Downloadable Content

There's downloadable content down at the Rumblah! forums

Here's some of the things you'll be able to find:

Characters

• Betaman: The default character. With its editable files too so you can start experimenting and create your own characters.
  
  
• Ryu: Although a Work in Progress (W.I.P.) it is available for those interested. Besides, it's the first SpriteSheet based character so people can understand how these type of character works and start making their own.
  
  
• Scorpion: Work in progress by Quake, who already tried some things on the earlier Beta, this time it's a skin for Betaman.
  
  
• ShortFuse Characters: Users can also share their creations done with the ShortFuse tool. We have characters like Obama, Zeke (Zombies Ate My Neighbours), Chuck Norris and the members of the band Tenacious D!

Backgrounds

• A lot of the backgrounds that have been displayed on the Beta images are available. Dand, Factory, ToyShop and the editable version of Sunset so people can learn the basics of the lightin
  

What are you waiting for? Download Rumblah! and start making your own content!
Head to the forums, register and download it now!

Open Beta 0.51 Released!

You're still reading this? Go to http://www.rumblah.com, join the forums and download the first public Beta of Rumblah!

Rumblah! Won an Award

The National VideoGame Contest in Uruguay was celebrated the past Novemember 20.

The constest was a great opportunity for national independent developers to get feedback from key figures in the uruguayan scene such as Gonzalo Frasca and also from Chaim Gingold, one of Spore's developers and active participant in the academic game studies community.

Rumblah! participated and won the 'Best Polishing' award with the following positive insight.

Exceptionally polished game. Great art, animation, sound, music and camera. Fun to play. Ambitiously cool edit character feature.

- Chaim Gingold

We actually got hooked by the game and played it a lot. It's ready to come out to the world without asking for permission or forgiveness.

- Gonzalo Frasca

From left to right: Rumblah! Supporters from UruguayGamer: Taytus & tom_orozco8, Videogame guru Chaim Gingold, Rumblah! Developer Rod F(me!), Rumblah! supporter and my girlfriend Pandora.

The candidates are on ShortFuse!

The new version of ShortFuse has gone through some serious upgrading and who's better to check the new details than the candidates for tomorrow elections! Check McCain and Obama getting the ShortFuse treatment!

Images from the Next Beta

NOTE: The text in these images is in spanish because it's being conditioned for the National Videogame Contest down here in Uruguay. Not to worry, though: I plan on making the next Beta with selectable language.

Here are some images of the menues, character selection screens and the new TrainingRoom in action!

Main Menu

Character Selection

TrainingRoom 2.0

The release of the Beta is estimated to be near November 20. There is a slight chance that this might actually be the first Open Beta.

Training Room Evolution

The Training Room has been the most basic background stage for Rumblah! But like most things from the engine, this has too been updated and improved throughout the development process.

Let's remember the first Training Room, then known as the 'BetaRoom', when Betaman wasn't shaded and there wasn't an opponent to fight against.

Then some details were added to the background but didn't show up very well on the videos even though they've been for quite a while.

But that didn't improved the stage completly. So now the Training Room has been remodeled and it's new version that will feature on the next Beta will look like this:

Did it improve? Comments are welcome!

Slow-Motion KO Animation

As in most fighting games, when you KO somebody time freezes and then he falls in slow motion to the floor. Rumblah! just had to have this too!

Block, Dash n' Roll!

A video discribing the defensive techiniques you asked for in the poll! They're being pollished for the new Beta.

If you dash while blocking you'll be able to roll. This move is very good for dodging atacks and run behind your enemy as you can see on the video. Besides, while you roll you cannot be damaged!

Beta-tester's custom skins

Queake/Neutro registered at rumblah.com to be a Beta-tester. Once he got his Rumblah! version he started fiddling around with Betaman's skins and also with Ryu's sprite-sheet and he came up with some interesting things. Check them out!

Inspired to do some of your own? Join the Beta-testing team at rumblah.com then!

Dashing

The people have spoken, and even though the poll is still available it's clear where the interest is going.

So here you go: Dashing!


Double-tap either left or right to dash foward or backwards. Dashing can be used as a way to move quickly around the arena. Defensively, it can help you step out quickly out of a short range attack. Offensively, it can rush you into your opponent for a fast approach and then combo with a few good hits.

