Demo v2.3

SDA Demo v2.3 has been uploaded.

The game has 2 download files, one containing game files and the other containing all of the sounds. The sounds are not needed to play the game.

Showdown Academy Demo v2.3

Hope you enjoy this demo.


-GStick

Just A Small Bit Of Info

I wanted to make a quick update on what is going on, since its been a while.

The game is getting better and better all the time, really. I've improved sounds once again, added in the Super Meter (which gets used, but no Super Moves are in the game yet). And quite a bit of minor changes have been made.

This is why I have decided to release a minor update to SDA v2. The release will probably be in the form of v2.3, but there are a lot of nice little changes that have been made in the game, as I already stated, here's a nice list of what has been finished:

- Removed some annoying sound problems
- Added in some new graphics effects, including some Lifebar improvements
- Gave Jiro some new jumping animation and fixed up others
- Graphically improved character select screen and new character portraits
- Added in "Defensive Rolling". This allows the player to roll forward after being knocked down before standing up. The roll actually ends in a crouching up animation rather than the player's usual get up animation. Performing a "Defensive Roll" costs 10 Guard.
- Added the possibility for characters to have different health amounts. The average is 100, both Aroon and Jiro have the default amount though
- Gave Aroon and Jiro some move tweaks in various areas
- Super meters
- Improved some areas dealing with the way projectiles are handled
- A temporary menu screen (only option available will be "fight")
- Slightly improved load time
- The game now uses GM7 rather than the GM6 engine. Along with this, sounds are now loaded from external files, some sounds have also been changed or improved
- The Collision Hitbox (black; "Posbox") now turns red whenever that player is in the air
- A screen shake when the character's fall. Bouncing causes a "2" shake, the final slam causes a "4", Normal attacks also cause a small amount of screen shake (1)
- Added a little bit more hit pause on a successful hit, bringing in the damage a move does into the calculation, hit pause no longer occurs on a successful throw
- Included an option that allows for the game's process priority to be set within the options file
- Made some of the animations more equal between Aroon and Jiro (such as get up speed, fall speed, etc)
- Vastly improved throws. Throws are now properly performed while holding either left or right and pressing both CP and CK at the same time. Pressing forward before is no longer needed to perform the throw, except this makes dashing before a throw useless unless forward or back is held after the dash. The throw will be performed in the direction held (left or right)
- Fixed some problems that occured during hit pause
- Adjusted quite a bit of Jiro's damage values on his attacks, as well as some of Aroon's (no longer all the same damage values, in general, Jiro deals a bit less damage)
- Fixed a bug that causes moves to stop working


-GStick

Shout For !Demo 2.2!

Well I've finally decided to release v2.2. Hope its enough to please for now, really was able to get quite a bit into this one.

SDA Demo v2.2 Download

Of course there's even more information at our forums, so you might want to check all of that out.

http://s3.invisionfree.com/ShowdownAcademy

Have fun with this one, please. :]

-GStick

Sooooo Slow

Development on SDA has been extremely slow lately. I've been attempting that release of January, but it appears that, once again, I'll have to push release back. Hopefully this is the last time Demo 2 is pushed back.

There are a few reasons for doing this... Schoolwork is frustrating and takes up time and focus. I've also been working heavily on my second album, "Inside The Shell", which is coming along pretty good. I've also gotten pretty stumped on adding in Rounds (like round 1, 2, 3) and Win/Loss count... as easy as those sound to add in. My first attempt failed so I took a short break from the coding for a while.

But I've been brainstorming ideas on how to get it to work. I'll wait until I decide on one that I'm sure will work without much trouble before I start again.

-GStick

In Preparation for Demo 2

Showdown Academy has certainly come along way as a fighter, and I've got big plans for it in the future. I thought I'd post a blog or two before Demo 2 hits off for its public release.

