Its no secret that I do not like this new KI. Of course its for the same reasons that most all fans of the original KI do not like it at all. Just a few reasons.
Graphics are terrible.
They abandoned the original character designs of most all of the characters.
The fact that is is kept rated G .
The went from the design idea from the start that KI was just some goofy monster mash allstars game that is just supposed to be funny and corny.
Rash exists.
Story is bad.
Gameplay is incredibly gimmicky.
Bad animations.
Glitches.
That list could go on and on. But I’ll just stop there. Doesn’t matter anyway, the are just doubling down on it all for season 3.
So what can a game developer, who happens to be a massive fan of the original KI do? Easy answer, just get a few of his other professional friends together and make their own KI.
So that’s what we are doing. Its just going to be a fun experiment for us, and something fun to show off. Hopefully we won’t ■■■■off too many people doing it lol. I’ll post up our progress on concepts and art here. This should be fun to do and show what we think KI could look like with some new art style.
We are starting with developing the first 4 characters. Orchid, Jago, Chief Thunder, and Saberwulf. Those will be really fun, and wwwaaayyy more like their real designs from the first game.
I have about got Orchids model done. I am rigging up her face and everything now so that we can start get her facial animations in. She will have 3 setups at first. KI 1 outfit, KI 2, and a new design. I am going to try to have that for each of the first 4 as well.
We are using Unreal Engine since we use that everyday at work and know it inside and out. So a good question would be, to all the fans of the original, what would you like to see in it? Hook us up with some ideas.
Just to kind of show you all the design style we are starting with, I’ll throw up a quick Orchid bust from in UE4 real quick. This is just a low poly in game shot with no accessories and preliminary materials that I am testing blend shapes for her face with, but its a good example for a starting point. I will show the rest of her very soon. Oh and you will be able to switch her hair to different styles.
We are going for a much more realistic look. More in line with the original KI. We want to treat it more serious, not just some joke cartoony game.
Anyway, I look forward to sharing a lot more with everyone soon, and please let me know what you all think and your ideas! It is extremely early, and we are just kicking this thing off, so feel free to pitch in!
Never going to be any kind of money involved. Its strictly just a fun project for me and a few of my friends. We make games for other people all day, so we just want to see how well we could do on a fighting game setup.
And as for the hate thing, I’m sure we’ll get plenty of it, so people can go ahead and hate all they want. There just happens to be a very large section of the fighting game community that loved KI and hate what has been done to it. So, yeah, if you dont agree with my assessment, that is fine, play corny KI, fire up some Rash and have fun. Everyone else is more than welcome to give us some input. Either way, we all win.
It’s okay if you despise this Killer instinct. I understand that their is large amount of people that don’t like it. We just need to respect each other’s opinions thats all.
Personally, It’s my favortie game of all time. For others not so much. Sometimes I don’t understand their reasoning (example people say it’s dead because of Rash) But hey:
I think all of these can be improved. It still has maybe the best fighting mechanics than any other fighters out there especially when it come to player input and one to one action, and very solid net play.
Its lacking in content, it is G rated, and there are bugs, but most of those things you listed are superficial. I agree to all your points really, but overall it has really solid and exciting gameplay. Gameplay over all the little details for me. You still have the arcade classics…
Thats cool. I agree that the netcode is top notch for sure.
But all the other things are what drove us to want to just make our own.
Not going to argue about differing opinions on it in this thread though. This thread is just about us making our own, not about further discussions about the official game. I only put that in the intro thread because it is what has driven a lot of people away from the game and what shoved us into making one ourselves. If you love the official game, stick with it.
1 - KI still a budget project
2 - Its not an AAA game and perhaps will never be
3 - It was forced in a rush to attempt the Xbox one release back at E3 2013. The reason why there are seasons.
4 - If Microsoft couldn’t find another developer to replace Double Helix Games it was just already cancelled. We could never reach season 3
5 - It plays nothing like the original Killer Instinct games. But this version is fun and plays legit to a good fighting game.
