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Breakin’ News

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Double Dragon Neon (and its playable demo) is now in the Playstation Store and X-Box Live. I played the demo for a few minutes (I’m still working on commission stuff and don’t have much time right now) and dug it. Most of the reviews for it seem to be positive, though the main negative review so far is so badly written that it’s already being mocked. Remember the early slack-assed reviews of Moon Diver that called it a mindless platformer but complained about how easy it is to die because they played it like a mindless platformer? Yeah, there’s a bit of that going around with this one. Still, most people seem to be digging it.

Learn more at the official website for the game and give the demo a shot while remembering that dodging and countering is just as important as blocking and countering was in Super Double Dragon.

BTW: Jake Kaufman’s soundtrack, filled with classic D.D. remixes and stunning eighties-ness, is up on BandCamp.
Double Dragon Neon soundtrack
Imagine that there was a pilot for a live-action Double Dragon TV show in the 80’s that would’ve aired at 10 PM on NBC or CBS. That’s what the remix of the main theme sounds like and I’m beyond okay with that.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Double Dragon, Double Dragon Neon, Majesco, WayForward
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I finished the first art commission that caused me to put the site on pause for a while, but just had to start another one. I probably won’t be able to have another update for another month after this one. I made a little Street Fighter 25th anniversary update between commission jobs to prove that I’m still around. This site isn’t supposed to focus on fighting games, but Street Fighter and Final Fight share the same world and that’s my excuse.

Graphic Generators

Adon (added sprites)
Birdie (added sprites & SF1-based palette)
Eagle (newly added)
Cammy (new SFA-style Delta Red win pose edit)
Charlie (P1 and P1 Shadow palettes from MSH vs SF)
Chun-Li (Three SFA/SFZ tracksuit sprites in four palettes)
Gen (added sprite)
Gouki (added SFA set sprites and lots of palettes)
Guile (SFA3 PSX palettes)
Guy (added SFA sprites)
Ryu (new sprite edit based on old Akiman SF2 art, fixed MvsC P1 palette)
Rolento (added SFA sprites, new edited sprite based on SFA2 ending)
Sagat (added sprites & palettes, including a custom SF1 palette)

Over a dozen backgrounds from different Street Fighter games were added to the “384×224 scenes + text” in the GroupShot Generator.
8×16 font from Super Street Fighter II Turbo added to font-enabled styles in the GroupShot Generator.

Custom Sprites – The Capcom page was updated with the new Rolento edit added to the Final Fight section. Ryu and Cammy edits added to Street Fighter section.

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Breakin’ News

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I’m not too big on most Kickstarters because I’m usually so low on funds that I’d need to start a Kickstarter to contribute decent dough to other Kickstarters. Here are two that I’ll definitely donate to if my commission money comes in before the deadlines:

Every Move is Special – The plan is to host a special event and all-around celebration of both Street Fighter and fighting games as a whole. See previews of the artwork and more on the project’s Tumblr. This looks like it’s going to be a really cool book and possible event, so I’m really rooting for this one.

Mercenary Kings – The same crew behind the excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World beat-em-up are working on a side-scrolling platform shooter that harkens to many 2-D classics while adding the ability to make your own weapons and gear. Check out the website for more details and watch this video to see what kind of game they’re going to hit us with in 2013.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Capcom, gfx generators, Street Fighter
Comments Off on Street Fight… it’s the only fight they know

I got a drawing assignment that started last week and I won’t have the time to make content updates in August. There will still be quick little posts on the ScrollBoss Tumblr account along with reposts of cool gaming stuff.

I made a minor fix to Alex Kidd gallery (the Janken-mode Alex sprite was fixed) and I added VGJunk to the links page and the Quick Links page in the side menu. That place has a ton of great, humorous reviews for both well-known and lesser-known games like Ninja Warriors Again, Wild Guns and Vendetta. In a world (R.I.P. Don LaFontaine) of snobby “It’s not as good as Super Metroid so it sucks” elitist reviewers and half-assed derp-throughs with no emphasis on game play, VGJunk has the kind of retro reviews that we need to see more often.