First Open Poll

As you might have noticed, there's a poll up there for you to say what you'll like to be developed for the new Beta 05. Remember that it's still a Beta release, so not all details of your selection might be fully available but at least there will be more developed than the other option from the poll.

The poll closes on October 4th.

If you selected option 'Other' then please comment on this post about what it is you'll like to see.

New Beta Previews

Although there isn't an exact date for its release, the Closed Beta 05 is under development and will inlcude new stuff, some of them are:


Dynamic display that shows what are you listening to

Even though the fact that you can use external mp3 music in the game has been announced already it was yet to be implemented. This images correspond to the lower left corners of the menu screen showing the name and artist performing the song. This block appears for a short while to show the player what he/she is listening to and then fades away. Something very similar to what you've seen on menu screen of EA games.


Blocking


The image speaks for itself, the concept of blocking your opponents attacks can't be missing on a fighting game. Will it allow in the future to have several effects such as Parrys and Counters? Only time will tell.


New Moves


Here we have Betaman using his special attack with Down + B, the next Beta will most surely include even more moves!

Remember that the Closed Beta 04.1 is available to those interested once you join the mailing-list at rumblah.com

New Closed-Beta near release!

A new closed-Beta will be released soon. If you want to get your hands on it and try for yourself what you've seen on the videos then fill the form at www.rumblah.com

In order to stay informed about the next Beta releases you'll have to provide feedback or content for the engine. That way, the Beta-team will be an active group within the engine's development!

Montage of fights against the CPU

Montage of fights against the CPU. Testing AI and improving it since the last video. Also the messages before the fight were added.

First fight vs CPU!

A first approach to the workings of the artificial intelligence from the challangers in Rumblah!


Green Betaman is controlled by the CPU.

Some bugs exist such as disslocated hitsparks among other things that will be corrected.

Rumblah's! Facebook Group

Join Rumblah's Facebook Group and stay informed on what's going on with the engine while contacting Beta-tester, Developers and other supporters or the project.

Fireballs and Combo System

No fighting game is complete without these two details. Characters always have some sort of fireball, whether it's an energy ball or a physical object. A combo system registers the chained hits performed by the player.

Stage - Disco Floor

Let the Disco lights follow your moves!! Step on the tiles and check out the effect! The stage is currently on Beta, so don't you worry: a disco-ball we'll be up there sooner or later!

The Rumblah ShortFuse! Experience

So the entry about ShortFuse! wasn't clear enough? Well then check it out in action!

Rumblah ShortFuse!

What if I just want to release some tension fast without all the work involved in making a character? What if I have no idea how to work myself around Flash but I still want to have a quick fight? Rumblah ShortFuse! is the answer!

A sweet little add-on for the engine where you can load any image from your computer into the engine, crop the face you want to include, select a given moveset, such as Betaman's, and then pit yourself againts anybody. And I do mean ANYBODY.

If there's something we've all learned from Wii Sports's Boxing is that there's a guilty-pleasure hidden on punching out the Mii of someone you just feel like doing so. Well then, Rumblah's ShortFuse! will let McCain smack Obama down without consecuences, or Hugo Chavez againts George Bush and while we are at it: YOU against that wicked algebra teacher of yours!

Now users with Flash experience will not only have the possibility of creating complex characters or use sprite sheets for old-school characters. Now they'll also be able to make movesets that people can choose from when they just want to have a quick brawl.

Lighting Effects on Stages

Throughout the different fighting game that have appeared during the year we see more and more elaborated background stages. Some of them have different lighting tones, however the characters reamain with their strong colors in some cases.

With a few lines of code inside the stage file the characters will be iluminated to match their surroundings. You'll just have to define the R G B components of the tone and the porcentage ofthe effect over the character and you're good to go!

Dan in Rumblah!

It's the first user-created character! One of Rumblah's beta-testers gave it a try and created Dan from Street Fighter with some humorous animations instead of attacking. Watch happymeat's(a.k.a. madminifig) creation go!

This video has been up for a while and used an early Beta which explains why it hasn't got a lot of animations.

Rumblah.com!

Rumblah.com is on the works now! Once the engine goes into Open Beta (around November probably) the site will be up and ready for people to share their creations, learn how to make them or discuss about them in the forums.

It's been a while since the last update, I know, but now that I've finished some other projects I have more time to dedicate to Rumblah!.