6 - I’m quite sure Iron Galaxy are trying their best on this game since that they never has dealt with professional game development before.
7 - Season 2 has scored 85/8.0 at metacritic which is unbelievable for a budget project: http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/killer-instinct-season-2
8 - Rash has been requested since Double Helix early days. To pay respect and homage to rareware who has turned “Brute Force” project into one the badass games we know today (classic KI).
9 - They’re revamping Shadow Jago and soon we’ll be able to perform the first ultimate (i hope there’ll be much more for every character).
I’m quite sure it could be much worse. Gotta say thanks to Iron Galaxy and Microsoft for your efforts. You guys really listen what we want in the game. Thank you very much.
Cinder is actually going to be one of the easier characters. They did such a poor job with him. People confused his fire for snakes when he released lol. He needs actual particles in order to look good, not just masked spheres panning around. Might jump on his model soon, just to show what je should actually look like.
Well then a random group of a few devs doing it for free in their spare time shouldnt be able to even come close to their graphics right? Getting really tired of the “they dont have the time and resources to do it right!” excuse that gets pulled out every time a shortcoming gets pointed out.
But hey, we’ll just see what we can pull off just for fun.
There’s some stuff here that I’m going to speak to, but I think it’s worth noting that this is the official forum for the KI of Microsoft, Iron Galaxy and formerly Double Helix. This isn’t the place to be rallying supporters from among those who don’t like the game, because by-and-large those people either don’t bother showing up because they’re sane human beings who have better things to do than spend time ■■■■■■■■on a thing they don’t like, or they haven’t been so reasonable and have shown up long ago, made idiots of themselves by persistently spewing garbage all over the place, and then eventually lost hope and departed because they’ve rightly been rebuked by pretty much everyone in sight.
That is to say, maybe you’d have more success rallying support on NeoGAF, or Twatter or whatever. Whilst you technically can discuss anything within reason here and the admins apparently won’t stop you, the intended audience here is people who are into new KI.
That said, I don’t want to discourage a creative endeavor. I think there are problems which you haven’t spoken to in instead opting to emphasize art progress (nice Orchid, btw – not what I was expecting when I read your post), which I’ll go into below, but unlike the more spiteful words you reserve for Microsoft’s game, building your own thing is definitely a positive use of your energy and I’d like to see it develop further.
This should go without saying, but speak for yourself.
More to the point, I think you missed how much of a stigma there was against the original games among the FGC. People haven’t just taken to hating on the new KI because it’s on the 'Bone or using a seasonal pseudo-f2p model or whatever, they’ve been hating on this series since its inception. Had you spoken of KI on, say, Shoryuken, or in the fighting game thread of some arbitrary forum, prior to new KI, you probably would’ve been torn to shreds like I often was. I don’t really think you’ll find support for a “truer” KI among the FGC proper.
I think at least on a mechanical level, that new KI has done far more to speak to the FGC than any prior KI ever did: the game has a coherent overarching combat design philosophy, the characters fulfill distinct archetypes, the game provides unprecedented support for lab fiends with Practice mode tools and guidance for newbies in the form of Dojo and Shadows, as already stated the netcode has actually been done right. Maybe most importantly, the developers themselves watch tournaments, come out to events, and interact with the community so they can keep a finger on the pulse of the competitive scene and make adjustments as necessary.
The original games have interesting facets buried in among their mechanics that can be interesting to explore, but they did none of the above.
Where do you live? It’s T-rated in the US, M-rated in Australia…
But also, the preoccupation with content classification is silly. It’s like it is being used alongside Metacritic scores to gauge the quality of the game: it’s apparently not friggen awesome enough if it’s got a baby rating.