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Breakin’ News:

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Two Alpha Denshi (also known as ADK) arcade games were added to the Playstation Store: Time Soldiers and Gang Wars. Gang Wars is from the era of Double Dragon madness and is one of the lesser examples of someone aping that play style. This is balanced out by the crazy ADK cutscenes and the fact that one of the heroes is a bootleg Jackie Chan in a period-piece outfit. Time Soldiers is a top-down walking shooter with time-traveling combat, but with the same dial-turn aiming as Ikari Warriors. This game was popular back in the day and is considered the ancestor of ADK’s Ninja Commandos, their later time-travel shooter on the Neo-Geo. Both are $2.99 each.

The demo for “Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition” is up, too. I downloaded it but haven’t had a chance to play it yet. The full game is on my “to get” list, but I’d like to try it first.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp

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The site is twelve years old today, so it’s time to celebrate with a lot of new content.

Graphic Generators

New Characters: Bill Rizer and Lance Bean from Contra, Boomer and Hawk from Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2 added to Konami. Zeed/Neo-Zeed and Golden Axe Villains groups for Sega. Chin Taimei and Machine Gun Willy (separate character with new sprite and palettes) for Technos.

Updated characters: Samus (NES armor sprite) for Nintendo, Tyris Flare (new sprite) for Sega, Blue Mary (palettes) for SNK, Shadow Warriors (new Lopar and Williams sprites, improved Jeff sprite) for Technos.

Custom Sprites
Konami: Bill Rizer and Lance Bean from Contra, Boomer and Hawk from Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2.
Nintendo: Samus (NES Power suit and S.Metroid Varia).
Sega: new scratch-made Tyris Flare and Skeleton (Golden Axe), Masked Ninja (Shinobi), Omote (from Revenge of Shinobi).
Technos: Chin Taimei (NES Vs. Mode stance), Lopar, Williams, Jeff (improved DD1 edit), Machine Gun Willy (improved rifle-holding sprite in DD1 and DD2 colors)
Taito: Lady Master of Kung Fu
DNL: DNL sent a lot of new scratch-made sprites, including a very cool update of his Phanto animation. Be sure to hide your keys before looking at it.

Sprites
New galleries: Karate Blazers, Mystic Warriors, Sunset Riders
Updated: Captain Commando (hero surfing sprites), Double Dragon, Final Fight 3 (Dave and more added), X-Men (Konami arcade) pages

Mini-logos
Data East: Dark Seal
Kaneko: Kaneko and Lady Master
Konami: Mystic Warriors, Sunset Riders
Natsume: Natsume logo (blue gradient), Shadow of the Ninja
Square Enix: Square Enix logo (black and white)
Taito: Silent Dragon
TMNT: Original comic logo 1

Logos
Beraboh Man (arcade), Blue Shadow, Bravoman (TG-16), Kage (Famicom), Ninja Warriors (TG-16) added.

Game Index: The Legend of Zelda (NES), Mystic Warriors (arcade)

Vernacula-X: A few definitions now link to their own pages with expanded definitions and extra goodies like game and character lists that link up to their respective indices on the site. More definitions will get their own pages and more goodies will be added over time.

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That’s it for now. I have to go to sleep now, and go to work earlier than usual, so any site fixes will have to wait until the afternoon. I hope that all of you who visit on a regular basis enjoy the new stuff and maybe the new visitors will be overwhelmed by the sad way I’ve spent much of my free time for twelve years backlog of earlier content. I tried to mix it up between obvious, famous games (Contra and Metroid) and things that don’t get much of the spotlight (Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2, Karate Blazers). Have fun and thanks for visiting the site!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Contra, Crime Fighters 2, Double Dragon, gfx generators, Kaneko, Karate Blazers, Konami, Lady of Kung Fu, Metroid, Mystic Warriors, Nintendo, Shadow of the Ninja, Taito, Technos, Vendetta, X-Men
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I’ve uploaded an unfinished upgrade of the Vernacula-X Glossary section. Some of the definitions now link to their own pages with expanded definitions and all kinds of relevant links. The definition for boss links to the S-Files of characters who are bosses and the entry for beat-em-up displays a list of beat-em-up games that are in the Game Index. The biggest page so far is for the term palette mostly because it uses some graphics I’d made for an unfinished tutorial. Expect more solo pages, terms and improvements before the update on the 19th.

