Guys...

Hey guys,

I've been a bit quiet over here, but I'm dropping by to let you know that although I didn't post it here, I released SSB Clash September.

Things have been really hectic with Uni wrapping up for the year, so I'm here to tell you that the monthly releases are on hiatus, and the next update will be in time for Christmas.

See you then,
Swifty

SSB Clash September Preview

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to give you all a quick rundown on what I've got coming up for the September Release of Clash. This month has been mostly about fixing things and restoring some features that I'd had to disable in the past.

To that end, I'm happy to show off the major addition to the September release, the alternate costumes are back.






Last seen in Test Awesome + 1/2, there were only alternate costumes for Zero and Shanoa. Now however, all characters have alternate costumes accessed using X/Y at the character select menu. Most of the costumes have the blue theme (or red if the character is already blue), but there are a few special costumes in there, including Fire Flower Mario and Super Shadow.

There's been a lot of bug fixing going on recently:
- The bug that offsets the in-game text if you exit the credits early is fixed
- Characters can no longer go into idle from knockback (no ground a attacks in the air)
- Characters can no longer be stuck in taunt loops
- Fixed frames for Geno
- The time to wait after the match finishes is shorter
- Off-colour pixels in certain portraits fixed

In addition to the above fixes, there are updated animations for Mario, Shanoa and Yoshi which add fluidity in the case of Mario, and Aerials in the case of Shanoa and Yoshi.

The results room is now completely fixed so that it will judge the character places right every time. I'd dropped the ball a bit with the results room in the past, so I'm glad to see this fixed.

The game icon now has a transparent border again instead of the magenta one and the language room has been updated with a new lower background, seen below.



I did some work on getting the explosions on death happening, but the code for that lags a bit on actual hardware so there's some tweaking with that before it's done.

There's one last thing to announce before I finish up with this preview. There is now camera control when the game is paused. Currently you can move up/down/left/right with zooming hopefully happening before I release the test closer to the end of the month.

Until next time,
Swifty

SSB Clash August 2011 Released

Hey Guys,

Head over to Filetrip to download the latest version of SSB Clash.

Changelog:

- Updated Aerial attacks for Kirby, Tails, Mario & Luigi
- Touch the flags in the options menu to select language
- Updated Character Select bg for solo modes
- Updated the Startup Message
- Fixed Character Colours
- Additional Translation
- Misc character fixes

Click here for the filetrip page

I'll be back next week with some more progress reports, but for now download and enjoy!
Swifty

August 2011 Preview

Hey Guys,

I'm back. Yeah, I've said that a hundred times, but here I am. For the Clash August release coming up, I've fixed up a whole lot of the Sprite References, and we have updated aerials for pretty much every character. Off the top of my head, only Snake and Shanoa should be missing any right now.

I've also properly implemented the language selection screen from the July Test. That means you get to it through the Options Menu by tapping the flag in the bottom right corner like so:



In addition, the solo character selection screen is changed so that we can fit in the Classic Mode stats later. You know, Score, Lives and Difficulty for future reference.



I'm also going to see about getting the death explosions back into the game for the August release, although no promises at this point.

I'll be releasing it on August 30th, over on FileTrip.

I'm also working on other games right now, hopefully I can show off my DSTwo game soon.

Until next time,
Swifty

SSB Clash July 2011 Released

Good news,

SSB Clash July 2011 is up over at FileTrip.

The name of the test is to help us keep confusion down on which version is the latest, which will be handy because I'm committing right here, right now to releasing an updated test once a month.

In addition, soon SSB Clash will be going open source and you'll be able to have a look at the source code and contribute to the project if you feel the need to.

I'll be uploading a newer version of this test fairly soon with more of the sprited attacks in as well as some other things, but for now we've got the following changes (and many more I can't be bothered listing):

- Kirby Playable
- New Stage (Battlefield64)
- All aerials in-game
- Updated Vault and Options menu
- In-progress French and Spanish Translations (Press X,Y at Vault menu to go to the languages screen).

Get it here

See you soon,
Swifty

Spanish Translation

Hey Guys,

The Spanish Translation is well underway, and we've been updating the sprites of quite a few characters to get it up to what's needed for the next test.

These three languages already in the game (English, French, Spanish) will be all for this test, but if we have enough demand we could translate it into pretty much any language needed.

There are a few more miscellaneous improvements in the game engine, but I'll leave those for later this week.

Swifty

French Translation Progress

Hey Guys,

This week I finished off (most) of the French translation for the game, and added a language select screen to set the language for the game.





