Let's hear it for the next release!

It's been a while since I've annouced anything about the engine but I know it has been downloaded and played so for those few of you out there:

A new Beta release is on the works. The list of improvements and potential release date will be announced as soon as possible.

Hopefully, in order to make the next Beta more appealing to you guys I would like to hear from you in the feedback forum telling me what is it that you expect, suggest, complain or whatever regarding Rumblah's! next release.

Cheers!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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