Don’t worry, I’m working on pixel art, too. One of the sprites you’ll see on the 19th can be seen in this post on the ScrollBoss Tumblr. Yes, it’s about time I made a Capcom-style standing sprite for him. You can leave Disqus comments in the Tumblr posts now so you don’t have to be on Tumblr to post replies there now.

Again, the update won’t be huge, but I think you’ll like it. Expect the new custom sprites to be a mix of fan-favorites and the lesser-loved characters that get respect here. They’re all purely game-related, non-licensed characters, too.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Lab, ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp

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Happy Independence Day to all my fellow U.S. visitors!
Be ready for the 12TH Anniversary update on the 19th!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: holiday
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Mini-logos – Knights of the Round added to Capcom. Rush ‘n Attack (arcade/NES) added to Konami. Pac-Land added to Namco. Alien Syndrome added to Sega. Cyclops and Marvel Girl (original logos), Giant-Man added to Marvel. Harley Quinn added to DC.

These mini-logos were also added to the GFX Generators in the logical places.

Game Logos – Alien Syndrome, Blade Master, Knights of the Round (without the stone and sword), Rush ‘n Attack (arcade), ThunderJaws, Tiger Road, Time Soldiers added.

Game Index – Besides some coding changes, The King of Dragons (arcade) was added.

Custom Sprites – DNL added new sprites to his gallery. Check it out and be sure to browse his gallery on deviantART.

Sprites – There’s a new King of Dragons gallery with just the Player Select and ending sprites I added a few things to the Capcom World 2 gallery along with fixing that messed-up E. Honda portrait.

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I’ve spent most of my time fixing errors and making small changes to the site. Either search engines or people had been linking to discontinued sprite gallery pages that were still on the site until I made a clean re-installation of everything. I added some links to the 404 page that will drive people to the gallery index pages. I’m still converting old galleries to the new style, so I apologize for the hiccups you might encounter there.

I’ll be taking a pause from updates during June. My brain is still a bit fried site overhauls, re-uploading and clearing the sites after getting hacked along with all the new material just to let you know that the site didn’t get killed off. I also need to get to work on some important artwork, the next Illmosis network site (which I was working on in March until the hacking happened). Luckily, July is the ScrollBoss site’s birthday month, so I’ll be secretly working on stuff for that. Teasers, previews and news will still appear in the site’s news feed here and the Tumblr.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: mini-logos, The King of Dragons
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GFX Generators – You can now choose the font and palette in certain screenstyles that allow user-input text. Not only does this add more palettes to the SFA3 font used in the old version, but it also adds 16 fonts of different sizes and a few have extra palettes as well. Not all of those fonts were complete and I filled in the gaps of missing symbols for a few fonts.

Updated styles: “Avatar 100×100” and “384×224 scenes + text” in the GroupShot generator now have selectable font options, including font palettes. Some of the Avatar 100×100 frames will adjust the text to be in a better or more accurate position. The Mega Man 1 boss square frame will put the font where it’d be in the real game and the Genesis box places the text closer to where a game logo would be. The “Boxes, Flyer & Posters 160×192” now has an X-Box 360 style frame.
New characters:The Beast (with portraits, mini-logo and X-Men Vs. screen name tag)
Updated characters: Anakaris (new sprite & palette), Felicia (new sprites), Iceman (more sprites), Lord Raptor/Zabel (new sprite), Marian (old 2002 KoF-style edit added), Strider Hiryu (added sprites & palettes), Sentinel (improved Mango Sentinel palette). The IREM character section was temporarily removed and Thomas/Vigilante was moved to the “Other Games” list (but he got the Vigilante and Japanese Spartan-X mini-logos for his trouble). All of the original Darkstalkers now have their vs. portraits from the first game.