I've just got to translate all of the main menu buttons, and two or three lines of text and I'll be done with the full translation. Also, I'll be doing a second translation for the game. It's Spanish, so look for that soon as Clash becomes more accessible.

In regards to the actual fighting though, which is what we're all here for... Well, you'll just have to wait and see. I'll have something interesting up soon.

Until next time,
Swifty

Next Release Date + More

Hey Guys,

This week I've been working on more bug fixes. The reason for all of these bug fixes lately is that I'm really trying to polish the test as much as possible before I release it.

That brings me on to my next point. The release date for the next date is a tentative July 15th. The release date may be earlier than this if I get it finished earlier, but it will be no later than that date.

Upon first running the game, you'll have to choose the language through a flag, but that choice will be saved so you won't have to do it again. Right now only English and French will be ready for the demo, but if you can speak another language fluently and help me with the translation, then we could probably do that too.

I've got a lot of free time right now, so expect a few updates to Clash too. I've also had time to work on some of my other projects, which hopefully I'll be able to tell you about shortly.

Until Next Week,
Swifty

Suda51 and Translations

Hey Guys,

The event with Suda51 was awesome, and I managed to talk to him about what would happen if Travis was in a Smash Bros game. Basically, no blood, no swearing but still a ton of style.

Also, I've got a quick video I'm editing that I hope will go up on my Youtube channel soon. It'll basically just show off Kirby, Battlefield64 and the new menu improvements.

There have been a few more bug fixes since last week, but with uni Exams and getting sick, I've been a bit behind. However, we're working on a french menu translation for all of you that are native French speakers, and I hope to do further translations in the future if there are people to help me with the actual translation.

See you next week,
Swifty

Late Update (Again)...

Hey Guys,

I sure didn't manage to keep to my updating the blog once a week thing, did I? Well good news! Uni is finally over for the semester, so I can get back into working on Clash.

First of all, the most important news: ssbclash.info has expired. So for now, we're moving it to http://clashdojo.site40.net/dojo/. This is only a temporary measure, and I'll be moving it to a new domain soon. (I'm hoping ssbclash.com, but don't get excited yet, I'm a terribly cheap person).

Alright, so on to game updates. Apart from a myriad of small bug fixes, I've fixed a problem relating to the counter that keeps track of the wins/losses and tightened the restrictions on which modes count towards wins/losses.

I've fixed up animations for pretty much every character, and updated all of the stage icons, both for clarity and to use less colours (which is useful on the DS).

I'll be working hard over the next week to tighten up Clash even more, and to get it bug free in time for a new release. I can't put any date on it because I really want the thing to be as polished as possible. I'm going to have to take the plunge eventually, but not yet. :P

Also, I promise this time, I'll be back next Wednesday with a new post.

See you next time,
Swifty

PS: I'm going to an event on Friday where I'll meet Suda51, so I'm planning on asking him some questions about how Travis should play in SSB. Hopefully we'll get some really cool information about it, and I'll see if I can get him to choose the Final Smash that we'll eventually see in game.

Aerials Update

Hey Guys,

One week until I get off on holidays, which means LOTS of progress on Clash. So keep checking back for progress as I get back into updating the blog at least once a week again (with lots of new content, hopefully).

In the meantime, all of the aerials are successfully programmed into the game. If you want to use Neutral Aerial in the air, you can still press A without any direction, or R is also the dedicated button for Neutral Aerials.

Shiny new screenshots:


Metaknight's Forward Aerial


Knuckles' Down Aerial


Zero's Forward Aerial

I've also updated the game so that it pauses when the hinge is triggered (ie. When you close the DS), so this will help with the accessibility of the game.

See you soon,
Swifty

Happy Easter People

Hey Guys,

It's Easter time and that means (in Australia anyway) we get a five day weekend. Unfortunately, I've got tons of Uni work to do during that time off, so it's not as much of a holiday as I would have liked.

But the good news is that Semester One finishes up in just over three weeks, so that'll give me heaps of time off.

I hope to have the aerial test polished and uploaded over in the Member's Only section of the SSB Clash forums here soon, so look forward to that.

See you next time,
Swifty

Aerials, Misc Projects Update

Hey Guys,

This week there have been a couple of things going on. For Clash, the game now pauses itself when you close the lid of the DS. This is something that should be standard in all DS games in my opinion, so it's good to have it in.

In addition to that, I'm part-way through adding all four aerials to the game as I write this. For the time being, there will be some dummy animations for some of the characters, but we'll fill those out over time as our awesome spriting team (right now pretty much just Gokudo) gets around to it.

