Hello and welcome, everyone! I am ASF, a veteran member of the Audio Department who is passionately dedicated to Super Smash Flash 2 production. I have been granted the fortunate opportunity to share some new and exciting elements regarding SSF2 Beta.
Before that, let’s play a game: I want you to imagine a horror film where a man is about to have his arms torn from his body by an evil creature. The monster is growling, you can hear the man’s whimpers as he attempts to free himself of the evil beast’s clutches. He struggles for freedom, but his efforts are to no avail and he is gobbled up. The idea is quite frightening. Now, try to imagine this same scenario lacking dynamic music, sound effects, and screaming voices. Try to picture such a gruesome event without sound! Does this seem as invigorating to you? It seems to fall flat, if you asked me.
You might find that emotions aren’t the same when audio is muted. Watching a film or playing a game without sound is not a particularly thrilling experience by modern standards.
That’s where Smash Flash comes in. In order to improve the game, music and sound have been continuously upgraded over the years, and Beta is no exception!
Back during the development of version 0.8, there was no distinct audio team. Sound effects were very non-standardized and musical pieces were outsourced. Beginning with 3 particular members, the music crew began rendering unique remixes. Early renditions of songs were generally well accepted, some even being endorsed by the OverClocked ReMix guys at APEX. Since then, music developers have come and gone, contributing to pieces found in demos as recently as version 0.9b. More recently, the team has expanded and with each new member contributing their unique styles, we’ve found the sound direction of the game to be shaping up quite nicely!
Without sound, the game would have no impact. Would Captain Falcon be as iconic without being able to hear the “Falconnnnnn PUUUNCH!” when you throw out a neutral special? We’ve taken great care when it comes to making sure the sound effects of the game retain a high standard of quality. For that reason, many of the older outsourced sounds and voices have been replaced with the Audio team’s material, and newcomer’s voices have also been made from scratch. For example, the upcoming demo will feature a custom voice for Isaac, a first for SSF2! Some of this work has been followed up by L0Z741, a new member with lots of creativity and a sharp ear.
Defeating your opponents wouldn’t be feel anywhere near as great without the glorious victorious musical piece unique to your character at the end of a match, so victory fanfares are key to the Smash ambiance. To make SSF2 feel more unique and vibrant, victory fanfares from Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Melee have been updated from their originally orchestrated versions, and are now unique to the game. For the upcoming Beta release, some fanfares have been reprised, including a familiar sound, here:
(Marth’s Victory theme by Chernabogue)
We have many more where that came from as well.
SSF2 would not be the same without the distinct remixes that play as you battle it out. The new song additions, beginning in 0.9a, have given the game a special personality. We make sure to pay special attention to the influences of the characters’ series when creating new music.
Super Smash Flash 2 Beta will double in song abundance compared to 0.9b. “Did he just confirm twice as many stages?”, you speculate in your Slack chat. Well, not quite. However, there will now be two songs per stage in the new demo! That’s right, Super Smash Flash 2 Beta will mark the debut of Alternate Music tracks on every single stage. After countless hours of dedication and teamwork, the music team is accomplishing its goal of incorporating high quality songs that are unique to SSF2, ensuring that each stage has at least two different tracks.
Since this is an upcoming demo, it wouldn’t be fair to show you all of the new music up front, so here are two brand new songs that will be debuting in Beta:
(Bramble Blast by 194)
(Proof of Blood by Chernabogue)
Luckily for you, more tunes will be released soon, including showcased pieces. An approaching blog post will express more musical talent, even introducing the composers themselves with their favorite Beta creations.
On behalf of the entire SSF2 development team, I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard and read. Feel free to ask any questions and discuss Beta to your heart’s content!
Make sure you stay tuned for our next post. I can assure you, there is much, much, more to follow in the world of SSF2!
Hi guys, my name is Proto. Some of you may know me from certain chat rooms or my occasional McLeodGaming posts. I’m here to welcome you to the third week of the Super Smash Flash 2 Beta Dev Blogs! This week’s blog will be covering balancing changes that we’ve done to a handful of characters for Beta.
Now without further adieu, let’s get started!
DISCLAIMER: As with anything we show you in these blogs, everything is subject to change.
So, let’s start with Chibi-Robo. Some of you may have spotted this in the Direct, but Chibi-Robo’s up special accelerates to a top speed and now has a strong hit at the end making it a good kill move off the top. But be careful; in Beta, up specials have a lot more landing lag!
Bam!
