Oh boy, here we go again ...

"The arrival. Oh, my lord, the arrival. The disappointment. The embarrassment. The degradation. The shock. It couldn't really be THIS bad, could it? ...yes, yes it could. AND it was British."

~ Kim Justice, 22.12.2015

Before I start, a backstory on the topic and how it came to be. I'll put that in a spoiler for the ones who don't want to read my backstory on this crap that calls itself a fighting game.

Spoiler:

TLDR; this is where I decided to make a better game out of it. A game somebody actually could enjoy. Because I really liked the 3D models and how much work went into them. I still have the vision that this could actually be a decent fighting game.
All it needs are high quality sprite rips, some sprite editing, and somebody who actually wants to invest his free time into making a Mugen out of all of this. And this is where I come into play. I know I can do it. I just need motivation sometimes.

This project layed on ice for so many years mainly because I got lazy with Font Factory and stopped working on this whole project because of lazyness with the fonts. But my motivation is back now and I'm determined to work on this project again.

So far, my progress looks like this:

Spoiler:

The menu design is based on the Mega Drive version, the options screen also is. Although the "background" from the options screen moves here, it didn't on the Mega Drive. This is just to appear a bit more appealing.
I forgot to record the character select. Here a screenshot of it:

Spoiler:

I had some trouble editing the main menu screen from the DOS/PC version (took that one because of the quality).
You see that the select screen is mirrored, which kinda looks odd and honestly, I don't like it anymore in retrospect.
I don't know yet how I'm gonna solve this for the select screen, but this is a topic for the future.

The main goal right now is to make own fonts for this game. I took the fonts from another Screenpack as a placeholder, but I cannot use them since they are not mine. I'd only get in trouble. Also, I want the screenpack to look as close to the original as possible.

Next step will be the sprites - I don't want to use lower quality sprites. Obviously, the Game Gear version is not used for sprite ripping, but the SNES and Mega Drive versions I won't use for the sprites either.
I made a screenshot using the 3DO Version and put it in comparison to a Sailor Moon 3DO sprite and a Street Fighter (Capcom vs SNK 2) PSX sprite. The size seems to match, but I don't have a proper method of ripping from the 3DO, just look at the blur between the sprite and the background:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Right now I'm working with someone who tries helping me understand how we can seperate the sprites from the Amiga Version from the background. He was able to open a savestate with Maptapper and see sprite parts, but a) the palette they show is corrupted and b) we don't know how to access the sprites that Maptapper gave us.
Amiga Emulation doesn't work properly on my gaming laptop right now and thus, I neither have the means to properly rip sprites out of the PC/DOS port nor the original Amiga version, mainly because neither of those versions have means for background exclusion or frame advance. 3DO is the nearest I got to (that one has frame advance), but I can't seem to find an emulator which can draw the sprite outlines sharp/pixelated, and even then, it isn't given that one that has a sharper drawing method also has frame advance. Recording and using video footage for sprite ripping isn't an option, since my OBS and Graphics Card don't get along when I want to record lossless footage, so blurring is involved and I can't have that on sprites I want to use in Mugen.

Any feedback is appreciated. I hope I keep the motivation now and don't lose it again.
Also, if anyone can provide me with information on how to get the sprites, I would be really glad. I kinda wanna do everything on my own with this project, but I can ask for information and/or pointers at least.

A very interesting backstory.
Some of these games were definitely before my time but interesting all the same to read about.
I do remember reading about sone of these types of games that used 3d models but had to be downgraded to 16 and 32bit pixel graphic looking images to be playable on consoles with limited hardware power from the early days.
This is why sega dreamcast was such an underrated console. It used the same hardware as the sega naomi arcade machines meaning games were arcade perfect on the console and some were even better. But i digress.

Back to your topic i have some suggestions and feedback and questions that may be useful but also may not be.

1. You should use mugen 1.1 instead of 1.0. Heres why:
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2. You should be careful on your time managing to achieve finishing the game.
We see many creators with projects come and go and sad truth is 90% become inactive because they never manage to finish it and maybe mugrn socialising and other video games distract them. Be careful of spending your mugen time incorrectly. Maybe limit your mugen websites activity or social mugen time to only 1 website posting and focus on the game completing.

Thats my feedback i hope is helpful and goid luck on it.

P.S look up a megadrive game called ballz. Its similarly crazy i am told

SuperWhiskey wrote:A very interesting backstory.
Some of these games were definitely before my time but interesting all the same to read about.
I do remember reading about sone of these types of games that used 3d models but had to be downgraded to 16 and 32bit pixel graphic looking images to be playable on consoles with limited hardware power from the early days.
This is why sega dreamcast was such an underrated console.  It used the same hardware as the sega naomi arcade machines meaning games were arcade perfect on the console and some were even better. But i digress.

Back to your topic i have some suggestions and feedback and questions that may be useful but also may not be.

