My earlier reason for putting the site on hold for a bit (details here) just got compounded by more activity book commission work. I’ve got a feeling that it’ll probably kill most of my Halloween plans for the site, so here’s an update that’s a mix of things I planned to post later, some catch-up/clean-up work and some word-spreading for all those classic side-scroller Kickstarters wandering around.

GFX Generators – Three fonts from Street Fighter Alpha 2 and the font from Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja were added to the GroupShot generator.
Vs. & Group chars updated:
Haggar (new sprites and SFA3 Vs. portrait)
Burnov (new Capcom-like sprite)
Abobo (SFA3 Vs. portrait & SFA3 Vs. name)
Hawk – Vendetta/CF2 (improved sprite, new palettes & SFA3 Vs. name)
Vs. & Group chars NEW!:

Shantae (with new non-SD sprite and mini-logo)
Kate – Vendetta/CF2 (All-new sprite + SFA3 Vs. name)

FakeShot update: NES style (Beck from Mighty No. 9 added)

Custom Sprites – Due to the huge amount of custom sprites based on characters from the series (and there will definitely be more new ones in the fugure), Final Fight now has its own gallery page. The new Haggar sprites are there along with some sprites that I forgot to add before (including Poison, Roxy, Jake and Simmons). Burnov was added to the Technos gallery. Kate from Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2 was added to the Konami gallery. Shantae is rightfully the first sprite to grace the new WayForward custom sprite gallery


Breakin’ News


There are three really big Kickstarter projects closing in on the home stretch that are related to the kind of games featured on this site. Instead of laughing at my bad, rushed fan art up there, check out the project descriptions!

Mighty No. 9 – Created by a team of classic Mega Man stalwarts and led by Keiji Inafune, Mighty No. 9 looks to be more than just a spiritual successor to the Blue Bomber’s series and more like a new beginning for the creators themselves to bring fans the kind of game we all want. This project was funded with the quickness and is now blasting its way through some stretch goals that would make the game even better.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – WayForword’s blessed us with some great licensed revivals recently, including Duck Tales Remastered and Double Dragon Neon. This Kickstarter is to help get their own classic platforming hero, Shantae, into a brand-new game for her to run, jump, dance and whip her hair through.

River City Ransom: Underground – A group named Conatus Creative started this one to fund a true, official follow-up River City Ransom, one of the greatest beat-em-ups of all time. The crew promises more of everything, including characters, locations, items, the works. They even have Yoshihisa Kishimoto, the creator of Kunio-Kun and Double Dragon series, as an advisor on the project. This project isn’t getting the attention it deserves, so I hope others spread the word about this along with the other projects.

I know money’s tight, especially with three Kickstarters like this going on that the same time, but I hope those who can spare the money will at least donate a little bit to help out those projects. Even spreading the word and linking to the projects will help get them funded or hit those stretch goals.


Graphic Generators – I just made a small character update.
Capcom: Ibuki added. Poison (new SF3-to-SFA-like edits and a new palette), Ryu (SFA3 portrait headband edit) updated.
Namco: Nina, Kazuya and Yoshimitsu make a invasion with new scratch-made sprites.
Taito: Dolls from Growl/Runark are now one sprite with multiple palettes (three arcade, three Genesis/Mega Drive)

Mini-Logos – A Street Fighter IV-styled Street Fighter logo added to Capcom section. 70’s and late 80’s Avengers logos added to Marvel section. Illmosis and ScrollBoss logos added to Illmosis section.

Custom Sprites – Scratch-made sprites of Nina (Tekken 5), Kazuya (1, 2 & 5) and Yoshimitsu (2 & 3) were added to the Namco page.

edit: I also re-sized the scratch-made sprites of the Dolls from Growl because I didn’t notice that they were too tall.

Elsewhere:
NXistence
Noise Factory:TMNT IV: Turtles In Time
Dynamo just posted a breakdown of his five favorite BGM tracks from TMNT IV and it’s worth a read. The man is uniquely qualified to make these posts since he thinks about games on a nuts and bolts level AND he crafts some fine music himself. He also makes a reference to one of my favorite musicians in the description of the #1 track. Look that name up on YouTube if you don’t recognize it when you get to it. You’ll be glad you did.

I’m still getting ready for the All-Americon comic convention in May so the updates are still light and random. I’m also taking this chance to do some clean up work on a few things at random like getting the weblog to look more like the site.

Custom Sprites – X-23 sprite edit added to the Marvel page. Also: credits now link to the company page when a company is listed and will also link to individual people once I get the creator profiles started.

Sprites – Comic Book spites hub, Ninja Gaiden pages updated and redone. Violent Storm updated with new sprites including some animated fighting stances.

Logos – Dark Adventure, Express Raider, Rolling Thunder

Mini Logos – New logos added to the following sections:
– DC Comics: Poison Ivy
– Capcom: Roxy, Poison
– Marvel: Mystique
– Namco: Rolling Thunder, Wonder Momo
– Sega: Alien Storm, Shinobi (arcade), Streets of Rage (red, blue, white cover style)

Graphic Generators – X-23 (no logo yet) added to the Marvel section. Joe Musashi gets updated with another sprite and other mini logos. Poison/Roxy updated with new logos.