I mean, if you’re just using the rating as a stand-in for the idea that MK-style gore por.n (and even, er, actual por.n) (also, ■■■■the swear filter) is what you want out of a fighting game like KI, and you’re actually willing and capable enough to make that kind of game, then go ahead, I guess. As far as I’m concerned, KI isn’t about that kind of fetish (and, on more than a lip-service level where you had to co-opt the things MK did at the time to sell, kinda never was), and that’s kinda reflected in the fact that Microsoft has focused largely on game mechanics and cleaning up KI’s troubled image.
What’s your creative vision for your own KI?
As I largely don’t care about story and happen to think KI was some goofy monster mash that I thought was edgy as a kid, I don’t really have any investment in this one way or another – but you obviously care, and you’re making a game in part to address this, so you should probably speak to it.
Can you speak to the overall combat design vision you’ll be going for? I mean, you’re talking about making a fighting game. You don’t do that without having a sense of how it’s going to play, and why that’s going to be compelling – and you, or someone on your team, should be able to explain that to other people familiar with fighting game theory in some detail. You also should probably be prototyping this stuff early so that you can find out what works and what doesn’t, and for that I hope you have enough experience in the genre to quickly figure out what mechanics will work and what could be problematic or broken.
I don’t know what you mean when you say that new KI’s gameplay is “gimmicky”, either, which kinda suggests that even if you go into details on the combat design front, we’re probably not going to see eye-to-eye. But you’re probably not going to build a thing that people like if you lose everyone when you start talking about this part.
Even if your aim was to replicate KI1 gameplay (which I think would be a bad idea), you’d still at least have to demonstrate an understanding of those mechanics and what kind of game that is at a competent (if not high – but preferably high) level of play. The chances of nobody who plays that game caring about balance, game flow, meta, etc, are basically nil, and you could even have big disagreements within your own team about whether you should rebalance something if you don’t have enduring principles holding the design together.
Well, the time and resources aspects are largely project management abstractions used to talk about (paid) developer work hours on a large game project. I think it’s plain stupid to assert that new KI isn’t the result of hard, long hours of passionate, concerted work from a team of highly talented developers over many years. That is to say, the game is the result of a large volume of hard work. You’re not going to be taken seriously if you try to pretend otherwise.
Now, as someone whose first console was an Atari 2600 and whose fondest gaming memories come largely from the N64, I don’t give much of a ■■■■about graphics – in fact, I think something has gone wrong that we have gamers ■■■■■■■on great games because of perceived visual imperfections, and I long for the days when we would say “it’s the gameplay that counts” and you’d get lynched for saying otherwise. Something went seriously wrong somewhere along the line, to have gamers get their priorities so out of whack.
The issue being raised, however, is that you’re proposing to make a feature-complete game that looks (and, apparently, plays?) better than new KI, and whilst I don’t think better visuals make a better game, I know that better visuals have a real implications on the volume of production work involved. And we’re already talking about making a friggen AAA video game, with all the production realities that entails. (Which you should already be familiar with, right?) Surely that means you need to find more developer-hours somewhere along the line than have gone into Microsoft’s game – and that is where I think you’ll find the skepticism is coming from.
