I place one vote to the champ and one pity vote to my successful meme.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Satan and Felicia
Woah, nice! I was not expecting this outcome. I already covered a lot of Behind The Scenes stuff on Mr. Satan on the HDBZ board, so I guess I'll talk about the part of him that wasn't gameplay or development. It's a bit personal, and it's a bit long, so I put it in a spoiler.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
I was in a dark place in my life prior to working on Mr. Satan. I was morbidly obese, suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol... pretty much everything that comes with being very overweight, to the point that my doctor said that I was going to die before I hit 30 at the rate I was going (I was 28 at the time of this diagnosis). What few friendships I had were very shallow, and I always felt like I was "pitied" rather than "befriended." And on top of all that, I was working the same dead-end job for the last half-decade. I wasn't happy with my life of course. Who would? But I had become complacent. I just accepted that this is what the rest of my life was going to be, and I resigned myself to basically living a pretty much meaningless existence.
That's when Iced popped in. We normally chat a bit on-off about MUGEN and internet stuff, and he gave me the opportunity to join Team Z2. I did some stuff with the Satan sprites the team had already drawn (there weren't much. I think he had like three/four attacks), and they were happy with my work and let me on. It was amazing to be on a team full of some of the most awesome people I've known, with all the eccentricities and oddities that came with it, and seeing them looking forward to each new move I'd code or make jokes about some of the silly bugs I'd do (if anyone talks about Mr. Satan not brushing his teeth, that's one of 'em) gave me the push to keep coming back to him.
And as I worked on Satan, something inside me made me want to start making changes in my life. I started a weight loss program and followed it to a medically accepted BMI for my height (if you're curious, I had to lose 120 lbs, or almost 55kg to everyone not from the USA lol) and as a result, almost all of my health issues cleared up. I started building relationships with friends that I had been neglecting, and putting myself out there to make new ones. Oh and I also fought for a promotion at work and got it. And to this day, I'm still trying to find ways to better myself and live the life that I always wanted to live but didn't think I could.
In a way, Mr. Satan represents not just a character for a game that I meticulously planned based on what he could contribute to the game's meta, but he also represents a period in my life where I finally put my foot down and said that I wasn't going to sit idle and watch life pass me by. I was going to fight for what I wanted and find my own inner happiness. It was almost as if Mr. Satan himself was trying to push me to not just accept what I wasn't happy with, but to strive for something better.
So I guess I want to thank Mr. Satan of course, the HDBZ team who basically supported me through that crazy year+ of development, my IRL friends who helped me through all the good and rough periods, and of course, all of you who downloaded and played with him. Seeing the reception for Mr. Satan has just been unreal, whether you liked or hated him, and both made me want to do my best to work even harder for the team.
Here's to Mr. Satan, to the upcoming Krillin, and to all the future characters in store for this crazy game. The fun's just beginning, look forward to it!
Anyway, just to give a hand to everyone else who entered COTM, I prepared a few goodies that will ship with Mr. Satan's next big update.
(http://i.imgur.com/VojjszK.png)(http://i.imgur.com/qn07Tj4.png)(http://i.imgur.com/EsRetJW.png)(http://i.imgur.com/ucdwJwT.png)(http://i.imgur.com/pSUiFuM.png)(http://i.imgur.com/CvJoVPo.png)(http://i.imgur.com/G6eqCvT.png)(http://i.imgur.com/lXNx4QZ.png)(http://i.imgur.com/guGKk7V.png)(http://i.imgur.com/QT4Z47e.png)(http://i.imgur.com/GfQO9tp.png)(http://i.imgur.com/0nVShm1.png)(http://i.imgur.com/pBqtS4O.png)
Mr. Satan will gain a palette representing every character who was nominated along with him!
(http://i.imgur.com/q9hoAXq.png)
Additionally, Mr. Satan will also have exclusive winquotes when defeating a COTM nominee. For example, this one shows up if you defeat Vicky by Shimmering Brony. And yes, me and Iced brainstormed all of 'em to give them that official Z2 flair. I'm not gonna post all of 'em here; you're just gonna have to give all the nominees a shot to see 'em (or wait for someone to post spoilers lol)!
The post-COTM update isn't quite ready yet (I'm still incorporating bug-fixes and balance updates), but I hope you're looking forward to what I'll be shipping next update!