noticed because everyone looks consistent.
Anyways I'm looking forward for the next update

 

[Antonykun]

I have a question about Mario. Will he be a jack of all trades or a wombo combo based character.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

Just for the heck of it since Keybladeguy has shown off these sprites on the deviantArt page, here's the item sprites made by myself.

No I will not be discussing all the items here, I wanna keep some things secret!
Also just as a note, no these sprites were not technically pulled from deviantArt, they are sprites the team has made specifically for this project and simply uploaded them for viewing purposes.
I will agree on many critiques tho, especially the one for Shulk.
For Pikachu, just has to do with fatness which is getting fixed soon.
Takamaru looks pretty decent, Dedede is getting some more updates too if I'm not wrong.

And yes guys just as a confirmation, Mario will be in this game (Yea, no ****) and will be around the first playable fighter to be worked on.
For now we'll be using GregarLink's Mario sprites, which you might recognize from Crusade. This is mostly temporary unless he decides to join the team and help more, and yes he gave us permission to use his work on the project, not even just for Mario.

Yo! I decided to edit some of your sprites to maybe help you grasp an idea of how they can be improved. Didn't edit all of them because either I didn't know what they were supposed to be or how I could improve them.

Edit: Also, didn't feel like doing the same edits for smaller sprites, so yeah. Just left those alone.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I have a question about Mario. Will he be a jack of all trades or a wombo combo based character.

Jack of all trades is the current plan.

 

[DimpsyVS]

Since someone of these forums (ZaoMonichi) made edits to my item sprites, I'll post another update to them.

What changed? Mostly edits he made, which I stacked on with edits of my own, such as:
- Fixing up some things I personally felt he made "worse"/improving on his improvements to make the sprites look even better (Ex: Master Ball, which needed a quick resprite to look more consistent with the basic Pokeball).
- Making some new palette choices he did to be more accurate and less washed out.
- Made any sprites he gave too big of a style changes back to the style intended, I like trying hard to make sure things don't stand out too much, so keeping a consistent style is part of this.

EDIT: Do note this isn't the next official update to these sprites, I'm only posting this quicker thanks to him, more items will be added next time.

 

[[TSON]]

I will say this: your spriters have a lot of natural talent. Fixing up the short ends now will mean not having to go back later and spruce things up. And your game not taking 9 years.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

Since someone of these forums (ZaoMonichi) made edits to my item sprites, I'll post another update to them.

What changed? Mostly edits he made, which I stacked on with edits of my own, such as:
- Fixing up some things I personally felt he made "worse"/improving on his improvements to make the sprites look even better (Ex: Master Ball, which needed a quick resprite to look more consistent with the basic Pokeball).
- Making some new palette choices he did to be more accurate and less washed out.
- Made any sprites he gave too big of a style changes back to the style intended, I like trying hard to make sure things don't stand out too much, so keeping a consistent style is part of this.

EDIT: Do note this isn't the next official update to these sprites, I'm only posting this quicker thanks to him, more items will be added next time.

I only based my palette off of your color choices. Not sure if you noticed, though lol. Mushroom, Smart Bomb, Pokeball, Bat, Pill and I think the Fire Bar as well all shared multiple colors. The faded red worked well with all of them, but was a color choice you made in the beginning. So, in essence, you really only changed the colors you did previously and added your own bit of style to some things like the Master Ball, which I had a little trouble doing in such low resolution anyway. Either way, attempt to take my advice to a more customized level with some sprites you've done without examples or even reference possibly.

 

[ClubbyBear]

Since someone of these forums (ZaoMonichi) made edits to my item sprites, I'll post another update to them.

What changed? Mostly edits he made, which I stacked on with edits of my own, such as:
- Fixing up some things I personally felt he made "worse"/improving on his improvements to make the sprites look even better (Ex: Master Ball, which needed a quick resprite to look more consistent with the basic Pokeball).
- Making some new palette choices he did to be more accurate and less washed out.
- Made any sprites he gave too big of a style changes back to the style intended, I like trying hard to make sure things don't stand out too much, so keeping a consistent style is part of this.

EDIT: Do note this isn't the next official update to these sprites, I'm only posting this quicker thanks to him, more items will be added next time.

If by "changing style" you mean making the smoke ball back to the circle tool outline then you're right

also the colors contrast way too much imo, but if these aren't official I don't see why you would post it.

 

[DimpsyVS]

but if these aren't official I don't see why you would post it.

What I meant was that I felt like posting a mini-update to the sheet, bear with me that was quite late at night.
But yes I CAN confirm the Smoke Ball has been changed, and other small things that don't warrant a showcasing just yet.

I only based my palette off of your color choices. Not sure if you noticed, though lol. Mushroom, Smart Bomb, Pokeball, Bat, Pill and I think the Fire Bar as well all shared multiple colors. The faded red worked well with all of them, but was a color choice you made in the beginning. So, in essence, you really only changed the colors you did previously and added your own bit of style to some things like the Master Ball, which I had a little trouble doing in such low resolution anyway. Either way, attempt to take my advice to a more customized level with some sprites you've done without examples or even reference possibly.

Actually, the only red I had to change back was the Pokeball. In fact the only other items I had to change regarding colors were the POW Block and Metal Box.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

What I meant was that I felt like posting a mini-update to the sheet, bear with me that was quite late at night.
But yes I CAN confirm the Smoke Ball has been changed, and other small things that don't warrant a showcasing just yet.


Actually, the only red I had to change back was the Pokeball. In fact the only other items I had to change regarding colors were the POW Block and Metal Box.

No, you also changed the Pitfall Seed's red. I'm js tho.

 

[DimpsyVS]

No, you also changed the Pitfall Seed's red. I'm js tho.

Ah silly me, I forgot about that.
Really tho I have not seen Pitfall with an orange "!" before.
Enough talk about these though, let's talk other topics, like maybe the fact that if you folks do wanna help out, let us know.
We wanna know your talents, examples of your work, then we'll consider letting whoever on board.
Remember we're not taking just anybody.
Really I got nothhing, might be last you hear from me here for awhile.
Will still be working on the project when I can, though.

 

[ZaoMonichi]

Ah silly me, I forgot about that.
Really tho I have not seen Pitfall with an orange "1" before.
Enough talk about these though, let's talk other topics, like maybe the fact that if you folks do wanna help out, let us know.
We wanna know your talents, examples of your work, then we'll consider letting whoever on board.
Remember we're not taking just anybody.
Really I got nothhing, might be last you hear from me here for awhile.
Will still be working on the project when I can, though.

It's really supposed to be a faded red. Also, it's an exclamation point, not a one.

Anyway, I'm not here to argue. Just some friendly advice :D Good luck, man! You should check here often, though. People love progress!