when people change something to a game thats already established itself it can go two ways for example, call of duty, with advanced warfare the community split up drastically based off of the exos which changed call of duty a whole lot… killer instinct is the same situation with most of the people nowadays, they keep reminiscing the old games… im not the first to say but KI is the best game, 1+2+2013, BUT!!! all of them are far from perfect, especially the classics…as maximillain dood would say, broken games are fun, classic kis were broken but fun as h.ell, new ki may have problems but why down it ( more text incoming), iron galaxy and double helix have gotten numerous flak from alot of things, and most of them are because its not like the old games… like the outdated charge attacks and costumes, especially the rating “g” (its rated T but okay),…1, a good game does not have to be THE BEST if its was rated M or T even, its all about GAMEPLAY, thats been one of my pet peeves about the gaming community as of late just because if something looks cartoony or childish, it would be recieved as a game for kids, dont judge a book by its cover, when i played kingdom hearts 2 ( my first in the kh series), i was expecting musicals out the booce because , y’know DISNEY, but its one of my favorite franchises in gaming…i highly understand that everyone has their own taste but saying that a game being rated g (lol) or rated e, t, doesnt neccessarily mean kid game. 2 ( i could have a whole rant about this) guest characters, first of all rash never killed or damaged KI ( jeez have some content that they even acknowledged him on the first place), this is MY MOST ANNOYED SUBJECT TO TALK ABOUT due to the fact people are so ignorant it pisses me off so hard when they say guest characters kill a game, actually guest characters sell a game, NRS stated that scorpion from injustice and freddy mk9 were top sellers, another point is that supersmash bros for the wii u has the biggest cross over in gaming ever ( granted its supposed to be), when cloud was announced people were freaking out, especially me. having rash as a playable character ( not boss fight in shovelknight , thts considered a cameo imo) for the first time in years is a seller… another thing that really gets me is also that how do they ruin the game, they obviously dont change the gameplay, what they take up a space? ummm did you forgot that they are planning to add more ( mean while they did soft confirmed more guset characters for s3 so i dnt think s3 will be the last, ill get more into it another time i digress) characters in the game. sooooo whats the deal? 3…your approach sucked, im sorry but KI fanboys and gamers alike will agree, wrong place to do it… try youtube their comments are " top-notched"
This is pretty much my opinion. I’ll agree KI isn’t 100 legit perfect and it has its flaws. But to be honest this KI has the best gameplay of any fighting game. Graphics could definitely use some sprucing up and I’m sure they can fix that.
good luck though with your KI @Beterthnyu . Just one thing though: your game-play mechanics better be good dude, because if they aren’t it will break the game for me, no matter how good or faithful your designs are.
I used to dream up “making games” like this when I was a kid. "Why isn’t there a game where you can just…do anything?
Good luck Beterthnyu. I patiently await your finalized product.
Sorry for taking a while, been wandering around Disney World.
I agree that the feel if the controls and initial gameplay mechanics that double helix created for this game are very very good. I also feel that Iron Galaxy has messed a lot of that up and made the game way too mashy and loose. It had slowly gone off the rails to the point where it pretty much ignored for high level play. Which is why its always the same people in the top 3 and there are only like 25 entries and events as huge as even the SCR. The game is ignored by strategic players because the combo breaking game is far too useless. Hell there are people getting into the finals never even using them, and they are only used in the majority of times when its a one hit lucky guess break or when someone is carrying their combos out waaayyy too long. Pro players will just cash the damge out on short combos or unbreakables and get extremely pissed when guess breaking interupts that. That makes the breaking game zero skill and annoying. Thats just one reason why so many people won’t play this game at tournaments.
So yes, we would love to see some input on how the breaking game could be fixed. I dont want to see it tied to some meter bar like mkx because i really dislike meter managment and that would be yet one more meter to bother with. Would love to kick some ideas around for that.
And yes I am really heavy on making decent graphics for KI. That was one of its calling cards when KI first hit the scene. Now it is in dead last. It looks last gen all the way. That is an easy low hanging fruit to pick on, which is sad. That and the character redesigns are terrible so that needs to be corrected asap.
So, like I said earlier, Im not using this thread to debate whether or not KIs reboot is amazing or not. We do not like where Iron Galaxy has taken the game, and dont like the graphics and character designs . We want to discuss with the everyone the things they would like to see or not like to see in our remake of KI. We want to make a KI that will help it get back to where it should be, and would love to see where you guys think it is weak and should be fixed.
I’ll post up soon with some concrete gameplay ideas we will be working in on the initial builds so that we can see what everyone thinks of the direction. The main things we are going to be working on, gameplay wise, is a proper breaker system, less reliance on gimmicy meter mechanics, and a much more open combo system. The combo system being a big one because IGs system makes the gameplay get so damn predictable and stale so fast.
Thanks again everyone and we will hopefully be showing some good stuff soon!