Rinry (of RinryGameGame fame) posted a video review of the Retro Duo system that lets you play most NES and SNES carts. This answered many of the questions I wondered about including the sound, an issue with many current retro systems. Check it out:


I’ll mention the All-Americon comic convention in Warren, Ohio on May 15th that I’ll have a table for. I’ll be selling art prints and hanging out with other scribblers and comic fans. A lot of really cool artists came to the last one and most of them seem to be coming back for part two. It only costs $2 to get in so stop in if you can! I’ll be handing out copies of last year’s Illmosis Party Flyer (with a special appearance by Endless Duck from that Silver Surfer picture) to give out even if you don’t buy anything.

This is just a small update

GFX Generators – The last update added the ability to pick options for certain backgrounds and I said something about future updates taking crazy advantage of that. I’m using the Slam Masters rings as a demonstration for that again. Having different backgrounds and Vs. fonts for the Slam Masters rings was just practice.

Vs. Maker screens:
Slam Masters series rings – Rings and crowds/bgs can now be mixed and more background parts from whole series were added.
X-Men: CotA Vs – Added a few stage preview options.

GroupShot screens:
X-Men: CotA “Moon Night” – with a few bg options.

Custom Sprites – Ken (known as Kevin in the Japanese version) from Street Fighter 2010 has been added to the Capcom page. I just couldn’t let this year slip by without making a sprite edit of him. I also updated the “Then and Now” page to compare the Johnny Storm and Superman sprites along with a more detailed progress chart for street-clothes Cody.

I also made a commissioned from-scratch sprite of a legendary comic book advertising hero and you can see that on the deviantART page in this link. Be sure to check out the work by man who commissioned the sprite!


Good news, everyone: Quartermaster is back with a new URL and highly-updated Capcom and SNK shrines! Shadi has done a ton of work on the shrines and they’re as informative as they are attractive. He doesn’t play favorites and put as much effort into the Black Tiger and Magic Sword shrines as he gives into pages of more well-known games. Please give the place a visit! I apologize that all of my links from here to the new URL aren’t fixed in this update but I’ll get that done as soon as I can.

Custom Sprite Packs– a sprite editor who goes by the name of Laslunder has sent a Work-in-progress Cody sprite pack that matches up with the sprite in my Street Cody sprite pack. They’re not 100% finished but will help boost the efforts of anyone who wants to make a whole sprite set of Cody in street clothing. He has WAY more edits in there than my pack has! I planned to update my Cody pack after I made the Jake pack but Laslunder’s work nudged me to work a bit on mine again so my Cody pack been updated as well. There are some new and improved sprites but here’s the important stuff:


Improved standing animation with better handwraps.


new Cyclone Kick.

If you downloaded it before, download it again because almost everything has been improved. The improved sprites and SFA3 portrait were also added to the Graphic Generators. Be sure to check out Laslunder’s pack, too!

NOTE: Those downloaded the PrimeOp Cody pack before 1:30 PM Eastern Standard Time should re-download it again. I just made some fixes to the collar in the last few frames thanks to some sound advice from Kiwi.

Custom Sprites – The new and updated Cody sprites were added to the Capcom custom sprites page.

Game Index – Gauntlet (NES) was added. Cody also made some improvements to the game page scripts because he had to be involved somehow.

Beats of Rage – the main font from Captain Commando (Arcade) added to the downloads. You can spell Cody’s name with those letters.


Thanks to Sidd the Kidd for letting me know that a version of the Evolution Engine (EvE) for beat-em-ups is available for download I plan to check this out when I’m not swamped with projects. It looks mighty, mighty powerful. Check out the demo videos to see what the engine is capable of!

Sorry if things look a bit weird right now but my plan to update the layout, CSS and other things went awry like so much mad science. One good result is that things look a bit more consistent on every page. It’s not 100% yet but a lot of older pages finally got redone. I went into a few sections like the Tutorials got a bit of extra work to make the basics look nicer. I also remade the logos again. This new set turned out nice and crisp so I’ll probably stick with them for a while. One other new thing is the new Final Fight banner added to the main menu header rotation. The banners are randomly chosen but I stacked the list so that you’ll probably see it.

Meanwhile, I’m taking my time on coloring the Tyris Flare pic that I drew a while ago. Here’s another preview shot:

Don’t forget that Final Fight: Double Impact is available for X-Box Live and Playstation Network this week. You get fully enhanced versions of both Final Fight and Magic Sword with achievements, unlockable content, online co-op, remixed BGM, graphic filters and much, much more. If you have the system and the money, be sure to pick it up for all the pipe-swinging, lizardman bribing fun!

There isn’t a lot of new stuff in this update but a whole lot of work went into it.

Custom Sprite Downloads – the “SFAlpha” style Bred sprite set has been added to the Custom Sprite Download page. Yes, an entire set of sprites! There will be future updates to the set, just like the other sets on the page, but it has everything you need to bring Bred into a CPS2 Capcom fighter-scale fan game.