In a motion to bring balance to Chibi-Robo’s Down Air, we decided that we needed to lower knockback to match some of the other meteor smashes in the game. As a trade-off, and doubling as a reference to Zip Lash, we decided to make Chibi-Robo’s plug extend farther in some crucial attacks. We are still a little unsure, and so we’re still testing this change in particular, but for now his down air has some pretty amazing range. Check it out!
Extendo-plug go!
One of my favorite things about SSF2 is that it gives us a lot of room to experiment with things that normal Smash games don’t do – so we decided that we wanted to try out the idea of grab angling. Chibi-Robo has three angles for his grab: up, forward, and downward. When angled the grabs don’t go too sharply in either direction, but it should allow you to grab people in situations that other characters wouldn’t be able to. Watch it, though, because an angled grab won’t go as far horizontally as one that isn’t angled.
This might be good to catch people that are approaching me with an aerial.
One of the complaints we got the most about Chibi-Robo were his dead zones. If you don’t know what a dead zone is, basically they are areas where a character cannot quite reach in order to extend a combo or otherwise hit someone. For that reason we felt like Chibi-Robo needed an awesome aerial that felt extra satisfying to hit with that also covered those dead zones. Enter Chibi-Robo’s new Up Air!
Wow, it hits hard!
We hope that this attack helps to bring things together. It’s an amazing finisher and a guaranteed followup from key attacks that just made it feel like Chibi-Robo was missing something. I love using it, and it reminds me a lot of Captain Falcon’s knee of justice. In fact, Chibi-Robo in Beta reminds me a lot of Captain Falcon in general. He has satisfying combos, and a really fun and blood-pumping speed to him that really separates the men from the boys.
Now Zelda, on the other hand, was one of our stronger characters in the last demo. Strong kill power on her lightning kicks, extremely low landing lag, a potent projectile, and a promising combo game made for a character with very few weaknesses. A couple easy key changes will makes her easier to deal with in Beta.
Her lightning kicks are slower, have more landing lag, decreased damage, and her Forward Air is now the stronger move of the two. The uses are basically the same, but they should be less effective and less safe on shield.
Before...
After
Zelda’s Din’s Fire was a move that had low risk but had very good rewards. It would explode even when missing and the explosion would linger, waiting for someone to run into it. Now in Beta her Din’s Fire will only explode when detonated on top of an opponent – but when it does hit, it shocks the opponent multiple times and then explodes for extra damage! If you’re gonna go for a Din’s Fire, make sure to keep your space, though, because it leaves you wide open for a counter attack if you’re too close and you miss.
A little different, but still not something you’d want to be caught by.
We also decided that Farore’s Wind should be slowed down so that it is more punishable when recovering, but of course we have to compensate for this! The trade-off for this nerf is that Zelda’s up special now has more uses offensively. The first hit sends the opponent upwards, and at the right percentages will combo into the last hit, which sends opponents flying forward. If you are hit at the beginning, the best way to avoid the last hit is to hold your directional button away from Zelda. If you anticipate that Zelda will throw it out before she actually uses it, you can shield either hit and Zelda will be left wide open. Don’t be fooled by this move’s shortcomings; if it catches you off guard it will deal a decent amount of damage and maybe even KO you! It’s also really fun to use close to stage boundaries for flashy, yet impractical, suicide combos.
At higher percentages it’ll really pack a punch!
There are some small changes as well, such as jab – it now stuns the opponent on the last hit allowing for combos if you are fast enough. Some attacks that are normally impossible to combo into can be linked in this way. The new Down Tilt works similarly, except you can use it out of a dash – space it well though, because if you hit the foot instead of Zelda’s leg, it instead becomes a very powerful downward lightning kick.
This jab combo in particular is useful, as it can continue into tons of other attacks.
Fox was also on the stronger side last demo, but we want to keep him in the spirit of how he was originally designed. For that reason, we have included a couple of smaller changes to make sure that technical skill prevails. The first being his Up Throw, which used to send you only upwards no matter which direction you held. Now we have given the ability for opponents to influence their direction to avoid guaranteed combos. The second change is to his Back Air. Opponents hit later on in the attack will now take less knockback and damage. It keeps Fox fast and fun without having the things that make him frustrating in some matches in older updates.
Can’t let you u-air that, Star Fox.
There are multiple other smaller changes based on community feedback. Here’s some of the more important ones.
Don’t expect this to be it, though. A huge part of balance is playtesting and learning how to use (and possibly abuse) the new tools we’ve given to the cast, so we have tons more changes to come. There have already been over 3300 updates to SSF2 Beta since it was first announced, and the number is growing every day. We’re excited for you to try everything out!
