Since Skullgirls had no collision system, some publically available coding guides from the early Sonic games were used to create a similar collision system. In switching from a fighting game to a ARPG, the team faces new challenges. It’s inspired them to create a lot of unique creatures– like the Ahp, a sort of vampire woman whose head flies off her body with all her entrails intact. The story is heavily influenced by the myths and culture of Southeast Asia, a region not usually represented in games. Now the team has started a new project: Indivisible, a 2D action RPG strongly influenced by Valkyrie Profile. It came to an end in July 2015 with Robo-Fortune, the final character Lab Zero added to the game. Development and post-release support for Skullgirls lasted for six years in total. It ended up making almost $830k, well beyond their original $150k goal. They formed their own studio, Lab Zero Games, and started an Indiegogo campaign to fund the project. The Skullgirls team, however, wanted to continue working on the game. Now without a publisher, Reverge was unable to pay their staff and was forced to lay them off. Their publisher Autumn Games was sued over DefJam Rapstar, a rap karaoke game. Unfortunately, their development process was soon plagued with a series of unexpected hardships. Once they had a stable tech demo and a publisher in the form of Autumn Games, they formed a team and joined Reverge Studios.Īfter that Konami agreed to distribute the game, the game’s future seemed as if it were set in stone. “As a thank you I sent him a build of it and he said ‘Wow this actually feels really nice, let’s talk about being more serious,’ and then I proposed,” Mike joked. Once Alex had sent over some art assets for what would eventually become the character Fillia, Mike put them to work in the engine. His eventual success wouldn’t have been possible if a mutual friend hadn’t introduced Mike to Alex Ahad, an artist who happened to be making art assets for a fighting game. The sheer difficulty of starting development on a fighting game alone could dissuade anyone, but Mike was eager to try. Every character must be meticulously balanced against another, every hitbox the perfect size, every move scrutinized and animated. Designing fighter games can be harder than you’d think. Mike started professionally programming at Pandemic for Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Mercenaries 2 in 2003, but even then he had already been working on the Skullgirls engine for 4 years. This tough but possible level has influenced most of his game development from Skullgirls to the recently announced action RPG Indivisible. “Ever since I played Battletoads I had wanted to make my own version of Turbo Tunnel,” Mike said, noting that most people would say something like that sarcastically. Mike’s interest in games started with the most hated level of Battletoads. Normally he is a man of few words, but bring up the right topic and the conversation quickly becomes an explosion of information. Talking to Mike Zaimont about game development is like opening Pandora’s Box.
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