1. You should use mugen 1.1 instead of 1.0. Heres why:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

2. You should be careful on your time managing to achieve finishing the game.
    We see many creators with projects come and go and sad truth is 90% become inactive because they never manage to finish it and maybe mugrn socialising and other video games distract them. Be careful of spending your mugen time incorrectly. Maybe limit your mugen websites activity or social mugen time to only 1 website posting and focus on the game completing.

Thats my feedback i hope is helpful and goid luck on it.

P.S look up a megadrive game called ballz. Its similarly crazy i am told

1.) I know I "should" use Mugen 1.1 from an objective standpoint. I'm no purist, but I used Mugen 1.0 for so long now that I don't really want to switch Mugen versions again. Also, there are apparently characters that work only on WinMugen and Mugen 1.0 and don't work on Mugen 1.1 anymore, and I don't seem to be interested to edit them only to work in 1.1.
I just have this personality where I say "never change a running system". I have that moral not only for Mugen 1.0, but also for any other thing in life. May be a stone in my way and I could make my life easier if I did things like buying a new smartphone every 2-3 years, aim for higher goals in my job or life or just change from Mugen 1.0 to 1.1.
But hey, it is what it is and that makes me as a person. That's not meant offending or "blocking" your input for me. Like I said, I'm just that kind of person that doesn't change anything about something if it works.

2.) I'm not actively posting my Mugen WIPs or so on other websites or forums. For example, I have an account on MfG, but I rarely to never post there. Mostly just asking there for specific help with problems or finding this lost stage and that lost char and so on. Partially it is that way because I have negative experience with the Guild because it's a rather rough place because 90% of the people there seem to expect you either put 100% focus on Mugen or none. People get bashed there because they say things like "I release this char/stage/screenpack for you but have no intention of working on it anymore meaning no bugfixes etc". I have seen this enough and even was flamed at one point because I planned something out and lost interest on it later and cancelled it.
The only other Mugen communities I'm "active" around are MugenGermany and MugenArchive, the latter not really "active" as a member but moreso a lurker that sometimes helps them out with donations.

But yeah, I also kinda have that problem where I work 1 month straight on Mugen and then idk, play another game for like a month and then come back to Mugen. I have problems on focusing on one thing for several months. I need flexibility in my free time, not doing the same thing over and over again. That's what my work is for. Is that a bad habit if I want to create things in Mugen? I mean, I don't abandon my projects, it's just that I sometimes take a month or two off and then come back to my Mugen projects.

3.) I watched a lot of awful fighting game reviews and I have seen Ballz several times on those lists ... I don't know how to feel about a fighting game where balls are touching. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I dont have much game ideas unfortunately because i dont know much about this game but it sounds interesting the history

I do have some warning on this though

Molchglas wrote: the latter not really "active" as a member but moreso a lurker that sometimes helps them out with donations.

I would be careful/dubious donating to certain websites as some of these have questionable morals and mugen ethics in regards to hosting creators work against their will. It has helped preserve many lost things but also destroyed the following and motivation of many other creators.
I know many creator who quit mugen because of this place and their amazing unreleased work is lost forever.
I had negative experience with certain websites i would be aware of who you help with your money as some donot deserve it for exploiting others

Constantinius3rd wrote:

Molchglas wrote: the latter not really "active" as a member but moreso a lurker that sometimes helps them out with donations.

I would be careful/dubious donating to certain websites as some of these have questionable morals and mugen ethics in regards to hosting creators work against their will. It has helped preserve many lost things but also destroyed the following and motivation of many other creators.
I know many creator who quit mugen because of this place and their amazing unreleased work is lost forever.
I had negative experience with certain websites i would be aware of who you help with your money as some donot deserve it for exploiting others

Well, I for my part share the opinion and morals of the archive, but that's a topic for another discussion thread.

Ontopic: will edit parent post when the fonts are done.

Phant0mD wrote:Lmao ROTR and BaLLz. I remember those. Ballz was hilarious.
the bosswas unfair as a mofo. He was a jester made of black and white ballz lol
Sometimes the worst games are so shit, their guuud lol.
good luck on ya game bro.Fullgame projects are no joke.
As most the homies will prob tell u, most mugen fullgames end up unfinished/in the trash.
Takes a certain type of drive/mind and focus to get this shizz finished.
look forward to seeing these halarious OG games reborn in teh mugens (PS add Ballz characters please lol)
:

Yeah, I guess the part where I will get stuck eventually is coding the AI.
Won't add Ballz characters to this Mugen, but eventually I'll look into it and make these characters some day. Keep in mind though I'm not interested in making the characters game accurate, but moreso gonna make my characters like the old SvK Infinite style. That's my goal for my "character template".

By the way, I found a tool which will help me in getting the DOS Sprites since these are the highest quality.
It's a little software called ScreenGet, it allows to make PNG screenshots in milliseconds or even lower than that, it's configurable.
It's also neat in that regard that it allows you to tick an option for automatically deleting duplicate images if there are too many frames.

what an original and unique project my friend.
I assume you are perhaps a true retro gaming fan. And good luck with your fangame