In other news: Betaman's profile has been updated with all his current moves and his other skins. Go check them out!

A new Beta will be available soon for those interested that will include all of Betaman's aerial moves. If you're interested then send an e-mail to rumblah.mail@gmail.com

Collision Boxes

Meet the Red and Green Collision Boxes

These boxes, which are nothing more than just rectangles, mark the contact zones of the characters. In this case, this particular frame of Betaman that's being editted in Flash represents the momment in which the character's headbutt would hit the enemy. Intuitively we can say that the red rectangle or Red Collision Box represents the action zone of the attack. On the other hand, the red rectangle or Green Collision Box represents the zone where the character is vulnerable to enemy attacks. We can conclude then that if Red Collision Box of a character A has contact with the Green Collision Box of character B then character B must change its animation to one that depicts its pain and also loose some health.

These contact zones are vital when it comes to define action zones of attacks and also to define the vulnerable zones of a character. You might notice that they are not neccesarily precise in relation to the characters perimeter, they are just aproximations of where contact should be delimited. For example, if I want to give the illusion that a character has an arm outside the plane of an attack then it should be outside of the green zone. Same thing with attacks. The idea is that collision looks real and not that character B is hit when the characters just scrape each other.

Stage Testing

This video shows differents stages to play in Rumblah! They currently have the same vertical and horizontal limits as the BetaRoom but that is going to change. They're all from Capcom games: Las Vegas from Street Fighter HD Remix and the other two from Marvel vs Capcom (even the effect in the last one ;))

External Mp3 Music

Since Rumblah! is being created with Flash it was expected that an option like was going to be available.

A battle is nothign if it doesn't have the right music that tenses your nerves and put in the attitude of the game. But since not everyone gets fiesty for a fight with the same songs then what better way than to adapt to each player by allowing them to use an external mp3 file. If you don't like the music available by default on a stage then you can change it and place another mp3 in it's place to fit your needs.

Would you like progressive Rock on the background? Maybe some Trash Metal? o if guitars aren't your thing maybe a nice piece of Trance or even orchestrated music! Or better yet, music composed by you! You choose! If the mp3 exist then you can use it in Rumblah!

Tell us what songs you would like to hear while you're fighting or indulge us with some of your own creations!

Side Turning and Enemy Volleying

Another video that shows how characters turn to face each other if they cross over each other. Also showing, Betaman's Down+A attack which let's you volley with your enemy!

First Beta Fight - Ryu vs Betaman

First fight between Ryu and Betaman. Their movesets are limited to grounded attacks. Notice that some attacks pull the characters further back because of how they are executed (Betaman's HeadButt or Ryu's kick).

Also notice that the players' health decreases.

Beta Video - Scrolling & Ryu Skins

A new beta video showing the camera scrolling in both vertical (seen before) and horizontal axises.

Also you can see more skins available for Ryu and a second player moving around!

Closed Alpha/Beta Testing

The call for those interested in Alpha/Beta testing Rumblah! is now officialy opened. For now it holds the quality of Closed Alpha Testing since it's still at a very early stage.

The most recent Alpha contains:


El Alfa más reciente contiene:

- Betaman: With all button combinations explained before available

- Ryu: Without duck or Backward+Attack animation

- *.fla of Betaman to start creating your own totally original character!

- Vertical camara panning!

Those interested can contact me via mail at rumblah.mail@gmail.com and if possible must leave a mail address that has Windows Live Messenger capabilities in order to stay in touch.

Don't forget that you can leave your comments, suggestions and ideas on the shoutbox to your right. Messages from both, the spanish and english version of the site will be displayed there.

Ryu

The first character based in sprites for the engine will be the famouse protagonist of the Street Fighter saga.

Ryu's color schemes

Ryu will be the first example of a character created entirely outside Flash and as opposed to original characters like Betaman, these only require spritesheets: a single image file with all the animation frames.

In fact, what started as a spritesheet found in google like the one you can see in this link came up as a character with movement and animated like in this video.

Although this is the chibi version of the character this does not imply that you can't create Ryu in his more 'adult' versión for Rumblah!

As it is being done with Betaman, this entry will be updated as the character gets done.

Sprite Characters - Preview

Some people are not interested in making their own original characters as we've already seen with other engines such as MUGEN. Some people just want to see epic battles between characters from other fighting games or even from other genre of games!