Since palette swapping isn't within our reach, I've decided upon an alternative for alternate colors at the time being. The effect is called "blending", and we go through a few (quick) steps to apply it. We leave the original sprite on the screen, take a copy of that sprite and colorize it (fade it) to another color. Then, that copy is turned transparent and overlayed ontop of the original during gameplay. While not as pretty as alternate colors, it takes all of the load of vs Same Character problems off of my shoulders... for now.

Also, as you can tell from that screenshot, hitboxes are now always visible. I'll add an option to turn them off in the final of Demo 2. Future releases may make off the default.

I've been adding extra sounds, sprites, and graphical effects into the game. Hopefully they'll be a nice extra touch.

Pushback from hitstun and block stun have been major focus points for me lately. I've improved them a lot, I had to completely rewrite some of the main areas of the pushback script, but its been worth it. Juggle physics and reactions have also been up there, but still have a long way to go. Bouncing during knockdown has been added, and sweeps have been fixed. When a move causes knockdown states to occur, any move following will continue to result in a knockdown, no matter the normal reaction. Gravity during knockdown has been improved over my previous attempts as well.

Another item of notice is attacks, both characters have gained new ones, as well as many moves being improved upon. Many changes have been made to strengthen or nerf various attacks to hopefully bring balance back to the game. From my point of view at the game's current stage, Aroon seems to have stepped ahead of Jiro. It seems every time something new is added the characters fluctuate. Example:
Jiro seemed ahead by a long shot for a while, but then I nerfed his s.LK (which tended to result in long hitstuns and infinites) and gave Aroon a new s.CK (a fast, close-in knee strike) and moved his old push kick to back+CK. This, along with the new Dash Attacks put Aroon ahead of Jiro... as far as I can tell.

Oh yeah...

Dash Attacks are performed by pressing both kick buttons during a Forward Dash 4 Animation frames into the dash. This makes them have the exact same timing as a Dash Jump, but they are a little more difficult to perform than your average special move due to both kicks needing to be pressed at the EXACT same time. Special moves give quite a bit of room for button presses, as do throws.

I plan to focus on character selection after a few more tweaks and bug fixes. This will require an entire rewrite of how key/button presses are checked. The good thing is this will give me room to add in custom control setups, since the buttons will no longer be hard coded into each character (Aroon as P1 and Jiro as P2). Demo 2 won't have AI as Demo 1 did, because I've got more important things to focus on. It looks like there won't be any more than Aroon and Jiro in the next demo either... I hoped, and I tried, but that will have to wait until a later time. If I have time, the Guard Gauge may come into use too, but I may wait to see how the game is played by others first.


-GStick

Yet Another Progress Update...

Been a lot of work going on, and it definitely hasn't been a waste of time. I've fixed a lot of really small bugs that have made the game unplayable in the past... but this certainly doesn't mean that they're all gone. I'll slowly be fixing them as new features get added into the game. Many bugs have been fixed just because something new has been added. The biggest fix: Can hold Up to jump now rather than just press, and blocking no longer causes a permanent stun (as it did in an unreleased demo).

Many more small changes have been made to tighten up Aroon and Jiro move and ability wise, some of which include: Aroon's arsenal allows him to get in quickly despite his very un-agile movement while Jiro can wait and get in fast when the time is right. Jiro can wall jump, Aroon cannot. Jiro and Aroon have very different dashing abilities, and their jumping and walking is now just slightly different. Aroon's Forward Knee and Air Forward Knee combinations make him a very hard opponent to close in on. Aroon has a brand new Fireball as well.

Jumping is much more smooth and accurate now, as part of the code has been rewritten. Some of it still remains to be rewritten in a later update... however it won't be done anytime soon. I've started work on character select, but have no idea when it will be complete.

The biggest new addition however, is damage. Attacks now do REAL damage, and there are two damage scaling systems in the game. System 1 is a life scaling system, which decreases the amount of damage your character does as your opponent's life goes down. System 2 is a combo scaling system, which decreases the amount of damage as the number of hits in a combo increases. So far these two systems seem to keep damage in-check, and the high damage game play really seems to keep things fast paced.

I'll keep working, hopefully that mid-late January release date doesn't come too soon.

-GStick