On a slightly more ambiguous note, Range and I have started planning for a new game which we're going to make for as a primer for the game that I previously hinted at back in October last year. It's a completely standalone game but will help us learn how to develop for the platform and we'll hopefully have all of the planning done soon so that I can get into the final stages of preproduction.

Also, pretty much all of the other projects I've hinted at over the course of my blog are still in the works, however projects that I don't mention often are developed more... sporadically than I would like given the time.

Until Next Time,
Swifty

AI, Wi-Fi and Plans

Hey guys,

I missed out on a week there due to mid-semester exams for Uni, but I have some good news.

Alright, first of all we've been having a look into the Wi-Fi side of the game. Right now we're looking into things like checking if you have the latest version and unlocking a character via Wi-Fi. I want to reiterate, this isn't an announcement of us having finished that stuff, but it's in the works and hopefully we can get that done soon.

Second of all, I've been working on the AI and I hope to have two additional AI modes completed in the future, and a way for the computer controlled characters to swap between them. In addition, all AI modes (except Training Mode) will be getting an upgrade to realize when they're off the side of the stage, with instructions on how to get back so that you can't trick them so easily into following you to a suicide death.

The first new AI type will be the defensive type, and will contrast with the existing AI (Offensive Type) in that it only pursues characters within a certain distance from them, and when approaching tends to do so using dodges where possible (just airdodge for now) to get close enough to attack. It also values self-preservation and will recover to the stage instead of attacking close opponents when off the edge.

The second type of AI is a surprise for now, but I hope to see you guys playing against all of them, when SSB Clash launches its next test. I'm still working on spriting the aerial attacks, but once they're done I'll be able to add them to the game rather easily.

On the topic of the next test, I have a list that I'm working through for what I want out of the next test, but if you guys are expecting anything I haven't mentioned so far please leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Until next time,
Swifty

Auditore Villa

Hey Guys,

This week hasn't seen much programming work going on due to my spriting (as explained last week), but I'm glad to say that we now have all aerials for six of our characters.

But to help tide you over until the next major update, I wanted to share with you Ezio's stage for the game, Auditore Villa. It's still a bit of a work in progress but I think that it's definately worth a look at. You can see it in more detail over at the SSB Clash Dojo (ssbclash.info) or alternately there's a preview below.



Thanks to colonelcool for his awesome work in getting that stage to where it is now. I'll have quite a bit of time off this week so perhaps I can get some Clash work done before I get my 3DS at the Australian launch on Thursday. Because, honestly that'll probably kill productivity for a solid week.

See you next week,
Swifty

Aerials Coming Soon

Hey Guys,

I've put a hold on the programming side of Clash for a little bit so that I can sprite the necessary attacks for me to add all four aerials to the game. That's still a little far off (I'm a fairly slow spriter) but I feel it's something that needs to be done soon.

Until Next Time,
Swifty

Underground Laboratory Update

Hey guys,

Alright. Over the break since my last proper update, I've managed to do quite a few things to the game. Most of these are bug fixes, but the major thing is I went and made the Underground Laboratory bigger so that the camera can zoom out further, as this seemed to be one of the major problems with the Rebirth test.





The other fixes include a number of changes to Geno, mostly frame speed adjustments and fixing up a frame error. Sonic's airdodge is faster, and so is Kirby's neutral air.

The player tab can no longer be toggled in the character selection screen for a single player mode, there's a fix with the classic mode the results room code has been revamped and the solo continue menu now has a slightly better layout and touch controls.

Probably the most important fix for anyone who played the recent Kirby preview is that players no longer freeze on slopes.

So overall, a lot of fixes but not much new stuff. I hope to add some new content over the next week, so stay tuned.

Swifty

Busy Week...

Hey Guys,

This week I've had a lot of stuff for Uni, and I've been working a bit on some of my side projects. Fear not, there has been progress on Clash, I'll save that for next week.

Swifty

Kirby joins the fight!

Hey Guys,

As you probably (hopefully) gathered from the title, Clash has a new combatant. Kirby is definitely one of the best characters in the game at the moment, which is purely down to him being extremely fast. Now, please join everyone in pretending that the two screenshots of him in action below are the announcement trailer I planned to make but never got around to.




And those of you who are paying attention to the screenshots may have noticed our other big update for the week in the second screenshot there. Players in Team Matches now have coloured markers above their heads to indicate what team they're on. This is another one of the things that I heard a fair bit when Rebirth first launched.

There were also quite a few bug fixes this week, and I've changed the jumps system slightly. Yoshi, Metaknight, Shadow and Kirby all have higher double jumps than the rest of the characters. Metaknight and Kirby will be changed later, but this first step which makes Yoshi's double jump much more like it is in the games is the stepping stone towards the multi-jumps that I know people want to see for Kirby and Metaknight in game.

