The Beat ‘Em Up Showcade is ready! Okay, the video has been up since yesterday, BUT STILL. I originally planned to have Showcase videos for Double Dragon and Bad Dudes last year, but *shrugs* 2020. You know what I mean. Trying to make them in 2021 didn’t work out for better reasons, so I decided to make a Showcade filled with beat ’em ups. Nothing with an outside license (TMNT, Punisher, X-Men) is in the vid, because the straight-up game content felt a little neglected here lately. Let’s watch the video first, then I’ll break down what was added to the site.

Once again, mad thanks to Wizzy for allowing me to use that amazing BGM track for the video. I’ve had it stuck in my head since I picked it for the video, and it makes me feel like kicking doors open and throwing oil drums at people all day. AVPboy’s music does the same for me, and the added pressure of trying to do justice with their music in the videos pushes me to work harder.

Now for the newness that was added to the site itself!

Custom Sprites:
– Crime Fighters: Sledge, Hawk and Boomer from Crime Fighters 2/Vendetta finally get fight stance sprites, Hawk gets a redone taunt to match, and Boomer’s taunt gets a size fix. CF2/Vendetta knife thugs were also added.
– Double Dragon: Linda’s earlier two sprites completely redrawn, an extra variation of the taunt was added, and are available in arcade, NES, and DDII designs. The Billy and Jimmy Lee “JPN arcade flyer” poses were updated to fit the newer style Lee Bros. sprites I started adding months ago.
– Final Fight: Maki (FF2 fight stance, select pose edited to match newer sprite), Mike Haggar – Saturday Night Slam Masters gear (also added to the Slam Masters gallery)
– Growl: Jetgun
– Kung-Fu Master: All Five “Sons of the Devil” (a.k.a. the Bosses) get new sprites, and Silvia gets a sprite, too.
– Kunio-kun: Kunio (Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun flyer pose)
– Renegade (new separate gallery): the Renegade/Mr. K, Sabu
– Rushing Beat: Wendy Milan (taunt)
– Streets of Rage: Barbon and Jet(SoR/BK 2) added, Skate Hunter updated (made shorter than the 2020 sprites)

All new sprites are now in the image generators, where you can make your own sprite scenes, fake screenshots, etc.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Double Dragon, Final Fight, Growl, Kung-Fu Master, Kunio-Kun, Renegade, Rushing Beat, Sprite Showcade, Streets of Rage, Vendetta
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I used to say that it never feels like I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years, but after a year as crappy and time-distorted as 2020, it feels like I’ve been going for 15 years now. You may notice that this update is heavy on beat ’em up (a.k.a. belt scroll), and you’ll see why in a bit. For now, here’s the newness:

Custom Sprites
– Bad Dudes: new sprites of Animal (+ Zombie Animal) and Hage Ninja
– Battletoads (new separate gallery): Pimple (finally completing the playable trio)
– Double Dragon: redone DDA stance Billy and Jimmy Lee (replacing the ones from the 20th ScrollBoss anniversary), classic stance Billy, Jimmy and Jeff
– Kunio-kun: Misuzu (SD style)
– Mega Man: new scratch-made MvC style Mega Man in Rockman Famicom cover art pose.
– Rushing Beat: New Lord J taunt, and improved fight stance sprite, improved Douglas Bild stand sprite
– Streets of Rage: new Max Thunder sprite (back turned) in SoR 2 and 4 designs
– Undercover Cops: The Zan (Claude) sprite I teased in the gallery icon since January is done and in the gallery, along with Matt, completing the playable crew!
– Marvel Comics: Black Widow (semi-remake of an old sprite edit pose), Crossbones (boss in DECO’s Captain America and the Avengers), Firestar (assist char in Maximum Carnage, but not in this outfit)
– DC Comics: Green Lantern Hal Jordan (scratch-made remake of the edit-based pose I made for him 20 years ago)
– G.I.JOE: all-new Baroness fight stance (referencing her old sprite edit pose from the early days of this site)

Mini-logos
– Marvel Comics: Crossbones (Captain America #363 cover), the Defenders
– Capcom: Shadaloo (SCRI logo) and Street Fighter x Tekken

All new sprites and mini-logos have been added to the Graphics Generators, along with the brand-new (and long overdue) Beat ‘Em Up arcade background!

The “Memory Lane” page was updated for the first time in almost 10 years, mainly trimming a few things down and adding info on the image generators and videos.

