Karate Champ: Olympic Rematch (temp title)

[Balthazar]

Hello everyone!
What we have here is a project I've been secretly working on for a while now and I'm now ready to broaded it to have a coder attached!

The idea was to bring back one of the grandfathers of competitive 1-on-1 combat games, Karate Champ!

I've been redoing the animations 150% upscaled form the original game, as well as adding some frames here and there (even though the original game had plenty of frames of animation especially for it's time, it didn't always come out quite as fluid).
It'll probably work the best in a full-game environment since the gameplay steers away from your traditional KOF/SF type of fighting quite a bit. What I wanted to do is replicate the original game rather faithfully, though adding a few elements here and there, and obivously have it control as smooth as butter (the original game is known for having rather stiff and clunky control of your character)

Winning matches will be done by scoring points, this is accomplished by succesfully hitting your adversary with a well-placed punch or kick. Yeah it is pretty much a one-hit loss or victory (or 2 since you need to score 2 points, most punches/kicks would score 1 point, but counter attacks will be 2 points). The game will have only 2 buttons: one for punching and one for kicking. You'll also be able to move left and right. The original game allowed you to jump, but I'd like to remove that here (for the sake of adding a bit of realism. Seriously have you ever seen anyone ever do an empty jump in an actual fight, less so in a tournament?)
Different attacks are performed with direction+punch/kick, each of the 8 directions resulting in a different attack/movement.

Here is the control scheme I have thought of:

Spoiler (click to show)

HIGH BLOCK
ub+A
-Defensive gesture used to block high attacks.
After a succesful block, you recover slightly faster then the opponent,
enabling you to counter-attack them.

MID BLOCK
b+A
-Defensive gesture used to block mid attacks.
After a succesful block, you recover slightly faster then the opponent,
enabling you to counter-attack them.

LOW BLOCK
db+A
-Defensive gesture used to block low attacks.
After a succesful block, you recover slightly faster then the opponent,
enabling you to counter-attack them.

FRONT LEG LIFT
d+B
-Not an attack, you merely briefly lift up your front foot.
This is to dodge the limb of incoming low attacks, like the Low Kick,
but mostly the Spinning Sweep Kick, which can't be low-blocked.

===

SWIFT CROSS PUNCH
A neutral
-Probably your go-to move after blocking or evading an enemy's attack.
One of the fastest attacks in your arsenal, but naturally it's very close-range.

CROUCHING LUNGE PUNCH
df+A
-With this attack you attack quite a distance and strike low.

STEP-IN MID LUNGE PUNCH
f+A
-Excellent range, but when blocked or whiffed,
it leaves you wide open for a counter attack.

STEP-IN HIGH LUNGE PUNCH
uf+A
-Similar to the f+A move, but it strikes a bit higher.
This also means the attack can be ducked.

JUMPING OVERHEAD PUNCH
u+A
-Best used to counter an incoming low attack you telegraphed coming.
The player'll hop over the low attack and likely nail the enemy on the head.

===

FRONT KICK
B neutral
-Has a similar use to the A neutral attack, though it has slightly more range. Hits mid.

MID SIDE KICK
b+B
-Good to use after a succesful block, or can be used as a defensive, back-away poke.

SPINNING SWEEP KICK
db+B
-This attack will sweep an enemy off their feet and hard onto the mat.
It's pretty slow to come out, so only use it to punish a medium-to-far away
enemy's whiffed attack. This attack is so low it can't be low-blocked,
so you have to jump-attack over it or simply back off fast enough.

LOW KICK
df+B
-A good medium-ranged low poke.

STEP-IN FRONT KICK
f+B
-Very offensive move, quite some range and likely to nail careless opponents. Hits mid.

HIGH ROUNDHOUSE KICK
uf+B
-Not many things are as satisfying as connecting a foot to the enemy's head.
This move is not the safest in your arsenal and has a slow recovery, so use it wisely.

JUMPING SIDE KICK
u+B
-As with the u+A move, you can clear incoming low attacks with this leaping kick strike.
Though this one simply ups the wow-factor a few notches.

SPINNING BACK HIGH KICK
ub+B
-Has a similar use to the uf+B move, but this one looks cooler and has a tad more range.
If the attack is blocked or ducked, though, you're very likely to get punished for it.

STEP-IN SIDE KICK
f,f+B
-This move has the farthest range of all the attacks.
If an opponent is goofing of at medium-far to far range, toss this out to suprise them.

===

STEP-IN KICK AND PUNCH COMBO
f+K, hold A
-If you need to clear a lot of ground and want to be offensive about it,
pull out this Step-in Front Kick, Mid Lunge Punch chain.

===

TOMOE NAGE ATTEMPT
f+A+B
-If you're feeling adventurous, you can go for the classic kick toss throw.