Custom Sprites – There is a brand-new gallery thanks to custom sprite donations from DNL. Check out his gallery, then visit his deviantART page to find even more work.

Mini-Logos – Spartan-X added to IREM section. Streets of Rage (title screen style) added to Sega section. Double Dragon (arcade title screen style) added to Technos.

Game Index – Final Fight 2 (SNES) added.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: gfx generators, mini-logos
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I know that I had an update on Thursday, but I figured I’d add a few more things.

GFX Generators What’s new in addition to yesterday’s update.

Updated Characters: Yellowjacket sprite and Goliath mini-logo added to Ant-Man/Giant-Man character, Captain America (MSH GEM use pose), Hawkeye (new sprite edit), Hulk (new palettes, including Red Hulk), Iron Man (PROTON CANNON!!!). The Erik Josten version of Goliath (before he became Atlus) was added to the Other Villains character slot.

Custom Sprites: One new Yellowjacket (Pym) sprite, one new Hawkeye pose & improvements on Loki.

Mini-Logos: Goliath, Loki, Mandarin and Wasp. Those logos were added to their GFX Generator characters, too.

If this is the first update you’ve seen this week, check out this previous post to see the much bigger update with new things in it.

I hope you enjoyed these Avengers Week updates. I pretty much ran out of steam after my sinuses decided to explode on Thursday night, so I wasn’t able to make everything I planned to make. Have a good weekend!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers, gfx generators, marvel comics, mini-logos
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GFX Generators There’s a new group named “NEW” that has all the latest characters who were added or updated so you don’t have to scroll through over 100 characters to see all that newness. You’ll still find the characters in the normal places they’re supposed to be, but the NEW section is there for your convenience.

Marvel Characters: Ant Man/Giant Man (separate character with new sprites), Loki (all-new), Hulk (redone “original Hulk” edit), Quicksilver, Wasp (new sprites and many new palettes). Bill Foster/Goliath added to the Other Heroes character slot. Mandarin added to the Other Villains characters slot.
Screenstyles: A brand-new scratch-made Hall of Armor background was added to the “384×224 scenes” and “Avatar 100×100” screen layouts in the GroupMaker.

Wait, who is that guy hiding behind the Hulk? It can’t be. No one makes fan art from that game. It can’t be…

That’s right. It’s Ryu and Ko from Capcom’s Avengers. Yes, even the version from the flyer with the white shirt is in there.

Custom Sprites
Marvel Comics: new scratch-made sprites of Giant Man/Goliath/Black Goliath, Quicksilver, Mandarin and Loki. New outfit variations and shrunken sprites for the Wasp were also added.
Capcom: Ryu and Ko from the old Avenger beat-em-up.

Mini-Logos
Marvel Comics: Quicksilver
Capcom: Avengers

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The Avengers movie, this Avengers update and most of the Marvel-related items you see on this website wouldn’t be possible without one man who always deserves credit and thanks.

If you’ve ever beaten Capcom’s Marvel Super Heroes game and wondered who Jack Kirby was, it’s time to learn. This post on Badass Hall of Fame says it all much better than I ever could, but let me give you the short version of it. Jack Kirby brought a sense of all-out action to comics. Most artists, good and bad, had poses that looked like you were about to see something happened or it already happened. Jack Kirby’s work is the pure happening. You can see that punch happening with the same brand of power you might see in some of your favorite sprites in video game attacks. Have you noticed how many games have animations where the Jab attack has the non-punching fist ready to deliver the next hit of the combo? You can find that in Jack Kirby’s fight scenes. While many people consider reality to be the end point of all creativity, Jack Kirby created a style and manner that is beyond reality nearly everything good about comics has a touch of that Kirby magic.

Take a bit of time to check out KirbyMuseum.org to see what I mean. Look at his fighting poses, then look at some of your favorite fighting game frames, especially Capcom CP2-era sprites.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers (Capcom), gfx genearators, marvel comics
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