Original Chara WIP - Jeibu w/ vids & gifs

[VinVulpis]

I got recommended to try showin of some of my work around here. I'm tryin to branch out a bit and find more communities poke around in. I've never been much of a forum-user, but here's to new things I suppose.

So the general idea is that I'm looking to make a complete game. The engine serves well to demo and prototype a lot of my concepts. Someday I'd like to start workin in a raw game engine, (one I might be allowed to sell in) but also one that's not so limiting in terms of making  a complex story setup, and more stage interaction. Don't get me wrong. I love MUGEN still. I'd probably still even make MUGEN versions of my characters even if I started work in a new engine in the future.

That's all rambling for another time, for now, I'd like to show off a bit of my 'main character' critter for my project: Jeibu.


Work's been kind of on and off with him over the years, but I've been recently making some huge advances and have been puttin a lot of time into him.

This character features (like my future characters):
Can turn freely.
Jumping is mapped to a button, not Up.
Has 3 attack buttons.
Guarding mapped to a button.
Jump trajectory can be steered.
Air Dashing - once per jump.

He's still very much a work in progress, some animations are unfinished, and I haven't fully implemented all of his moveset yet. Some artifacts of the old character I made a while ago, still shine through, since I'm converting some old work of mine into something new.
Part of the reason for the free turning is because I'd like to make stage-control a focus, so being abl to turn towards objects and additional foes is important. I'd like to design some Beat-em-Up type scenarios as well, kind of like what I experimented with here:
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Important to note that in the camera test vid, it's an older build of Jeibu. A few things have changed for him since that video.

I'm going to give him 4 special moves, 2 'ex' style moves, and 1 or 2 super moves, depending on how I work out my mechanics.
His special moves:
Dark Matter Shot: A projectile of dark matter that bounces on walls and floors as it decelerates and floats in place for a while before breaking up. This object can be hit and destroyed by foes. (Planing on making an EX of this move, a larger shot that does two hits or longer stun for follow-up)
Dark Leap: A projectile-invincible leap that ends with a low-priority grab attempt. This move has an EX version that adds a ground bounce for follow-up combos.
Raising Pulsar Spiral: (Not implemented yet) A raising attack where Jeibu will spin sideways, whipping his tail around him.
Dark Matter Burst: (Not implemented yet) Jeibu will create an hold a ball of Dark Matter that he can burst on command.
Super - Dark Rift: Jeibu creates a small, blackhole-like object that sucks in foes hit by the nearby particles.

Ya might have noticed by now that my work is very much celestial/space themed. All of my characters and stages will have this kind of theme. The general setting is themed around interstellar adventures.

One more super will be in the works, but I'm uncertain on the exact mechanics I plan to use for it at the moment, but it might be something along the lines of an "Exceed" style move that can only be used once per-match and does lots of damage, or if I end up making my standard set a best of 5, the exceed will act as a KO move possibly.

Jeibu's all about his bounce combos. A lot of his combos and moves make use of bouncing his foes on the ground. His forward throw also has a bounce with a small window he can try to continue pressure on his foes as well. His downward Heavy strike (featured in one of the GIFs above, has a sweet spot - the first two active frames - where he can get a strong bounce to combo from.

And more recently I posted a combo test video, from an idea discussion I had with a friend:
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The concept is just a test, so I have implemented the meter cost on the 'ex' Dark Leap. But the idea is that he can score a combo from a distance by blowing some meter. Dark Leap also has projectile invincibility, so it's a great zoning counter.

The stages in these clips are all also works-in-progress. I have 3 stages I'm working on and just seeing what I can make the engine do before I settle on their designs. The Lifebars are also a W.I.P. of mine as well.

I also have a placeholder put in for rigging up a 2v2 tag system from SIMUL mode, but unfortunately, it only works be manually turning off AI control of the partner player at the beginning of each round, which is frustrating. It would be great if there was a way to do this by default.

I could go on and on about his details, but I don't wanna ramble on too long. So this is all his basics for now. I have other characters in the works of course. Jeibu is just going to be the first I release, and I'll be building the other critters based on the mechanics I establish with him.

I wanna try and get a beta released of him soon, I just don't want the work at this level floating around just yet. Feel free to leave me your thoughts and such. I'm excited to get community feedback as I progress and release my work.

I leave you with one last stupid video of Jeibu's ability to crouch-walk:
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You can follow more of my project work and other random shenanigans over on my twitter:
https://twitter.com/VinVulpis