Fighting Games Friday: The Fraymakers Indie Melee
Crowdfunded fighting games are rare, especially when they’re original projects — for good reason. They’re difficult for development teams to make than some may expect, given the number of unique animations required for each non-clone character, and they need to be carefully balanced to ensure some characters aren’t too dominant over others. Crowdfunding campaigns that stick out aren’t too common these days as a whole, but it’s for the previously stated reasons that the Kickstarter for Fraymakers is so attractive, and that’s not getting into how good the game looks.
Fraymakers is a platform fighting game (as in, a game inspired by Super Smash Bros.) that features fan favorites from a bunch of indie games. The confirmed roster consists of Welltaro from Downwell, Ultra Fishbunjin 300 from Slap City, The Watcher from Slay the Spire, Orcane from Rivals of Aether, CommanderVideo from the Bit.Trip series, and Octodad from, well, Octodad. The cast is small, and given the high number of popular indie games that exist, a lot of faces are missing. (I’m surprised Shovel Knight is absent given the sheer number of guest appearances he’s made in too many games.) But other characters will be available if the stretch goals are met.
The small cast is justified through the beefy sprites with detailed animations. The game looking nice and stylish in action is another reason why the campaign is going well. The developers at McLeodGaming are promising a game that will be easy to pick up but difficult to master, like it’s inspiration. The combos look a bit more complicated than those from Smash Bros., but those aside, it nonetheless resembles that game. It will also have a wide variety of assist characters from indie games, including Aine from Renaine, Josef from Machinarium, and the Silent from Slay the Spire, and several more. As a necessity, the game will have rollback netcode for online play, which is quickly and deservedly becoming the norm for fighting games.
It’s only been a little over two days since the campaign started, but it’s already reached $92,000 as of this writing. It met the $46,000 initial goal within a day, and has since reached two stretch goals for one additional character who’s yet to be announced and a doubled stage count. Further goals are within reach, including those for a remixed OST from OC Remix, an expanded Assist List, and more.
The game looks polished as it is, but the Early Access version isn’t due for release until March 2022 if all goes well, a version that won’t have all the content at launch. The release timeframe shows just how much more work the team wants to put in before the player base can get their hands on it, and creating the content for the full release won’t be easy with the stretch goals potentially increasing the workload. Don’t be surprised if the initial release date slips a bit, something few crowdfunding games can avoid.
Due to a minor technical mix-up, we have confirmed that some “work-in-progress” updates were released temporarily to small number of JUMP FORCE players.
This issue has been solved. Please see the attached for more details. pic.twitter.com/yrXrNTFDBi
— Bandai Namco US (@BandaiNamcoUS) November 18, 2020
Meanwhile, Bandai Namco confirmed that the final two Jump Force characters for the second season will be Yoruichi Shihoin and Giorno Giovanna from Bleach and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, respectively. They leaked after being accidentally released to a few players before being pulled. Yoruichi is mostly finished and should release soon, but Giorno will require more development time. Trailers for both characters should arrive in the near future.
— The Big House 11 (@TheBigHouseSSB) November 19, 2020
Nintendo is using the full weight of their ability to send out cease and desist notices through copyright claims again by going after The Big House, a competitive Super Smash Bros. event. The organization previously had no problem hosting annual Smash Bros. tournaments in Detroit in the past, but unsurprisingly can’t do so safely this year thanks to the pandemic. This year, they planned to hold a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament online using a rollback netcode mod known as “Slippi.” It’s the mod that crossed a line for Nintendo, which responded by sending them a cease and desist notice only a couple of weeks before the tournament could begin. Because of this, the event has been cancelled for the first time since the annual occasion started in 2011.
Video game companies have enormous power and are fully within their rights to use copyright claims to go after usage of their properties they don’t like. But they typically don’t because of their desire to let communities build themselves up around their properties and the need to establish goodwill. This is the vaunted Nintendo Difference at work, a company that won’t hesitate to use that power to take fan projects down and destroy community activities like The Big House. It continues to be disappointing to see Nintendo resort to this constantly, but it’s clear they believe they’re in a position where they’ll suffer no repercussions for it. They’re probably right.
This wasn’t the busiest week for Fighting Games Friday, but there was clearly enough news for me to create a post this week. Don’t forget that Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate arrived on Tuesday from NetherRealm Studios, which added Rain, Mileena and Rambo to the roster. Whether this will be the final update for Mortal Kombat 11 remains to be seen. We’ll see if there’s more news next week, but if not, I have other ideas.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
