Cerebrawl - A 2v2 4-player Fighting Game from Zero Dimension

[cerebrawl]

Hey everybody - we were asked by several of our Twitter followers to come on by the SRK forums and make a thread about our game. We’re going to have something playable very soon to get into everyone’s hands, but for now we wanted to open up a discussion about what our game is, who we are, and what you can expect. We’re trying to be as transparent as possible because we’re nothing without your support, so if you have any questions this is the place to ask them! We’ll add them to this OP to start an FAQ.

http://i.imgur.com/aIz5XsS.png

What’s Cerebrawl

Cerebrawl is a 2v2 4-player fighting game in the style of MvC2 and Third Strike.

What you can expect

A user experience focused on competitive team play, built around tournaments, but also the ability to play casually or online. Launchers, beams, supers, assist calls and tags, snap backs, super jumps, and beyond. A soundtrack and style heavily inspired by Third Strike.

The current state of the game

Aaron and Eliot left Disney to work on this game and have been doing so for about 10 months. The characters are 100% hand drawn and each have roughly ~1200 frames. Battle Witch, the first character in the lineup is nearing completion and will be ready for mirror-matching in the first playable. We had originally messed with an engine hoping that we could salvage it for spare parts but have found that working from scratch in Unity 5 is coming along much better. Our code team is part-time, but we have most of what we need in place for a super early alpha and hope to have it out soon to show locally/record video from before we put it up for download.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56030173e4b0ecc5314361e6/561de13ee4b071e15f35f822/561de23de4b0e8295856b334/1444799038701/s_strong.gif?format=500w

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56030173e4b0ecc5314361e6/561de13ee4b071e15f35f822/561de13fe4b0ae904e8b3c1c/1444798791198/super_punch01.gif?format=500w

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56030173e4b0ecc5314361e6/561de13ee4b071e15f35f822/561de190e4b0cc70207181ec/1444798865547/c_forward.gif?format=500w

Who we are

We’re a new team made up of industry vets - here are the members of our little 6 man team.

Eliot “NIW” Min - Previously of Harmonix, 38 Studios, Disney. Art director, lead animator, unapologetic anime fiend.

John “Little Foot” Mena - Previously of Vigil, Crytek, and all around charming fellow. Engineer.

Aaron “Goodnews” Oak - Previously of Indie MEGABOOTH, Disney, Microsoft. UI design, community management, and anything else the team doesn’t want to do.

Matthew “2 Mello” Hopkins - Mashup artist famous for Chrono Jigga, composer on the Read Only Memories soundtrack. Sound engineer.

Wilson “Ill Will” Fermin - Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Marvel vs Capcom 2 player. OG from the NE scene. Combat Designer, Hype engineer.

Yusuke Tsutsumi - Organizer for 8-Bit History. Engineer, has been known to rap in Japanese.

We’ll be using this thread to post updates as we progress, but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

We have a website with some media and information on it at www.cerebrawl.in

If you like art and hip-hop we do a stream Wednesdays from 12PM - 2:30PM PST and Saturdays from 7PM - Midnight (PST) thought recently we’ve been streaming nearly every day, sometimes twice. twitch.tv/cerebrawlin

[JohnGrimm]

Man it’s like the first indie project posted here that shows actual promise and quality. I’m interested to see how a playable build turns out whenever that happens.

[DevilJin_01]

Looking forward to the music. SF3 and Streets of Rage are 2 of my favorite game soundtracks. Love old house and techno sounds.

[cerebrawl]

Man it’s like the first indie project posted here that shows actual promise and quality. I’m interested to see how a playable build turns out whenever that happens.

Thanks so much! Looking forward to getting the playable out there.

Looking forward to the music. SF3 and Streets of Rage are 2 of my favorite game soundtracks. Love old house and techno sounds.

Mello did a lot of drum-and-bassy stuff before he got into hip-hop, so this soundtrack is working out perfectly for him.

[Rounin]

Man I really hope this game gets the backing it deserves, I love the music and the character design so far. I’v been trying to watch the streams but can’t seem to catch them at the right time. Hope to hear more news and reveals from you soon. Good luck guys.

[MajormelisThere]

battle witch is pretty hot tbh

Spoiler

you got me intrigued

[Geese_Pants]

Really digging the music so far…

[Cottoneyes]

I’m really liking this whole vibe of this. You have my support and I know I’ll be putting down for this when the ball gets rolling.

[PSYCH0J0SH]

Uh… well, that’s certainly interesting.

[cerebrawl]

Thanks all!

We’re looking at our funding options now, trying to avoid Kickstarter like the plague. How do you guys feel about pre-ordering for alpha/beta/beyond access? Thought about Patreon to help us keep going but that seems like an idea better fit if we’re releasing a lot of smaller games instead of one big project.

[d3v]

Looks interesting. Any chance you could talk a bit more about the game mechanically? What exactly do you mean by “in the style ov MvC2”? Is it just superficially, with chain combos, launchers, snapbacks, assists, etc.? Or is it mechanically as well, with alot of the hidden mechanics in MvC2?

[JohnGrimm]

trying to avoid Kickstarter like the plague

Whoa, bold statement and definite bonus in my opinion. I was totally expecting it from the get go. Early Access might be something you want to look into on Steam, although some people have pretty negative opinions of it. Either that or maybe some kinda humble store thing but I wouldn’t know how that would work out.

