Monthly Archives: December 2012

Game Spotlight: FGC Indie Projects of 2012

Over the past year, the fighting game community has seen several promising independent game projects revealed by its own members. These extremely talented groups have invested their own time and resources into developing games that draw upon the FGC’s language and culture, with core gameplay mechanics heavily inspired by classic fighting game conventions. I want to highlight a few of these titles, because i think this is a very interesting trend.

Super Comboman is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up featuring a customizable combat system based on unlocking and arranging special abilities, in the form of colorful stickers. The story follows an energetic islander named Struggles, as he takes on odd jobs to support his little brother. (Un)fortunately he tends to get carried away with practicing his spectacular combos, and usually ends up destroying everything in sight! Apparently this project has been in development at Interabang Entertainment for over 1½ years. They’re currently putting the finishing touches on the game, so it’s already available for pre-order through their website.

Señor Footsies is a simplified 2D fighting game by Luke Esquivel, featuring two identical characters with very limited movesets. They can walk back and forth, perform a quick low kick, commit to a longer range sweep with more recovery, or build meter to use a pistol. Whoever lands the first kick wins the round, so the entire match revolves around cautious mobility, space control, and – you guessed it, footsies. What began with hand-drawn sprites has evolved into 3D models and a complete visual overhaul, but no release date has been set.

Street Sweeper is another minimalist fighting game built around a streamlined version of traditional footsies, developed by Robin Ramirez. The goal of the match is to connect a low roundhouse sweep, by using a quick high kick as bait, performing a well-timed parry, or simply outmaneuvering the opponent. There’s a free playable PC version available for download, including a second character recently added to the mix – and many more on the way. The character sprites and backgrounds are adapted from SNK’s various Neo Geo Pocket fighters.

Lastly, i’m sure everyone in the FGC has heard of Divekick since it was featured at MWC2012 and Evo2k12. The combat system revolves around the somewhat polarizing fighting game concept of divekicks, recently popularized by SF4’s Rufus and MvC3’s Doctor Doom. It was developed by One True Game Studios and successfully funded via Kickstarter, before picking up a publisher and refunding everyone’s donations. A release date hasn’t been announced yet, but i’m sure we’ll be hearing more details soon!

PASBR AP Burst / Infinite Avoidance System

Quite a few players have been asking for information on the AP Burst / Infinite Avoidance System in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, so here’s a quick overview. As most fighting game players know, a “combo” is defined as a series of attacks that can neither be blocked nor escaped once the initial attack connects. Basically the victim remains locked in hit stun until the combo ends, which can take a very long time in some games.

In PASBR, whenever a combo generates 100 AP or more, the victim instantly enters infinite avoidance state. They’re automatically ejected at a 45° angle and remain invincible the entire way up and down until they land – unless they attack or perform some other offensive action to relinquish their invincibility before landing.

PASBR Parappa AP Burst ComboWhen infinite avoidance occurs, whichever character triggered it receives a 30 AP bonus. Ideally, you want to perform a combo that adds up to 99 AP, then finish it with your strongest attack (which earns around 30 AP for most characters). That would cause AP burst at 129 AP and you’d end up with 159 AP after the bonus.

Of course, most characters can’t quite reach 159 AP because the vast majority of attacks are valued in increments of 5 or 10 AP. However, many characters can rack up 90 or 95 AP, making it possible to achieve 150 or 155 AP combos.

Continue reading