Son'Uva Continuing Development

I went back and noticed a lot of flaws in the code I was originally writing for Son'Uva, so I took today and rethought how to write it... I'm WAY happier with the results.

The following is yet another demo of the development side of things. You won't notice a ton of differences, but a few noticeable changes since the last update are the fighter now stays inside the stage boundaries and you're limited to three special attacks. Why three? One idea I originally had for this game was that there'd only be a set amount of special moves you could use per match. This will hopefully keep anybody from being too cheap when they play (assuming this game ever gets finished... 3 years now?). As the game progresses and you win more matches, the number of specials you may use will go up (six is currently the max). Who knows, maybe this will be a bad idea in the long run, but hey, it's MY game, you deal!

Other changes include some jumping fixes, you can no longer change your fighters direction mid-air (hey, I had to keep SOMETHING about this game realistic) and you're using Hunter now instead of Maith... simply for variety.

I figured I'd let you feel like you just won by throwing in a dead fighter as well. Feel free to Halo-Hump him if that's what you're into.

Anyway, go on a clicks-a-hoy.

Suh-Noov-AHHH!!!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Son'Uva ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT!!

Yeah Son'Uva!

It's like an old arch enemy, constantly coming back to mess with my brain. I had all but given up hope of ever getting this game finished due mostly to the fact that my knowledge of any real coding is slim to nothing... Well, at least something about me is slim these days. However, I don't like to think of myself as a quitter and by giving up hope of ever getting this game done, that's pretty much the definition of a quitter. So this weekend, I buckled down and spend hours plotting out the actual logic for allowing a user to control a character using their keyboard. Now, before all you real coders start calling me a n00b, keep in mind that I, well... Am totally a n00b. So don't judge me! The tricky part wasn't so much telling the character to throw a punch when the user clicks "Z", the tricky part was telling the game what to do when the user clicks "Z" at the same time as "UP" and "RIGHT". There's literally an infinite number of multiple keystroke scenarios and every single one nearly popped a brain vessel when I sat down and thought it through. Such a pain!

Yeah, that didn't make a lot of sense (to you OR to me) so I suppose you should just play around with what I was able to pump out this weekend and let your brain numb itself for a few moments. Have fun controlling the dark, mysterious MAITH:

Click it up:

Z, X, C, V, B,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva! More Defeated Animations

I swear, this game will be finished someday!! Realizing that I have yet again gone on a Son'Uva hiatus, I busted out the Wacom this weekend and did some quick work on my precious. Despite being nothing all that interested, I have completed a handful more defeated animations for three of the fighters: Son'Uva, Nark and Gazael. By "defeated", I'm referring to that glorious Mortal Kombat moment where the announcer yells out, "FINISH HIM!"... Rather than making the fighters look all wobbly like in the MK games, I've just made them look like they just got the crap kicked out them... Which is kind of what happens, right?

Anyway, click the image below for a look-see.

At least something's getting finished...
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Son'Uva: Boneyard Finisher

I struggled with an idea for devastating your opponent using the elements from the "Boneyard"... Again, my one-track mind thought, "impaled on bones!"... But as I've said before, I've done that a lot already. So I went back to ye olde drawing board and came up with something which took a lot more time than I was planning on putting into this... So you better love it! I slave over an overheated MacBook all day long for you people!

Criss Cross'll make ya, CLICK CLICK:

Yeah, he got boned,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva DNA Tree Finisher

Back to Son'Uva! Don't get me wrong, it's been fun playing with Turble animations this week, but I gots a game to finish! ... Someday.

This week features a lovely finisher for an older stage.

I debated actually having a finisher for this stage, it didn't lend itself to a lot of violence (though that giant ribcage in the back has been very tempting... but I think we've impaled enough combatants), so I analyzed the elements of the stage and decided the only logical course of action was to use the vegetation which is obviously a dominant presence.

So clicks it up thug-style forealz!

Lil' Flash o' Horrors,

~ Mark

Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Son'Uva Status Update

You know, I've put in about 5 or 6 hours worth of work on Son'Uva this weekend and yet I have nothing to really show for it... The sad thing is, once you get to the point I'm at with a game like this, a lot of the work becomes technical and less creative.

For example, this weekend was almost entirely devoted to duplicating the animations for the fighters on the receiving end of the finishers... So if I had an animation of one person getting burnt to a crisp, decapitated, mauled to death, etc... I have to make that same animation for every other character... Which is tedious at best. I've spent so much time swapping out symbols that I literally looked for a "SWAP" button on my cloths this morning when I needed to get changed... I also looked for an "Undo" button when I passed gas in church.

Needless to say, I'm not going to show you 10 animations of Gazael finishing each fighter sequentially (though it was a tempting thought), I'll just show you Archfiend's "defeated" animation and call it a night. It's the only real updated I made this weekend that's new from a visual standpoint.

