Skullgirls [PS3/360/PC]

Anyone who follows me on Twitter is probably aware that I'm pretty into this game right now, because not only is it awesome but there's been an exciting fundraiser that shows us only a snippet of this indie fighter's promising future! (Incidentally I'm pretty late making this thread)

What is Skullgirls?

-Original indie fighting game, by people who love fighting games, for people who love fighting games (a love letter to the genre)
-Fun mix of western and japanese styles, each character has more frames of animation and higher quality sprites than in any other 2D fighter.
-Well-balanced roster of 8 very unique characters and playstyles, with more on the way!
-Jazzy music with a messed up, early 20th Century styled setting
-Tons of homages and references to fighting games and pop-culture, sufferin' succotash!

Unfortunately the developer's licensees and publishers were hit with legal issues afterwards. So until Konami gets their case over with, the game's promising development and future was indefinitely on hold, possibly forever until this fundraiser happened.
Now, new content and patches can finally be more frequent!
-PSN - Released May 2012: Currently best version, less patch and DLC restrictions
-XBLA - Released May 2012: Still the same as launch, Microsoft refuse to add a meaty patch without dedicated DLC
-Steam (PC/Linux/Mac) Releases July 2013: Promises to be the most quickly updated version, coming July with beta out in June

What's it about?
It's a fighting game, but there's an interesting little plot too. Once in a while, a dangerous object called the "Skull Heart" appears, claiming to grant any wish to a girl who claims its power; unfortunately also consuming the host's will and turning them into a killing machine called a "Skullgirl". Also a whole bunch of other nasty stuff is going down which makes life in this fictional setting seem pretty shit. Can anything be done to stop this cycle? Well, maybe?!

Characters:

• Skullgirls official website
  
• Skullgirls official Twitter (much more active)
  
• Official FAQ
  
• Information on voting for new DLC character (you must have donated at least $1 to vote, you can still donate by Paypal-ing them)
  
• Salty Cupcakes airs on this channel weekly (Friday 3am GMT), it's a stream that announces new info and development progress.
  
• LabZero stream actual game-development here sometimes can you can watch!
  
• Skullgirls' lead programmer Mike Zaimont talks about why this is so expensive and drops truth bombs on how insanely expensive games are to develop.
  

tl;dr: Skullgirls.

( Edited 09.04.2013 21:32 by SuperLink )

Will the new male guy be a "Skullboy?"

I hope this'll come to PS+ or get a discount eventually. Would love to get in on it. Perhaps putting it on PS+ around about a month or two ago would have had an even bigger effect on the fundraiser, but they've clearly already succeeded with it without it. I've been following the updates and it's amazing to see it hitting all these targets when it seemed kinda unlikely.

Azuardo said:
Will the new male guy be a "Skullboy?"

I hope this'll come to PS+ or get a discount eventually. Would love to get in on it. Perhaps putting it on PS+ around about a month or two ago would have had an even bigger effect on the fundraiser, but they've clearly already succeeded with it without it. I've been following the updates and it's amazing to see it hitting all these targets when it seemed kinda unlikely.

Well, I'm quite hopeful of it arriving eventually. On the PS EU blog I asked:

"What are the chances of discounts on Okami HD and Skullgirls in the future?"

Answer:
"Probably not discounts but you never know what can happen "

A few days later, Okami HD was announced as a PS Plus freebie next month. So it makes me wonder if that wink also implies Skullgirls is gonna happen down the road, too. I hope so!

(I can't see that image btw) (I can now!)

What sort of online options do they have? In DOA5 you can have Simple matches (fight randomers with no effect on your online ranking), Ranked matches (effects your online ranking) and you can set up Lobbies for matches against more than one person in rotation, or winner stays on, that kinda thing. Anything similar here?

( Edited 27.03.2013 01:03 by Azuardo )

Azuardo said:
Well, I'm quite hopeful of it arriving eventually. On the PS EU blog I asked:

"What are the chances of discounts on Okami HD and Skullgirls in the future?"

Answer:
"Probably not discounts but you never know what can happen "

A few days later, Okami HD was announced as a PS Plus freebie next month. So it makes me wonder if that wink also implies Skullgirls is gonna happen down the road, too. I hope so!

(I can't see that image btw)

What sort of online options do they have? In DOA5 you can have Simple matches (fight randomers with no effect on your online ranking), Ranked matches (effects your online ranking) and you can set up Lobbies for matches against more than one person in rotation, or winner stays on, that kinda thing. Anything similar here?