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Thanks to an incredibly kind Ko-Fi donation, I put enough money together to buy the latest version of MOHO (Anime Studio)! For the first time in half a year, I have access to all that old work I did for videos again, so I can get back to those video Works-in-Progress. Being without AS Pro 10 had one positive effect, because it forced me to dig deeper into using Blender (even if it’s the pre-2.80 version with the old Blender engine) and building the clips inside Vegas (instead of just using it as a clip assembler). All of those things will be used for the next Sprite Showcade:

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Bad Dudes, Battletoads, Brawl Brothers, dc comics, Double Dragon, g.i. joe, Kunio-Kun, Mega Man series, Rushing Beat, Streets of Rage series
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I’m kicking off this year with a couple of beat ’em up series that didn’t get much attention here last year, and that’s by accident.

Custom Sprites: Those two series now have their own galleries:
– Rushing Beat: new scratch-made sprites of Rick Norton, Douglas Bild, Wendy Milan, Lord J, Dieter/Iceman and some drones from the first two Rushing Beat games start this gallery off on the good foot.
– Crime Fighters: new scratch-made sprites of Blood and Boomer replace their old Capcom-based sprite edits, and so do new sprites of a Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2 thug.

All of that has been added to the main GFX Generator, along with a new (and more accurate) version of the X-Men Vs. Screen. There are now options to choose the stage display, including one that isn’t in CotA.

A generator just for that game will be added in an X-Men-centric update later this year.

As of last week (and I was told the day before our last day there), I don’t have a regular account for my day job (though I got some fill-in hours here and there), so I’m running a sale on prints in the shop until things get better. 8×10/8.5×11 prints are $5 and the 11 x 17 and 11 x 14 prints are only $8! That’s for the line art and pixel art prints, including the non game-related prints in the Illmosis shop (where you’ll find more prints).

That’s a big update, but it feels like it’s missing something… or someone. Maybe he’ll show up later…

edit: Guess who showed up to the update?

added to the Movie gallery and GFX Generator.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Crime Fighters, gfx generators, Jaleco, Konami, marvel comics, Rushing Beat, X-Men
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Custom Sprites – the following scratch-made sprites were added to the galleries
– Sega: Opa-Opa and Upa-Upa
– DC Comics: an all-new Riddler sprite
– Jaleco: a new Kazan (Brawl Brothers/Rushing Beat Ran) standing sprite
– Games (Independent): new gallery page with Bruizer and Pugi from Combat Core and a 2013 sprite of Sen from Project Sen (which reminds me that I need to make a better sprite of her)

Mini-Logos – Opa-Opa and Upa-Upa added to Sega gallery, the Riddler added to DC Comics gallery
All of these things have been added to the GFX Generators. Opa-Opa was secretly added last week, but this update gives him a palette for his brother, Upa-Upa.

The Bruizer and Pugi sprites were made to show support for the Combat Core Kickstarter. The campaign ends on Sunday, June 14th, and the party brawler (the best name I’ve seen for that kind of fighting game) still needs your help to be funded. You can even get an alpha of the game from the Kickstarter page to convince you that the game is worth helping!

Check out this MABManZ interview with Rated S Gaming that also has footage of new things in the game, including an arena with a Japanese Exploding Ropes Death Match wrestling ring.

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That’s all the main info for today’s update, but there’s a bit more info behind this cut. Have a good weekend!

(more…)

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Combat Core, dc comics, Fantasy Zone, gfx generators, Rushing Beat
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Graphic Generators – The engine just got a new feature: floor reflections.

A few older screens in the GroupShot generator’s 384×224 modes (Gen SFA2, Avengers MvsC, Avalon X-Men:COTA and Code Red XMvsSF) were upgraded with this. I also added Mojo World and the Savage Land from COTA (two versions of each) and two versions of the demolition site from KoF 2000.

New characters: Link for Nintendo. Tanya in the “Other” section. Rushing Beat enemies (just Ride & Kamikaze from the first game) for Jaleco. Seth, Heidern, Vanessa & Whip for SNK. Growl/Runark villains (female “Doll” enemy) added to Taito section. Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch (both with old sprites) for Marvel.

Game Index – Rolling Thunder 2 (Arcade) added. Growl (arcade) updated.

Company Index – Namco page added.

Custom Sprites – Link (original Legend of Zelda) added to the Nintendo page. Kamikaze and an improved version of Ride (both from Rushing Beat) added to the Jaleco page. The Dolls (female enemies) from Growl added to the Taito page. Tanya from Guardians of the ‘Hood added to the new Atari page. Yes, I made fan work based on GotH.

Mini-Logos – The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo section) and Hawkeye (Marvel section)

Sprites – Growl (a few sprites added) updated.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: gfx generators, Growl, Jaleco, Namco, Nintendo, Rolling Thunder, Rushing Beat, the Legend of Zelda
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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:

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!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: custom sprite set, Final Fight, Golden Axe, project:drone, Rushing Beat
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