I feel the game's been taking major strides lately and hopefully those of you who have had a chance to try it agree.

See you next time,
Swifty

Preview Test

Hey Guys,

Sometime later today (or tomorrow) I'll be sending out a link to a test in progress to every member of the SSB Clash Facebook group. It's still rather rough around the edges (in quite a few places), but if you want to try out some of our new content (and something as yet unannounced), go like us. And be quick with the download, because I'll be pulling it down in a couple of days.

See you soon with a proper update,
Swifty

Team Killing and Training

Hey Guys,

There's a fairly large list of changes this time, so I'll get right into it.

First off, I ran through and optimized every source code file in the game that needed it, and as a result, the code will run (un-noticeably) faster.

The training mode, where previously was limited to the amount of stocks set at the character select screen is now an unlimited match which has to be ended by the player through pausing and pressing SELECT.

The Solo Continue menu has had a partial revamp with a new top screen. The Challenger approaching screen can now be progressed by tapping the screen.

I moved all of the image files out of the efsroot, which means that the game is now 2MB smaller, so it'll be easier for me to upload, for you to download and probably easier to start up.

The default for team killing is now set to off to make the Classic Mode matches a little more challenging. There isn't a way to toggle this yet, but there will be when I redo the options menu a little further down the track (once we have more things to add).

Finally, resetting the data from the vault menu now also resets whether or not Snake/Geno have been unlocked.

So there's been quite a bit of progress this week. A few more weeks like this and we'll be ready to show off a new test that will definitely be worth the wait.

Until next time,
Swifty

Vault Update and More

Hey,

A quick check in just to say that the vault menu is fully updated, and the achievements menu will be done soon to complement it.


This screenshot is in-game this time, so this is exactly how it'll look when you play it (minus the blurry screenshot quality).

Also, we have two new characters joining the roster soon, so stay tuned for that announcement. I can't really say how close we are to releasing the new test simply because I'm not sure what features I want to have done by then.

Things I'm aiming towards are the two new characters, at least one new attack, two new stages, achievements and possibly a new mode. Unfortunately, multiplayer is looking less and less likely for the next test though. I'll be working my way down that list of things, and when I get to the end, you can expect to see a new release.

Until next time,
Swifty

Vault Revamp

Hey Guys,

Alright, so this week I've been spending my time mostly sorting out my Uni enrollment and everything, but I've also managed to get the Vault menu on the way to an update. There are some icons ready to replace the credits/delete data button inputs, and right now we've got an updated bg with the back button put in (finally).



The icons to the right aren't in yet, but will be soon after I complete the last icon, which will be for SSB Clash's achievements system. Achievements are yet to be decided, but look out for them in the next release (which isn't looking that far away, assuming I stop adding things).

Also, you can now tap and hold the touch screen during the credits to make it scroll faster in addition to using UP/DOWN to manipulate them. (Because everyone watches the credits, right?).

Everything attacks-wise I'm still waiting on. I'll update the attacks for characters once we get a few more done, but with only one (albeit very talented) character spriter at the moment, it's not the ideal situation to get the attacks in quickly. Ike is also just waiting on a few more animations before we get him in, likewise with Kirby (who we're just more or less cleaning up).

Until next time,
Swifty

SSB Clash Facebook Page

We now have an official SSB Clash Facebook page so that you can get smaller, more regular updates in addition to the blog, and leave feedback more easily. You can find it here (hopefully). If the link doesn't work, you can always just look up Super Smash Bros Clash. It'll be the third one down.

Options Menu Revamp

Hey there,

One of the things I heard quite a bit about SSB Clash Rebirth was that the options/vault menus were boring and un-user friendly (for people using a stylus). So I'm pretty happy to show off the updated Options menu.


Left: Old Options Menu || Right: New Options Menu

Alright, so graphically you can see it's a lot better. By the time it releases, it'll also have the word "Options" in the blue area to the top right.

You can tap the entire box of most of the options to toggle on/off or to save/load or tap the arrows next to the damage multiplier to change it. The camera options are gone for now. I'm fairly confident that no-one actually used them, but they'll be back later in development anyway.

The traditional button controls can also be used to navigate/interact with the menu as usual. Also, the arrow disappears when you're using the touch screen and reappears when a button is pressed. It's not particularly important, but I figured the arrow might really annoy people if they were using the stylus controls.

I'll be updating the Vault much later down the track to be more user friendly and have some unlockables/art (hopefully) so that it's a real Vault for the next release.