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. This ends this week’s blog. Thank you all for reading, and for staying with us for so long! I do have one last thing for you as a parting gift, and that is your first video preview of SSF2 Beta since Smash Con – check it out below, it’s a match where I show off the new Chibi-Robo updates and take care of TSON’s Zelda:
Alright! That’s all I have – but I want you guys to definitely stay tuned for next week’s blog; we are going to show off something I’m sure everyone wants to hear.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the second SSF2 Beta dev blog, and thanks for coming back! This one is going to cover some of the many effects changes you’ll be seeing in the new version.
I’m Refurin, by the way. You probably haven’t heard of me; I’m an effects and coding developer for the game, but I’m new to the team and don’t talk much. I’ve already done a ton of work since I joined, and it’s had a big impact on the game.
SSF2 is a project that is in constant development. As time goes on, graphics and effects get upgraded and changed to better suit our standard of quality. Most of my work with the team so far has been dedicated to pushing that standard. We’ve shown you some sneak peeks of these upgrades through our social media outlets like Facebook, but today I’m going to go a little more in depth and share some of the updates you can expect to see in Beta.
The biggest project that I’ve been working on for Beta has been replacing most sprite-based effects with upgraded versions that are smoother and drawn in Flash.
A little rough around the edges
Bomberman’s having a blast!
Somewhat dull…
How exciting!
Everything looks much cleaner. A big plus to creating effects this way is that it makes it significantly easier to tell characters and hit-sparks apart, so you never get lost in the action.
We’re also making sure that each character’s movements and attacks are accentuated with dust and trails where they’re needed, just like in the official games. It adds a dynamic flair to the gameplay, which makes moving around and attacking feel more powerful and fun as a result. Here are some examples.
The new coloured trails look gorgeous in motion.
Certain effects are now unattached, so they don’t always stick to the character.
Tails’ Electron Cannon made the jump to vectored art beautifully.
We teased this one on Facebook. Look how smooth it is!
We’ve also made elemental attacks feel and look much better when they connect, as each element now has corresponding hit effects for fire, electricity and water.
I’ve even redone the way the sparks flow across Pikachu in his attacks.
Notice anything else about that screenshot? The team made a big push to have effects be coloured separately from the characters themselves. This took a lot of effort, but we’re really happy with the way it makes your costumes feel. That means no more purple Falcon Punches. Your Thunder Jolts and Fire Foxes will always be the right colour, regardless of which costume you’re using. Of course, it isn’t just these moves. A wide range of effects across the entire game work this way in Beta.
I’m going to use this time to show off of some of my favourite effects that are brand new to SSF2 Beta.
Sora’s Fire is cleaned up and ready to deal with Heartless!
The whip really glows hot in Beta, and it has static around it now.
For all of you Zelda players, there’s going to be a lot to look at.
Mega Man has brand new effects to go with his sprites!
I don’t just like fire, either.
Before I go, I want to thank you all for reading this blog and a huge thank you to the long time fans who have stuck with us so far. We have a lot of exciting news in store for you all, so stay tuned in the coming weeks.
The third dev blog is going to be covering a specific aspect of the game that we’ve received a fair share of complaints about, and it’ll be written by another new team member, Proto. So don’t forget to come back next week on Friday!
Hey, Sir here, coming at you with the very first news post on the new shiny website, and, technically the first SSF2 Dev Blog!
With the upcoming release of a groundbreaking new update for SSF2 comes the need for a top-down thought process. Some critical thinking brought us to one of McLeodGaming’s biggest issues… The old website.
The old website created the need for a couple of separate stops for all of your SSF2-related needs. Wiki pages, forum threads, the Dojo!!, and many other websites are all common destinations for our fans, and it shouldn’t have to be that way. Sharing SSF2 with your friends wasn’t innovative and involved having to figure out how to pronounce “McLeodGaming” (which is Mick-Loud-Gaming if you were wondering). Websites are also able to steal a game we’re making for free, and buy domains to host it with tons of malicious ads to make money… and they’re being ranked higher than us in Google search results for it, putting our fans at risk. Not cool. But don’t worry – we’ve found a solution to all of the above.
Welcome to the new McLeodGaming.com everyone! It’s been re-designed for a more modern look, and a more user-friendly experience. My favorite part? If you’re on mobile, you’ll notice it’s finally optimized for all devices, no matter the size! A vast amount of thought has also been put into improving the new site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which equates to how high up out site appears in Google search results. Now when you search for “SSF2”, “Smash Flash 2”, or something similar, Our site will be first, instead of those other nasty ones.