That gives you at least 14 different attacks, 3 types of blocks (high/mid/low) and a movement to dodge low kicks.
Also noted is a Tomeo Nage but I don't know how allowed a throw is in an actual karate tournament, but it's nice to change things up.

Already sprited are quite a few attacks, most of them actually. It comes down to me wanting to attach a coder to the project to re-spice my interest and finish the remaining animations. When all anims are completed, a simple color seperation (hair from belt and upper gi from lower gi) is planned so more interesting palettes are available. I'll end with showing some of the animations, since I know that's what you really want to see:



Video of the original game in action to refresh your memory in case it's needed:

The_None was previously contacted to code, but projects keep piling up on him, thus I thought I'd give him a break.
Please comment!

[Cybaster]

Wow, this sounds nice.
Long time I haven't played this game.

Smooth animations, as always.

I hope you find a coder soon, this is another winner project from you.
I recall somebody coded this game not so long ago (at least I think so). You may want to search for it in the release section and contact him, as it could almost be a spriteswap at this point, if his game was well coded.

[Balthazar]

I can't really find anything like that on this forum, maybe you were wrong
Maybe you confused it with this:
http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/1-0-only-mugfami-mugen-famicom-sugio-163155.0.html
Yeah I think you confused it with Kung Fu Master.

Anyway, with these fresh sprites, a fresh code might be in order I think ^^

[hatter]

Damn, Balthazar, those sprites are sweet! Good luck with your project!

[Cybaster]

I'm probably talking about this :
http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/ultimate-karate-champ-109377.msg1024133.html#msg1024133

But yeah, it's an old release.

[adriano gt]

great spriter
congratulation for your work

[Balthazar]

I recall somebody coded this game not so long ago (at least I think so).

4 years = not so long ago? Man, you ARE getting old
I thought you ment like a week or two weeks ago.

[GTOAkira]

everything is looking great so hope you will find someone

[【ＭＦＧ】gui0007]

Video of the original game in action to refresh your memory in case it's needed:

That was so nostalgic!

And damn Balthazar, that sounds awesome! I'll be watching the whole progress.
Good luck!

[Sheng Long]

You sprited/drew those new animations? WOW they look really awesome, and so professional! Nice work!

[Cobee]

this looks great! awesome sprites and a very good idea to revive that game

[Kamekaze]

certainly would be fun to do tbh. I'll strongly consider it and if no one steps up by February sign me up.

[yaret]

wow.! your skill sprites are amazing in any game. super cool.

[Omega]

This is Excellent man. A true nostalgic Game returns with upgraded skills of yours. When you redid Sentro and FireQucker from Nes, that pretty much became your second new style besides your Z2 Characters. Since this Game is a remake, will you redo The Stage aswell or just the Characters? Great luck with this Game project buddy.

[BC]

Interesting project ive always loved this game, the sprites look great nice job.

[Watta]

My favorite karate move. You did it justice

[Kintoku]

Jeez, with smooth sprites like that, it makes me want to work harder on my drawing. You're giving this classic game justice, Balthazar!

Spoiler (click to show)

Just some ideas for titles you could try:
Karate Champ: Second Bout
Karate Champ Reborn
Karate Champ Remastered

But honestly, Olympic Rematch sounds like a fine title.

[Balthazar]

welp since no one yet stepped forward,@[user id=16411]Kamekaze[/user]:  I guess you're on, in about 3 months!

[Sheng Long]

How soon do you need a coder?

I'm not familiar with the game in terms of game play accuracy. Are you just looking for someone to just make the character in general? Or does it need to be accurate with the way you attack? The only thing I can remember in some of those Karate games is that there was no 'button' to attack. All attacks were like smash controls where you tilted the control in certain ways to attack.

Would be interesting to develop though.

[Balthazar]

Hey,

well the original arcade game indeed did not have buttons, just 2 joysticks, and a combination of directional pushes would result in an attack (left joystick downward + right joystick to the right = low kick, for example). I'm pretty sure the NES version just adapted that into d-pad direction+button, which'll be used here. Furthermore all punch attacks are mapped to one button, and all kick attacks to the second button.
I am not in a rush to have a coder actually, I've got a few things going on, but IF a coder was attached I would likely get more inspired to finish the remaining animations. The main task would indeed be to code the character, but it'll only really work in a full-game environment (basically it's a fullgame but with only one character, though there'll be palettes to 'fake' having more then one. Later, perhaps even headswaps can be made to further differenciate between them but that's not really important at the moment or maybe not even worth it).
It also won't work outside of a fullgame because each attack would do 50% (succesful hit)  to 100% (counter hit) damage. Because the game works with points, not health. The game is in that regard more like a game of chess; you carefully position your player and try to foresee the enemy's next move so you can set up a counter attack.

Also a stage would need to be created, I know I'm not going to do that A screenpack would be swell too.