Sprites – The slightly new overall look for the main sprite galleries are done. There is still a lot to fix but all the main stuff is in there. Each gallery now has a box at the top with things like Game Index links. Many of the gallery layouts are just copies of the older versions but some have the more unified style that they’ll all have when they’re done. The games that had a few sprites on a company’s sprite hub page now have their own pages. The upcoming screenshot galleries use the same engine and will hit later this year.

Custom Sprites – The Capcom page gets recreations of Bred’s “OH MY GOD!” and “OH MY CAR!” sprites and the Strider Hiryu sprites that used to be on the Strider sprite page.

Graphics – Other – Bred’s word balloons were added.

You’ll also start to see a slightly different version of the ScrollBoss logo in most areas. I remade the whole font again and you’ll see more of that when I start to remake other logos for the site. That’s all for now. If you’re trying out the Bred sprite pack and want to leave some feedback about it, feel free to reply in this topic. I need to know if the format I’m using works for people before I put the Dug pack together.

edit:
I almost forgot about this other stuff that happened in-between updates:

First, check out two pics I added to Illmosis:
Tyris Flare in a fighting stance Douglas Bild from Rushing Beat Ran in his select screen pose.
That’s right. Douglas Bild from Brawl Brothers and Rival Turf in full color along with Tyris Flare in base color mode (coloring without shading).

The second thing is from someone awesome that you probably know about already, Rinry of Rinry Game Game. Check out this video and you may see something… familiar :)

Thanks, Rinry and Jot!

I updated Illmosis earlier today with an animation that will be on ScrollBoss in the next udpate (whenever that is):

I still don’t know when the whole set of sprites will be ready but I’m getting close to the end of it. Here’s a shot of a transition sprite I’m adding between the original falling pose and the knocked-out pose:

An in-progress pic of Bred's falling-to-KO transition frame.

The Beats of Rage section, untouched for a long time, finally gets some new content to go with minor look upgrade.

Final Fight food

The Beats of Rage section gets a big new addition: all of the food and items from the arcade version of Final Fight. All of the bonus items have their proper scores and the food has already been calculated to fit the default 100 pixel long health bars in Beats of Rage and should work for games that use percentage health displays. There are instructions inside if you want to convert the food back to their original 144px. bar values. Item graphics were taken with Kawaks and are still in their original colors so you’ll have to apply your own palette. Please let me know if there are any problems with this set by replying in this news post.

The Revenge of 1989 has had enough. It’s time to release the Robeast hit you in the face with a truckload of graphics!

Game Index – Due to the growing size of the Mini-logo page, links now lead directly to the relevant section of that page. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) and Batman (NES) were added.

Vs. Maker Generator – The first thing that you’ll notice is that there are now six character slots. After you select characters, you’ll notice that the second menu page only displays the characters that will be appearing in the shot and that the preview graphics resize themselves depending on how many characters will be in the shot. I recoded a few bits to make that possible along with paving the way for more character slots. All of the new characters and themes are connected to 1989 games. I’ve posted some obvious tease preview shots for a few weeks now but there are still a lot of surprises. Here’s the line-up

Characters Added: Ax-Battler, Gilius Thunderhead, Tyris Flare, Death Adder, ESWAT I.C.E. armor, Ryu Hayabusa & Irene Lew (Ninja Gaiden NES style), Clark Still & Ralf Jones (Ikari 1-3 outfits!), Solo, Ton Pooh, & Two.P. Last but not least…

… Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Look, it’s the 20th Anniversary of their NES and Arcade games along with their 25th Anniversary in comics so they had to join in.

Characters updated: Andore/Hugo (Andore logo), Batman (1989 film sprite and logo)

Themes: King of Fighters ’94. I would’ve used ’98 to almost fit the month’s theme but they didn’t do much with the sprites in the VS. intro there.

Mini-logos – Andore, Astyanax, Ax-Battler, Gilius Thunderhead, Musashi (Shinobi), Irene Lew, Clark Still, Ralf Jones, Solo (Strider), Ton Pooh, Two.P, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Batman (1989 film).

Custom Sprites – Everything on the “Game-Related” page has been split into their own appropriate company pages. Here are the new sprites:
TMNT (NEW PAGE!): Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo sprites (from scratch)
Sega: Ax-Battler, Death Adder, Gilius Thunderhead, ESWAT I.C.E. armored officers and File 96 (from ESWAT)
SNK: Ralf (Ikari Warriors 1-3 outfits)
Tecmo: Ryu Hayabusa (NES stance) and Irene Lew (NG1)
DC Comics: Batman (1989 film sprite)
Capcom: Two.P

Sprites – Batman gets solo page with a few sprites from the NES game by Sunsoft. Sprites from the 1989 TMNT arcade game were added to the TMNT sprite page.

Articles – The 1989 article series continues with a short look at two famous magazines that made their debut in 1989: EGM and GamePro.

There may be some adjustments and fixes made to this update but that’s it for now.

(originally posted on Sun, 27 December 2009 04:53:02 by PrimeOp)