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I don't want to talk about this too much and ruin the surprise, but barely anyone will see this on this blog, and I have to post SOMETHING SOMEWHERE.

This project is basically unrecognizable compared to what it used to be with all these posts. I think about it constantly. I mean from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep. I don't wanna get your hopes up because there's no gameplay or anything crazy to show you. I'm just working on something.

I really hope I can share something with you this year. It's been so long since I've been excited about anything, and I don't remember when I've ever been this exited.

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This is Tuya. She contracted vampirism during a plague when she was very young. On her death bed her mother fed her blood as a last resort to save her life (vampirism is a dormant disease until blood in consumed). She travels the world learning medicine to save lives, acquiring blood from willing patients and the dead, constantly teetering on the edge of losing herself to her own blood lust.

Unfortunately I don't have a name for these two yet. This fellow I'm just calling Ahab. the design goal was... literally black Captain Ahab. He's a sailor that's lost his mind, and now he's searching for... something. He doesn't know what compels him, but he keeps searching none the less.

You can see another example of a character going from a more stoic archetype to more unhinged. He was actually suggested to me by a friend of mine to be a wacky junkrat character, and I pushed him to be more tragic and calm. I think that was a mistake, and when I made the second images, I realized how great giving him a second harpoon for a peg leg would be.

Fighting games: make them stupid.

A ghost! She haunts a light house where she died during a storm that swept her away into the sea.

I really wish I had more to say about her. This character is the most "I just threw this together, and it's perfect." design I've made for this project. I'll still iterate on her more, but I love her as is.

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Two more characters. I'm afraid I don't have anything written up for them to give you more details other than there's a conflict between the two (and a third party) that I'm still hammering out.

Rosaline the werewolf:

Originally she was designed to be a male werewolf and more of a main character. There's a single player component that I want to do, and originally I thought "I should do 4 playable characters because I don't have enough work to do!"

Around this time I started pushing things to be a little wackier. I think fighting games are best when they're at least a little bit stupid. The idea of a pirate ship full of werewolves just seems too great to pass up. She has a claw weapon when she's in wolf form, and the swords detach when she's in human form. Very practical! There's lore reasons for her swords too, but that can come later.

and this brings me to Shani the Witch:

Everything is obviously very early. Shani is especially early. Originally more of an academic wizard. While I think that's a perfectly valid archetype, I also grow tired of intelligence in replace of an actual personality. Then she started to shift towards an agent of chaos. She's going to go through a lot of changes still.

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Here's the main Villain of the game, Valerian:

I like strong jerks. He's going to be a terrible, terrible man, and I love him.

Valerian is the final boss of the game. He's someone who sought out to become a vampire to avoid death regardless of the cost. He has an opportunistic view of humanity and sees them as a means to achieve his goals and nothing else. He's lived for centuries accumulating wealth and power, and has killed many vampire hunters during his long life.

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This guy is Cleaver:

I love big, slow characters, and horror movie monsters. Having someone who's genuinely scary to approach you in game because you might die in 2 hits... great stuff. It was around this time that I ditched the idea that you could drop your weapons because... well...

This is also the guy who gave the idea for having a mechanic dealing with blood. The very first idea was he'd drink your blood off of his cleaver until he drank so much that he threw up, covering the floor with blood to make it easier to get in and kill you. That... probably won't happen.

Cleaver is a monster. He's a mountain of a man with an arm that's a butcher's cleaver and a pig head. Some say he's a ghost, some say he's not real, and some say he's just a story that parents tell to scare their children. There's many stories about where he came from, but no one knows for sure which are true...

I know I said I don't want a world with pure good and evil, but I also just wanted a pure agent of chaos movie monster. I hope that's okay.

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This is Sorina:

Sorina is the daughter of a vampire hunter who was killed in his line of work when she was very young. She began training immediately to avenge her father and continue his work in protecting others. It's a dangerous and respected profession. Killing the vampire who killed her father cost her the sight of her left eye.

I pulled some direct inspiration from Sharon stone from quick and the dead (look it up!). A mechanic that I’m exploring is giving everyone something to do with blood. The lore logic is blood is... well, magical. Vampires drink it to extend their life. Wizards and witches need it for spells. It’s a resource, and that makes it very interesting to think about the in world implications of that, and I do not want a world of good vs evil. I’ll get into that another time.

Here’s my very crude mock up. She has a glove that’s a standard vampire hunter equipment. In game the current idea is that it gives her access to a special shotgun.

In terms of game play, she’s basically a shoto (not shota) which is basically a catch all term for characters like Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Akuma, etc. Think characters that have a projectile, dragon punch uppercut, spinning kick. She’s going to be our protagonist.

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Hello, everyone. I’m working on a fighting game. Or I guess what is probably more accurate is that I’m doing visual development, writing, and world building on a personal project that I would like to turn into a fighting game. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I hope you enjoy looking at and reading about my creative process on something new.

Disclaimer: Everything you’re looking at is probably out of date by the time I post it, nothing is sacred, and expect me to change a lot just because.

For instance the first image is... I think the first think I ever drew for this? The elevator pitch was simply “vampire fighting game”. Very simple ideas for fighters that you can see. There’s a whip guy, wizard, a more traditional vampire hunter, a big butcher, a Frankenstein type character, and someone who’s very clearly Dracula.

This expanded with some iteration into the second image which is also out of date, but more accurate. I’ll post more, admittedly bad, sketches going into more. I’m really excited to work on this, and I hope you enjoy it too.