[PSYCH0J0SH]

Thanks all!

We’re looking at our funding options now, trying to avoid Kickstarter like the plague.

I don’t think it should be completely avoided. Fund it on your own as much as you can, and when you eventually hit a wall, it’s crowdfunding time. That’s what I intend to do with my game.

[Rounin]

Thanks all!

We’re looking at our funding options now, trying to avoid Kickstarter like the plague. How do you guys feel about pre-ordering for alpha/beta/beyond access? Thought about Patreon to help us keep going but that seems like an idea better fit if we’re releasing a lot of smaller games instead of one big project.

I would definitely pay for early access, but I don’t think releasing in small bits is a very good idea since it may kill the hype/lose momentum. It all depends on your circumstances I guess.

[JohnGrimm]

Thanks all!

We’re looking at our funding options now, trying to avoid Kickstarter like the plague. How do you guys feel about pre-ordering for alpha/beta/beyond access? Thought about Patreon to help us keep going but that seems like an idea better fit if we’re releasing a lot of smaller games instead of one big project.

I would definitely pay for early access, but I don’t think releasing in small bits is a very good idea since it may kill the hype/lose momentum. It all depends on your circumstances I guess.

Killer Instinct had a similar strategy and that’s been working out fine. Constant character releases keeps people playing the game because there’s constantly new content to explore. It basically boils down to how consistently you can maintain releases.

[cerebrawl]

Looks interesting. Any chance you could talk a bit more about the game mechanically? What exactly do you mean by “in the style ov MvC2”? Is it just superficially, with chain combos, launchers, snapbacks, assists, etc.? Or is it mechanically as well, with alot of the hidden mechanics in MvC2?

There will definitely be superficial similarities as you described above. But our game, though taking inspiration from it, isn’t a carbon copy of MvC2, so in the process of developing our engine, we’ll be coming up with our own “hidden mechanics” to fit the needs that arise. With that being said, we’ve already studied the video you linked, and we’ve gone through many videos similar to it

[cerebrawl]

We got an e-mail from someone and thought it might be a good idea to post our response here as well because it contains a lot of information about our game’s mechanics and rhythm.

When I saw the post for this project, I was immediately intrigued. The visual and musical design for the game looks like its got a good start. The setting is interesting and allows for a lot of cool and unique concepts. However, I was curious as to what separates this fighter from others mechanically. By this I mean, what kind of battle rhythm does it have (Street Fighter’s predict and punish?, Guilty Gear’s Pressure, Pressure, Pressure, Soul Calibur’s poke and seek advantage, something all its own?) And what can players expect to focus in on as far as learning the game (Techinical proficiency, Ability to Read the opponent, Resource Management?).

As for the battle rhythm of Cerebrawl, that’s a bit hard to answer at this juncture. To start off, we can say with confidence that we’re very influenced by Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. The technical proficiency coupled with the high level decision making required to play that game well is something that we’re trying to emulate. But as far as how the minutiae of how individual scrambles are going to play out is going to be hard to predict before we get further along development. Personally, I enjoy watching Magneto rush someone down, but I also find it super fun to watch spiral or cable do some super fast paced zoning. Basically we’re aiming for a system that will allow for lots of different play styles, but keep the pace fast. To answer your question more specifically, zone, pressure, punish will probably be what we’ll go for, but don’t hold me to it just yet!

One aspect we really want to explore that will make us different is the aspect of teamwork. Fighting games are traditionally a reclusive experience. Even in tournament it’s ME against my opponent. Even fighting games which had 4 player modes have been either the point player playing alone until it’s their team-mate’s “turn” to play on point, or the game didn’t give the assist player much choice in what they get to do. (The other option I’ve seen explored in the past was to have all 4 players on screen at once on a 2D plane, but in my opinion at that point things get too “random” and becomes impossible to play competitively. e.g. scramble mode in SFxT)

Our assist system will work like this; point player calls assist, and a prompt shows up on screen that the assist player sees. At this point, the assist player gets to input any of their normals or special moves and when the assist character comes on screen (much like MVC2) that’s the assist attack that will be performed. Technical proficiency, yomi, rushdown, these are all things that of course you’ll have to practice, but I’m hoping that teamwork and knowing your team-mate’s intent is going to be a new aspect fighting game players will have to concentrate on while playing our game.

[JohnGrimm]

So is 4 player 2v2 the only game mode? Will there be a 2 player option that is more “traditional” let’s say? I mean that all sounds fun and cool and all but let’s assume I don’t have a friend to play with me at the moment, being paired with a random guy online or whatever the system is seems kinda weak. I wouldn’t mind if whatever ranked option was only 4 player since that would basically mean ranked are teams who have practiced for the most part and that’s fine, but a regular mode would be nice.

[cerebrawl]

So is 4 player 2v2 the only game mode? Will there be a 2 player option that is more “traditional” let’s say? I mean that all sounds fun and cool and all but let’s assume I don’t have a friend to play with me at the moment, being paired with a random guy online or whatever the system is seems kinda weak. I wouldn’t mind if whatever ranked option was only 4 player since that would basically mean ranked are teams who have practiced for the most part and that’s fine, but a regular mode would be nice.

Yep! There will be 2v2, 1v2, and 1v1 modes. There will also be an option to have split life bars or share one life bar.

[JohnGrimm]

One more question, what’s the button layout looking like? 6 button? 4 button? Dedicated assist button?