Lobbies aren't on yet, but they'll be in the Steam version and will be added to the console versions soon after that's out!

I see it : )

Would definitely give online a good go. Good that they'll add lobbies to it. Tecmo removed the lobbies option in DOA5+ which has really bummed a lot of people off. No idea why they did that. Lobbies are great for getting tournaments amongst online friends going!

Yeah lack of lobbies has been blamed for Skullgirls' online play being dead (and it is dead but idc since I don't really play random online matches in games, I prefer friend battles)

Aanyway holy shit, there's less than 17 hours left of the fundraiser, if you wanna vote or have the chance to play as a fourth new character at $725,000 (a robot version of Ms.Fortune called Robo-Fortune, new sprites, new moveset, new voice clips and everything) then consider donating!
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls-growing/x/2367015?c=home

By the way, something that personally has me a bit giddy.
Skullgirls currently has 8 characters, and thanks to this fundraiser that's been bumped to 11 characters. If Robo-Fortune gets made, it'll be 12.

That'd boost the playable roster by 50% which is insane and amazing! That's the power of fans!

When do fans vote on the characters they want in? Or is it underway? I wanna know what the choices are and who is gonna be in. And who are you voting for, SuperLink? : o

(More people need to post in this thread so I can post more often in it, grr ! )

The voting is actually underway and is in round 2 of the first character vote. All the 31 characters here are eligible to vote, but as of round 2 only these 16 are left;

• Aeon
  
• Annie
  
• B. Dahlia
  
• Beowulf
  
• Brain Drain
  
• Eliza
  
• Feng
  
• Isaac
  
• Marie
  
• Minette
  
• Molly
  
• Panzerfaust
  
• Scythana
  
• Stanley
  
• Umbrella
  
• Venus
  

Note: if anyone still wants the chance to vote, they're accepting donations for perks and such via Paypal for a little while longer, which will entitle you to vote I'm pretty sure.

( Edited 09.04.2013 19:51 by SuperLink )

Aww, in a way, these kind of things make me wish ALL of the characters could be added XD Seems a shame that some of them will just be scrapped. Maybe a potential sequel will have more of them in?

Yep there have already been a lot of people sad that their favourites didn't even make it through round 1.

Ohh shit actually I didn't get to mention it here yet, but in the end the fundraiser made it to every stretch goal which means that instead of the planned 1 new character, they're making 5 new characters (raising the cast from 8 to 13 - and 7 new stages) 2 of them will be chosen by vote, so after the first vote is over another will take place to decide the final new character.

They honestly want to make as many as they can but still don't have and may never have a publisher or investor's funding. So if they'd need 3/4 of $1mil to make 4/5 new characters, imagine how much they'd need to make a full sequel.

They'd really like to do one someday, but if they can't I think they'll just support the first game as much as they can and work on it forever. Either way, the ultimate plan is to make all of these characters and more. The character and story designer is a lot more optimistic than the rest of the dev team So yeah if they keep getting money after the 5th new character is made, they'll keep making more new characters from top to bottom (so starting with Umbrella, then Marie, etc).

I guess with all these updates, it almost is like getting a sequel. Without the backing these additions wouldn't have happened anyway, and Skullgirls might never have continued in any form. So at least there is strong hope for the future after such a strong backing. Even if it didn't get a true sequel, just adding on to Skullgirls itself is good enough. And all the add-ons are free to d/l for the first couple of months, right?

Yep actually, on one of the streams some of the devs said that if they don't get to make a sequel they'd hope they can update the first game enough to make it its own sequel, they're hoping to someday make new story modes for existing characters too.

And indeed, quite a few people pointed out that if the fans of this game managed to raise almost $1mil in only 30 days, they'd be crazy not to be interested in investing. This whole thing has really put Skullgirls on the map as well as giving it a future, so I really hope it doesn't end here. :/

Azuardo said:
And all the add-ons are free to d/l for the first couple of months, right?

SuperLink said:

Anyone who follows me on Twitter is probably aware that I'm pretty into this game right now, because not only is it awesome but there's been an exciting fundraiser that shows us only a snippet of this indie fighter's promising future! (Incidentally I'm pretty late making this thread)

I've heard of it... might get it if I get some paypal cash

I very much liked the IGN review...