♫… reflects a movie scene, often more than twice ♫

Enough progress has been made with the v.2 GFX Generator engine that I’ve put it on the site! One generator page, filled with (mostly) fighting game-scale game sprites, has most of the items from both the old Vs. Maker and Group Shot generator pages. There are also separate pages for Darkstalkers 3 and Marvel Super Heroes where each has characters who are 100% compatible with those Vs. Screens. A few things (like the secondary scene options) work a bit differently than before, but most of it is there. There’s still work to do on v.2 and the older generators will stay up until all their old functions and screens can be replicated with v.2. Rewriting this engine from (nearly) the ground up is something I’ve wanted to do for a lot of years, and it took a bit over a year (in-between making things for normal site updates and other work), but it feels good to have the new generator working this much. Effects like those shadows in the MSH Spider-Man stage windows were impossible with the old system (the same function can reflections there, too) and you can expect to see more effects and features added in future updates.

But that’s not all I have ready for the site this weekend! Come back tomorrow for a few new sprites of Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle characters!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: gfx generators
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Multiplayer 3D arena brawlers are even more rare than beat ’em ups right now, which makes it even more special that Combat Core, which had a successful Kickstarter last year, is now in Steam Early Access! It’s fun to play in this early state, and you can even test out the Create-a-character mode. The game should be breath of fresh air to any Power Stone fans out there who are fiending for kind of brawling experience. To celebrate that early access, I made a sprite of Ember, the game’s resident wrestler. She’s in the Games (Independent) Custom Sprite gallery, ready to brawl!

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I went back to work on the new engine for GFX Generators and got the reflections running (I still need to add the “color base” feature, though). The next step will be to get the text and text input going. This was a later addition to the old engine, so I’m hoping it’ll be an easier fit into the new engine. Finishing that will complete the basic features of the old generators and the next thing will be making a new version of the screenstyle options, those extra background options from the second menu. That, and a few other small things, will finish the new engine and last step will be converting a crapload of data files to the new format. That’s going to be a lot of work and I need to concentrate on that until it’s done. Except for a Streets of Rage-themed update in September, there won’t be any site content updates until the new generators are good enough to replace the original engine (and I won’t have deal with two versions characters’ data files and other tiring things from having two engines on the site). Getting the engine up to the old engine’s standards is only the beginning, but that’s a story for another time.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Combat Core, gfx generator
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Today is the eighth month’s ninth day, which mean this site celebrates 1989, the greatest year in video game history*!

This site even has a sub-section dedicated to the year for reasons you’ll see mentioned there. Then again, you’ll probably figure out why once you see all the stuff I’m celebrating (and there’s still a lot left out). Everything in this update is linked to that magical year when many of this site’s favorite games, series, consoles and more debuted. Unfortunately, there’s so much stuff that I couldn’t even fit it into 3 screenshots, so, as a first, the sprite preview is a video!

Custom Sprites:
– Capcom: Quick Man added to Mega Man section.
– – Final Fight: two new scratch-made Cody sprites!
– – Strider (new separate section): (a new Tom Pooh sprite (and redone colors on the hand-up pose) in the Strider section

– Nintendo: Tatanga (Super Mario Land)

– Sega: scratch-made E-SWAT’s police ICE armor and enemy unknown/File 96 enemies
– – Golden Axe: resprited Tyris Flare fight stance
– – Shinobi: new scratch-made Pink Dragon and redone Kasumi sprites

– Sunsoft: Tuff Turf’s heroes and lady added.

– Technos: new standing sprites for Kunio, Riki, Hasebe, Alex and Ryan

– Games(other): Prince of Persia (original) added.

– DC Comics: the Joker in the 1989 NES Batman stance
– Music: new gallery starts with new Chuck D (Public Enemy) sprite and older sprites and sprite edits.
– Toys ‘n Toons: Marge, Lisa and Bart Simpson. The Simpsons cartoon started in 1989!
– G.I. JOE: Snake-Eyes in his version 3 (1989) outfit
– TMNT: Krang (in his standing pose from the 1989 beat ’em up)

Mini-Logos: Prince of Persia (Jordan Mechner), Public Enemy (Music) and the Simpsons (Television) added.