While I’m not announcing any new SSF2 news in this post (think of this as a prequel), I can let you know that the rest of the SSF2 developers will be posting Developer Blogs every Friday going forward – and I’ve seen the schedule; things are going to get REALLY interesting as time goes on!
Now that we’re live, I want to hear all of your opinions on the new look and feel. I’ll be setting up a forum post to allow all of you to voice your thoughts and feelings. Your feedback will really help, because over the next few weeks, I’ll be updating this site with even more features and content. Your feedback will be what helps mold the future of this site, because y’all are the ones who actually use it!
(You can post your thoughts on the forum here)
Now, if you’re still reading and interested, I thought a little behind the scenes of this new site would be cool to have available. So, as I was developing the site over the last month and a half, I took some screenshots along the way. I’ll explain each one individually below. Here’s our first mockup:
Oh boy, well... ugh.
Yeah, this isn’t exactly pretty. It was an idea that I had early on that played with the idea of a design that followed the line pattern of the current MG logo. It… didn’t work out, and was very quickly canned.
Here was version 2 & 2.5. Similar to the last design, yes, but the huge menu buttons didn’t feel quite right. Plus the the entire header was way too big. At this point, nothing was remotely responsive. Version 2.5 gave up with the massive border design, and went for a more “modern, thin and simple” design.
version 3.0
Version 3 of the design was a significant improvement on the site, and we all felt it was perfect for new MG. Minor menu and layout adjustments went on, but this design is what will power MG for the years to come. We feel it’s a clean and simple design that will look great on a multitude of devices and browsers. And, remember that word I used a second ago, “responsive?” I want you to try this right now. Take your window, and make it smaller. Watch how the layout changes from computer to tablet to phone. Isn’t that cool?
Right now this design only applies to the main site… but we’re working on bringing the new design to MGN as we speak. More news on that in a later dev blog… and some additional information that I know you guys will go nuts over.
Well, I hope you enjoyed our little trip into web development and design. If you want more details on how I made this site, feel free to contact me using the link on the bottom of this site, or find me on the forums/slack chat. I’d be glad to share my wisdom. That’s all I have for now, more Dev Blog-y goodness is on its way next week courtesy of a brand new team member, hype!
TL;DR: Sir rules! He re-made the McLeodGaming homepage, and there’s a hidden sneak peek to next week’s blog somewhere in this article.
We hope everyone had a smooth transition into the new year! 2016 will be a big year for MG, since we know you’re all eagerly awaiting SSF2 Beta. Likewise, we’re just as eager to get it out to the masses! To prove that we’re still alive and kicking, here’s a rough outline for our plans in 2016:
SSF2 Beta Is Coming!
We’re officially confirming that this is the year SSF2 Beta is coming! So you can rest-assured that you won’t have to go another long year without an SSF2 release. And this isn’t just any release – it will be the most comprehensive build of the game since its inception! We’ll soon be rolling out plenty of preview material to get you hyped for the coming of Beta.
10th Anniversary of the Original Super Smash Flash
On August 21st this year, it will have been an entire decade since the release of the original Super Smash Flash on Newgrounds!
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/333995
Nostalgic right? We’ll have to do something special to commemorate such an occasion, so remember the date!
Dev Blogs are Returning!
Do you remember the Dev Blogs? Well, they’re coming back!
For those of you who don’t remember (or missed it entirely), the Dev Blogs were a series of blog posts and videos showcasing a behind-the-scenes look at the development of SSF2. You’ll get to learn all kinds of tidbits of information about the game that you can’t get anywhere else, so definitely be on the lookout for their return!
SSF2 Is Returning to Super Smash Con!
For its second year, SSF2 will be hosting a booth at Super Smash Con 2016! It’ll be taking place August 11-14th in Chantilly, Virginia. I’m sure many of you have questions about the details of “what” we’ll showcase this year, but details will come in time. So please be patient for a bit longer and be sure to mark those calendars!
See here for more: http://supersmashcon.com/
Not Returning to Apex 2016
It was a tough decision, but after 3 straight years of attendance SSF2 will not be hosting a booth at the Apex Smash tourney this year. Each member of the SSF2 dev team has their own separate lives outside of SSF2 to attend to, so we decided against making a commitment towards a second big event. But we do hope that some of you can make it out to Super Smash Con instead if you have the means to do so!
…And More?
Yes, there’s more! But we can’t announce everything just yet, so be sure to follow us on Facebook/Twitter/Google+, and bookmark the MG home page!