It may be this way for a little while,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Son'Uva HUD work

In all the animation chaos I forgot to focus on one of the more important aspects of any fighting game... The HUD (Head Up Display). I figure the fight would just go on forever without a health meter or a time limit (a concept which I hate, but sadly must conform to for classic gaming's sake). I was struggling with where to go on this one, traditional boxes with a red and yellow bar, percentages, etc... I went with skulls, spines and tubing. I think it fits. Check it out:

So you'll notice in the above animation that there's a bunch of purple glowing orbs next to the health meters... The purpose of these is to represent how many more times the fighters can use their special moves... I've been referencing this concept since I started talking about the game and I really think it'll take the "cheap" factor out of the gaming experience... Preferably avoiding cheap nonsense like this.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. The only downside is that I have to illustrate each number on the timer... As you can see, I only had enough patience for the "2"... Maybe I'll do "3" tomorrow and make a REALLY useless blog about it...

I do anything for blog content,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.  

Son'Uva: Pinkerton Tower Finisher Update

I felt like updating the Pinkerton Finisher to not be so much like the other stage finishers (one, two)... So here's the direction I took... Not that much different, but enough of a change to make me happy... Cause it's all about my happiness, y'heard?? Click. Pic.

Is there something in my eye?
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 

Sonuva Legacy Updates

Legacy always feels incomplete. So today I decided to freaking complete him already! The only move missing for him was a second special attack. It feels like everything he does is already so devastating that I couldn't think of anything else he could do without being a rip-off of some other big boss out there. Fortunately I had one last idea which I decided to execute... He wraps himself in "soul hands" like armor and charges at his opponent. Hopefully this move won't be too cheap...

In addition to finishing up his moves, I thought his finisher could use a little tweaking. The ribcage didn't seem to match the cartoon nature of the animation/illustration styles, so I updated it. There are also a few other tweaks which I won't bother going into because... well, they wouldn't really make any sense unless you've been glued to this game's development like I have.

So go on and give this little image a click and view the carnage!

Charge!!
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva Weekend Updates

I was sadly out of town Thursday and Friday and was unable to make any updates... So over the weekend I did an extra amount of development on my never-ending project "Son'Uva"... I was debating spacing these updates out over a couple of days so I could take some time off of working on this game, but I thought a nice long post with lots of content would be more fun to my very few readers...

I realized this past week that I never had any kind of defeated animation for the fighters which would cue the player to finish off his opponent... So that's exactly what I began working on. Defeated animations for the fighters... I have four done and should have the rest finished before the end of the week. Fortunately, they're really quick to animate/illustrate. And that makes me a happy designer. Click the image below to view the animations to date.

Having done these animations, I saw it fit to revisit a few finishers I felt were lacking... Hunter's is the first. I have never been 100% satisfied with how this finisher comes out looking... I've redone it at least twice now and it keeps failing to live up to the others... So I cracked down on it and tried to figure out what made it suck so hard... Not sure if I can explain it, but I think I figured out what the problem was and I believe it to be in a good place now... But you can be the judge, click it.

Gazael was another finisher which I feel I may have cheaped out on due to either time restraints, laziness, or my wife watching me animate a character based off of her... Regardless, the concept was spot on, the execution was off the mark. I went all Michael Bay on it and decided to go bigger, badder and more epic. Not sure how well this one will cooperate when it comes to development, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there... You know how this works. Image. Click. View.

And speaking of bridges to cross, how about bridges to fall off of? I gave a sneak peak of the floating bridge's gruesome ending, but never actually delivered on the goods... So without further adieu, I saved my favorite for last... Here's the Bridge Finisher. Click dangit, click!

Alright, I hope you got your fill of updates for this game, cause I'm fresh out! I'm sure to have more as the week progresses, and who knows, maybe when this game is actually complete, I'll go back to doing some art work everybody can enjoy! ... Don't get your hopes up.

Son'Uva II, maybe?
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva Nark Specials

So Nark has the ability to manifest his artwork into reality... I wanted to work on this concept a little more, and touch up the sketches to make them more animated. Nark now creates a giant demon which swipes the opponent if he/she comes into contact with it. The attack where Nark creates a giant fist underneath the opponent needed a touch up as well to be A.) more noticable B.) more animated. The fist closes as it goes back into the ground. Anyway, I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this update than it really is... But with all these Son'Uva updates, this blog needs some written content...

Click the image below and watch away!

Have I mentioned he's kind of me?
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva Throws

Just a quick posting...

I went back and modified two throws in the fighter line-up; Hunter and Canaan. I thought their throws were a little weak and needed some beefing up... Hope you enjoy!

CLICK IT!

Kiss the pavement!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva: Nark Finisher Update

I was never terribly happy with Nark's original finisher... It didn't appeal to any of his characteristics. I had previously just slightly altered Hunter's finisher, seeing as Nark was nothing more than a "color-swap" of Hunter. So I went back to my old sketches from when I first started concepting the game and used that as a starting point... You can see from the image on the left what the idea is... He's got a pencil, I suppose he should do some erasing. Though that implies that he makes mistakes. Maybe if you're fighting him that means that YOU'RE the mistake! Take that.

Click the image below to view the new finisher animation. Love it.