I hope to cover off some of the other common issues with the game soon as well.
Anything in particular people want me to take a look at?

Swifty

Quick Check In

I'm heading off for a trip tomorrow morning, so don't expect much done next week (Oh, that and I start my uni course on Monday) but in the meantime, I've done some more work towards multiplayer, and I've added two values to each move.

One says how many frames of each attack animation to wait before it deals damage, and the second says how many frames of animation before the end the attack stops.

So basically, now it's harder for the AI to attack spam, and there's a more strategic element where you can time your counter attacks correctly while the opponent is finishing theirs.

Also, some things to keep you somewhat busy for the time being:

SSBC's first (as far as I'm aware) video review is up over at andylinkproductions' youtube channel.

There's also a really nice DS homebrew game by the name of Waimanu: Daring Slides. It's really hard to explain, but it's really addictive, sickeningly cute and altogether pretty awesome.

You can find the development team's blog here and you can download the game here.

Until next time,
Swifty

Oh, and happy Australia Day to all from the great nation (A day early, but hey).

Miscellaneous Updates

Wow, it's been a while since I updated here. I'm going to start updating more regularly again as I get more and more done. This week's been quite an interesting week.

We have the hitStun stuff from last post done, so we're getting closer and closer to a polished game. I'm still doing some of the additional testing on the multiplayer, and things are looking good for local multiplayer in the next release.

I'm also going to have to update the AI to attack more effectively (as it currently doesn't choose the attacks in a ny sort of intelligent manner) and hopefully I can add in some more aerial attacks (as that's what I'm planning on adding soon attacks-wise).

But seeing as how I have all of the guard and stun animations already, I think I'll add those soon.

See you next week (I promise this time :P)

Swifty

HitStun Updates and Future Plans

I've been putting off fixing up the hitStun for AGES now, so I'm going through and giving each attack an individual hitStun variable and a hitStun modifier for each character which states how easily they get hitStunned.

In addition, I want to get as many attacks done as quickly as possible, so I'm going to be developing a seperate version of Clash in parallel that has just Shadow in it (seeing as how he's got almost 100% of sprites done). I'll probably start with that one by adding in the aerials.

So basically, I'll probably end up working exclusively on the Shadow test for a while. I'll still be releasing the current test rather soon though, so look out for that.

Oh, and I'll hopefully have some local multiplayer testing going on sooner or later, so that will be awesome (hopefully).

Swifty

Character Roster

Hey guys,

With our forums being a bit of a cluttered mess, I figured that some of you may not have found the character roster for the game. The full character roster is below.

Assasins Creed Series:
Ezio

Banjo-Kazooie:
Banjo Kazooie

Castlevania Series:
Shanoa

Densetsu no Starfy Series:
Tag Team Stafy

Donkey Kong Series:
Donkey Kong
Diddy Kong

Earthbound/Mother Series:
Ness
Lucas

Fire Emblem Series:
Marth
Roy
Ike

F-Zero Series:
Captain Falcon

Golden Sun Series:
Isaac

Ice Climbers Series:
Ice Climbers

Kid Icarus:
Pit

Kingdom Hearts Series:
Sora

Kirby Series:
Kirby
Meta Knight
King Dedede

Legend Of Zelda Series:
Link
Zelda
Toon Link
Ganondorf
Majora’s Mask Link

Mario Series:
Mario
Luigi
Wario
Bowser
Peach
Yoshi
Geno

Megaman Series:
Megaman X
Zero

Metal Gear Solid Series:
Snake

Metroid Series:
Samus
Zero Suit Samus
Dark Samus

No More Heroes Series:
Travis Touchdown

Okami:
Amaterasu

Pikmin Series:
Olimar

Pokemon Series:
Pikachu
Jigglypuff
RED
Lucario
Mewtwo

Prince of Persia:
Prince of Persia

Retro Gaming:
Mr. Game and Watch

Sonic Series:
Sonic
Knuckles
Shadow
Tails

Star Fox Series:
Fox
Falco
Wolf
Krystal

Street Fighter Series:
Ryu

The World Ends With You:
Neku

Character Count: 57

Alright guys, there are a couple of things to take into account here:
1. No new character suggestions will be accepted.
2. The roster isn't final. There may be some tweaks, but again, remember point one.
3. There are cloned characters in the roster, but only under the assumption that they'll be uncloned.

So with that said, which characters are you guys looking forward to the most? How about which newcomer to the series? Leave your opinion in the comments below or at the forums, because we may work on the more popular characters first.

See you guys later,
Swifty