The new custom sprites and mini-logos have been added to the GFX Generators.

My apologies to any fans of 1989 games who were left out, like Mendel Palace/Quinty, Double Dragon 2(NES), Astyanax, Crime City, and dozens more. There are too many good 1989 games to celebrate and many of my older sprites needed to be redone. Let me know about your favorite 1989 games and characters in the comment section!

* – 1989 being the greatest game year is hyperbole mostly for fun, but also designed to drive disagreement-induced hits, but at least this website admits it.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Batman, dc comics, ESWAT, Final Fight, g.i. joe, Kunio-Kun, River City Ransom, Shinobi series, Super Mario Land, The Revenge of 1989, The Revenge of Shinobi, the Simpsons, tmnt, Tough Turf
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25 years ago, on this very, one of the greatest beat ’em up sagas began when Sega’s Bare Knuckle hit the Mega Drive system in Japan. Mixing the best elements of Technos’ Double Dragon and Capcom’s Final Fight (then the two most recent evolutionary steps in the walk ‘n brawl genre), flavor from Sega’s own Golden Axe system (complete with smart bomb attacks), and a heaping dose of their own style, Noriyoshi Ohba and his team created a solid classic. The game still outshines brawlers on far more powerful systems, especially the legendary soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro.

Bare Knuckle made its way to the U.S. a few weeks later under the Streets of Rage moniker. Expect another ScrollBoss update dedicated to the game (and series) on that. For now…

check out these new fighting-scale sprites of SoR/BK 1 and 2 versions of Axel Stone’s fighting stance have been added to the SoR Custom Sprite gallery and GFX Generators (where he also has a bunch of palettes). I also added a Bare Knuckle mini-logo and made some slight improvements to the Nora sprite from the last round of updates.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Bare Knuckle, Streets of Rage
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To everyone who has checked out the site back in the days of Vs. Mode fights and Minus World madness (the site section, not the completely different website), those who just visited for the first time today and every party person who falls somewhere in between, thank you for stopping by and making these sixteen pixel-packed years fly by. Get ready for multiple days of anniversary updates, starting with a seven-sprite kickoff!

Custom Sprites:
– Capcom: Protoman (with variant)
– Konami: Sledge (Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2)
– – Castlevania: Trevor Belmont, Sypha (SotN Cape up variant of the earlier sprite)
– IREM: Straw from Ninja Baseball Bat Man
– Taito: Sayo-chan (a.k.a. Pocky) from Kiki Kai Kai, Zeke from Zoo Keeper (both in-game and cabinet art styles)
– Sega: Sonic the Hedgehog… decided to start running right as I clicked on the GFX Generator screenshot maker. See, that’s just rude. Maybe someone told him Protoman was the coolest person in the pic or perhaps he was scared off by the Zoo Keeper. Don’t worry, this isn’t the only update this week, so let’s see if I can get him to slow down for another sprite before the anniversary updates are done.

All sprites were added to the aforementioned GFX Generators (the old GroupShot and Vs generators).

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: 16th anniversary, anniversary, Castlevania, Kiki Kaikai, Mega Man, Ninja Baseball Bat Man, Pocky & Rocky, Sonic the Hedgehog, Vendetta, Zoo Keeper
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Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been getting ready for the the All AmeriCon convention in Warren, Ohio (click the link to find details on their Facebook page).

Part of that preparation was finally getting around to doing some line art for prints, but I also made two new pixel art prints and those prints have just been added to the shop page:

The Legend of Zelda pic is based on the NES ending and, well, you’ll see this in something else I’m working on for the site. The JLA print has sprites (or variations of them) I made from scratch before with a few all-new sprites and an all-new background. Again, they’re available in the site’s shop and I’ll have them with me at the All AmeriCon convention this weekend!