Do-over!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva: Edgell's Tomb Finisher

Real quick cause it's late/early and I needs my sleep! I worked on a stage finisher for Edgell's Tomb... I'm pleased, but it needs a little tweaking.

Click the image below to view and have a good weekend!

* UPDATE: I touched up the animation, should look a little better now... Played with some lighting, etc... Enjoy!

Split decision!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva: Edgell's Tomb

About a year ago, my good friend Edgell sketched me up a design for a stage in Son'Uva. I've been meaning to get this stage created for a while and just never got around to it. Well no more of that! I cracked down this week and done got her done, y'hear!

I've tweaked his design a little to fit the mood of the game, and it's going to have a pretty sick finisher integrated into it... Basically the concept was an old Egyptian tomb. Hence I'm going to name it, "Edgell's Tomb"... for now.

Click the image below to view it and be sure to comment and give Edgell his well deserved compliments!

You da'Man, Edge!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Son'Uva Ragdolls

Every good game should have a "Practice Mode"... At least I think so. How else you gon' get soooo good?? Rather than just creating your typical mode where you spar with another fighter, I thought it'd be fun to go another direction and create dummy ragdoll versions of each fighter that you can smack around and practice on... Plus if there's one fighter you just can't beat, it's fun to go death-match voodoo style on em', right?? Yeah, you know.

So anyway, I created a basic ragdoll template (seen to your left) to work with and took it from there. They're meant to be a little goofy.

So as always, clicks away at the image below and see a lil' Flash goodness! Oh, and you best appreciate this, I drove my wife crazy working on this all weekend...

Little Big Planet, eat your heart out,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 

Sonuva: End of a Legacy

If there's one character in this game that's been a thorn in my side, it's Legacy. He's huge, his movements are limited, his body is close to impossible to animate and he can't succumb to normal finishers... Which means I had to go and create a custom death animation for him.

...

And ironically, this is going to save me OODLES of time when I'm finishing up, but I won't bore you with the details of that one. What I can say though is this means he most likely won't be a playable character come time for production. Sad times, but I'm over it.

Below is Legacy's death animation. You'll see how it transitions the background nicely into the next, and maybe the second background will now make more sense... Basically, Legacy (in a nutshell) is like Hell's encasing, so when he dies, all the souls of the wicked get released... And tear him a new one.

Click the animation below and enjoy the gory goodness! (Just refresh the page if you want to watch it more than once, sorry, I was too lazy to create a loop)

Hell hath no fury!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva Update LXV

After many months of animation, I figured it's time to work on something a little different for Son'Uva. I've been debating the best possible menu system for a game like this... I still don't really have an answer, but I think I'm on the right track... This obviously isn't anything final or even properly coded, but it makes for a nice demonstration of the menu system I'd like to use for the game. It's incredibly similar to my original sketch of the game.

Not every link works obviously, only two links are functional: "Play" and "Enter Code"... I know, it's a little early in production to be messing around with cheat codes and passwords, but I wanted to play with some AS functionality because honestly, I'm incredibly rusty... And this is still pretty amateur level stuff I'm doing. One man's trash, I suppose...

In any case, here's a run through of what you can do:

1. You'll notice all players in their stance positions at the bottom. One of them on the far left is grayed out. If you've been following these posts, then you'll be able to deduct that it is Maith.

2. By clicking "PLAY", you'll notice a slight menu change, the logo grows smaller, and the words "Select a Fighter" appear beneath it. You may now hover over each fighter at the bottom to see their name as well as some production art to better show you who you're about to select. As I mentioned before, Maith on the far left is disabled. He hasn't been unlocked yet.

3. So how do we unlock Maith? I have some ideas for how he's unlocked in gameplay, but obviously this game hasn't gone into production yet. So if you click the Son'Uva logo at the top, it'll bring you back to the main menu. From here, select "ENTER CODE"... Now that you're on the crudely designed code screen, you can type in a 5-Letter cheat code... Can you guess what it is? Yeah, I'm feeling original, it's "MAITH", make sure it's in ALL CAPS. Then select "Enter" underneath. Now that you're back on the main menu, you'll notice somebody is available now:)

4. For kicks, if you want to enter the code again, it'll disable Maith. This was intentional because I'm bored.

Okay, have at it! Click the image as usual and give it a few to load this tremendously large file.

* UPDATE - Same principles now apply for words such as "SONUV" & "NARK".

JUSTIN BAILEY,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva Finisher Update

Since redoing Jack's finisher, I've wanted to revisit a few of the older ones I did when I started animating this game... Here's Son'Uva's... REMASTERED!

Yeah, yeah, gushy,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 

Ain't NOBODY sick of Son'Uva updates!

I finished up the second phase of The Cathedral stage... And just as a bonus (for presentation purposes), I've updated Jack's finisher. It needed some serious work... Specifically how it looked like he was ripping the opponent's crotch out. Seriously, watch it... Totally looks like that. Amateur mistake... or professional subtlety...

Enjoy!

So many guts!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.