Rumblah! will not let this people down and will allow you to include characters from other games. All I can say for now is that all you need is their sprite sheet.

Check Ryu in it's chibi version from the famous game saga

Street Fighter practicing in the TestRoom floor!

Promotional Images

The first couple of promotional images for the engine, highlighting the fact that anybody can join the brawl in Rumblah! Click on them to see them in full size.

External Image use

The character development mechanism will include the use of external images. This is files with the PNG or GIF extension (since they allow transparencies) will represent each animated part and will be stored in a directory that corresponds to the character. This permits complex designs that can be done on external programs and don't depend on directly drawing in Flash, but most importantly, it allows the characters to have a change of skin.

Let's suppose that we have Betaman, but we don't lke his greenish color, we can then create a versión of his parts with another range of colors such as those seen in this video.

This color changes help players that select the same character to differentiate themselves, something commonly seen on fighting games.

But most importantly is that one can change the entire appearance of the character!! A third skin for the character could be something totally different!! The character will have the same moveset but could have any image that fits with the dimensions of its parts, for example your own face!!

Beta Video 01

Beta Video with some basic moves of the 'Betaman' character

The character may look a bit blury but trust me, it doesn't look like that in the engine.

Betaman

Shown before as merely a sketch, I give you the first character of Rumblah!

Character Skins

Betaman is nothing more than a guinea-pig for animations and other stuff of the engine, but that doesn't mean that he's not and elaborate character. This is part of his moveset so far.

Punch (A)


Kick (Foward + A)

Headbutt (Back + A)

Uppercut (Down+A)

Aerial Clap (Mid-Air Back+A)

These are basic movements to get started. If you have a good idea for the other button combinations then comment them here. The new added moves will be displayed in this entry.

Movement Mechanics - Buttons

Rumblah! will have a button mechanics very much like the game saga Super Smash Bros., this means that all the characters will have the same button combinations to achieve their different moves, there will be no such thing as a "down, foward + punch"

When playing you have two types of attack: 'standard' or 'special'. Combining with either of the four directions of movement plus either attack you obtain the different attacks, grabs or moves of the character.

The next diagram shows how the system works
Naming the standard attack button asA and the special attack button as B, character movement can be now described as, for example:

• A: Punch
  
• Adelante + A: Headbutt
• Atras + A: Kick
  
• etc
  

• B: Fireball
  
• Arriba+B: Grab
  
• Abajo+B: Firepunch
  
• etc

This makes that every character created for the engine will have the same ammount of movements and none will have more moves than others, besides it allows that anybody can perform the moves of a character without the need of complex button combinations, making the game mechanics much easier for newbies.

Character Design Style

In the beginning, the style in which the characters will be designed for the engine will be very much like a cross between Worms and Rayman this style is easier to handle when it comes to animate and it's not necessary to get into complex designs that will bore their creators half way through.

If you are interested in thinking in posible original character designs then here's the skeleton of how they would look like.

Don't think this a limited design. You can achieve some great original characters with this style and also some tribute to other character from the fighting genre.


This doesn't mean that you won't be able to make characters designs with their limbs attached for their eventual use in the engine, you can even make characters a lot more elaborated if you put your mind into it and also rip the sprites from other fighting games to adapt them to the engine. However, this style is something easy for everyone and it is what Rumblah! is all about.

¿What is Rumblah?

Welcome to the Rumblah! scrapbook

Rumblah! aspires to be a fighting game engine made in Adobe Flash that allows the creation of characters by anyone who handles animation in this platform as well as backgrounds and hopefuly interfaces among other things. It will also have the possibility of adding original content to the game in a simple manner and without any knowledge of programming involved. In other words, a skeleton of a fighting game that can be customized to ones taste with the available content online, a MUGEN made in Flash but with a more original content aproach.

This blog will present the ups and downs of the creation of this engine and under the name of scrapbook since I literally bought myself a little bloc where I am writting everything that pops into my mind that can work for the engine and will eventually show here.

Since the proyect can be considered as still in 'pre-production' I will not ask for anyones help on the programming or designing area. However, don't hesistate to send me your suggestions or ideas that you would like to share with me to this mail: rumblah.mail@gmail.com which will also be available on the footer for future reference