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It’s not on the site yet, but I’ve made a bit of progress with the new version of the generators:

I’ve got the oval and sprite-shaped shadows working and the reflections are next. It’s taking a lot of time to unravel my crappy old coding to replace with my current level of crappy coding, but it’s good to have it at 75% of what the original version does.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: All AmeriCon, dc comics, gfx generators, the Legend of Zelda
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Thanks the SDCC exclusive NECA figure sets for Konami-style Ninja Turtles, the new TMNT game developed by Platinum and the X-Men getting a new movie, it’s a pretty good time to be a mutant. That’s why this update is happening!

Custom Sprites:
TMNT – new sprites of all four turtles, an improved version of the Foot Soldier sprite from a few weeks ago and a new pose.
Marvel – improved versions of the Storm and Dazzler from the FCBD update and plus a new outfit for each in that same pose.

All new pixel art has been added to the GFX Generators. The Foot Soldier’s palette has been reworked so that the ’80s toy palette fits in, so it’s all one sprite now. You’ll also find a nice new screenstyle in the Group Maker generator.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: gfx generator, marvel comics, May Mutant Madness, tmnt, X-Men
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Custom Sprites (sprites also added to their GFX Generator characters)
Movies – A redone Jason Voorhees sprite
Tecmo – resprited the torso of the hockey mask drone from the arcade Ninja Gaiden.

GFX Generators: A new standalone version of the Darkstalkers 3 (Vampire Savior) Vs. Screen is now ready and only has characters with all necessary elements. All of the standard Darkstalkers are there, but so are over a dozen guest stars. I’ve also made DS3-ish portraits for Splatterhouse’s Rick Taylor and Biggy Man.

While I planned to do a mini-DangerTerrorHorrorThon for this Friday the 13th, I’m a bit too tired from the day job to pull that off this time. Guess I’ll just have to save the horror for October…

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Darkstalkers, Friday the 13th, gfx generators, Ninja Gaiden, Splatterhouse
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Saturday is Free Comic Book Day and it’ll be a good time to support your local comic book shop! Remember: they have to pay for the free books you get, so please consider buying a few comics, too! I’ll be spending my FCBD at the Warren, Ohio location of All-American Comics (Facebook, GoogleMaps) selling prints, giving out free coloring pages and, really, just hanging out. This site is celebrating FCBD by throwing a lot of comic book sprites at you (and this site is free, too)!

Custom Sprites
Marvel Comics: Dazzler, Iron Man (Silver Centurion), She-Hulk and Storm
DC Comics: Aquaman, Bizarro (Silver Age), GL John Stewart, Plastic Man (celebrating his 75th anniversary this week), and Ultraman. Additions were made to the Superman Battle Hover (a.k.a. the Taito pose) gallery.
TMNT: Foot Soldier (Konami/cartoon and toy variants)

Mini-Logos
– DC Comics: Crime Syndicate, Plastic Man
– Marvel Comics: Dazzler

the new items were added to the V.1 Vs. and Group GFX Generators.

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Story time: Ssomeone on Twitter posts a link to a Comics Alliance story about the five best Lex Luthor stories and I read it, partially because I’ll be making new Lex Luthor sprites this year. It was a good article, so I figured I’d check the sidebar for other recent stories. So imagine my surprise when I saw a link to this:

Comics Alliance’s Chris Sims posted a story about the Superman Taito pose sprites I’ve been making. Including a short story about the first time he saw the arcade game and how fans (myself included) kept wondering about a certain palette swap from the game. That game was special for a lot of comic book and video game fans of the 1980s, especially when we heard that John Williams Superman theme cut through the other sounds bouncing off the walls of the arcade. Thanks, Mr. Sims!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Comics Alliance, dc comics, gfx generator, marvel comics, tmnt
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Custom Portraits: Maki gets her SFA3 MAX portrait(imperfect, as I didn’t have an easy time ripping it), SNK’s Mai gets a new scratch-drawn SFA3 portrait, but so does Abobo (replacing the lame version I made a few years ago). The portraits were added to the v.2 image generator.

Also, a glaring omission was added to the Mega Man NES edits was added.

Thank you for the music.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Double Dragon, Fatal Fury, Final Fight, gfx generators, the King of Fighters
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