Skullgirls

A Notice to PSN Players

Peter Bartholow — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:51:06 +0000

We have received a handful of reports that the PSN version of Skullgirls crashes when a player using the European version tries to play against someone using the North American version.

We are currently investigating the issue, and will begin work on a fix as soon as the problem is identified.

In the meantime, the best way for PS3 users to minimize the potential for crashes when playing online is to limit your online play to players in the region from which you purchased the game.

This means that…

If you live in North America and purchased the game from the North American store, you should limit your online play to North American players
If you live in Europe and purchased the game from the European store, you should limit your online play to European players
If you live in Europe and purchased the game from the North American store, you should limit your online play to North American players

Know that everyone at Reverge Labs and Autumn Games will do everything in our power to address this problem as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your patience.

Skullgirls EU / ANZ PSN Release Date: May 2nd!

Peter Bartholow — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:38:46 +0000

We’re happy to report that Skullgirls finally has a confirmed European / Australian release date on PSN: May 2nd, just a week away!

Sorry to have kept you waiting.

The Skullgirls’ Teams’ T-Shirts!

Peter Bartholow — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:01:01 +0000

The Skullgirls Official Store is pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

While the store does feature a wide variety of spiffy pre-designed items, its TRUE POWER is that it allows you to create your own custom designs from the wide variety of art assets we’ve provided.

Want to make a shirt featuring your team? Go for it. Like a character’s catchphase? Put it on a water bottle. Want to sleep under Double’s twisted visage? Print it on a blanket and, please, immediately seek therapy.

Starting tomorrow, we’re going to be giving out hints for promotional codes on Twitter and Facebook each day at 5 PM PDT. The hint will come in the form of a question, and entering the answer in the Coupon Code field will get you 30% off your entire order, not including shipping.

To prove that this is both fun and fashionable, the Skullgirls team recently made its own shirts. Brace yourself and your wallet, because the stunning, Blingee-beblinged results are sure to set many fashion trends (and seizures) into motion.

Ben

Brian

Emil

Jon

Mariel

Peter

Richard

Vince

Skullgirls Coming To a Tournament Near You!

Peter Bartholow — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 06:36:30 +0000

Skullgirls will be released on April 10th on PSN in North America, and April 11th on XBLA worldwide.

To get you in the fighting mood, Skullgirls will be making appearances at a number of regional tournaments in the coming months, with official sponsorship from Autumn Games!

Texas Showdown Championships : Houston – April 6-8
PowerUp 2012 : Cincinnati – April 13-15
Stunfest : Rennes, France – April 13-15
ESC - The Elite Series at Wizard World Toronto Comicon : Toronto – April 14-15
Civil War 4 : Richmond, Virginia – April 27th-29th
FFM-Arcade : Frankfurt, Germany – April 27th-29th
Shadowloo Showdown : Melbourne, Australia – May 4-6
Toryuken : Toronto – May 19-20
Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament 8 : Chicago – May 25-27
Northwest Majors : Seattle – June 2-3
Montreal Annual Tournament: Montreal – June 2-3
East Coast Throwdown: Morristown, N.J. – June 9-10
CEO 2012 : Orlando, Fla. – June 15-17
Midwest Championships 2012 : Nashville, Tenn. – June 22-24
ESC: Elite Series (Finals) : Toronto – July 28

Keep checking this page, as more tournaments will be added in the coming days and weeks!

Autumn Games will be supporting the tournaments with prizes and, in some cases, prize money. Prize packages will vary from tournament to tournament, and monetary rewards will be paid out by the tournament organizers according to their rules.

The first place winner of every tournament will receive a one-of-a-kind FoeHammer custom dual-mod Skullgirls fight stick. As you can see from the pictures, the FoeHammer guys have really outdone themselves.

Want to see more? Check out our Flickr collection!

Keep checking this page, as more tournaments will be added in the coming days and weeks!

So download early and start practicing! Hope to see you there!

Skullgals Coming to Handheld Gaming Systems in Early 2013

Peter Bartholow — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:15:02 +0000

Skullgals Coming to Handheld Gaming Systems in Early 2013

Autumn Games Expands Skullgirls Onto Handheld Game Systems Next Year

Los Angeles – April 1, 2012 – Skullgirls, the award-winning 2D fighting game from Autumn Games and developer Reverge Labs, will be expanding onto handhelds in early 2013 as Skullgals.

Slated for release on SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket Color system, Skullgals will feature gorgeous full-color graphics and precise, clicky controls. Drawn and animated by famed Australian pixel artist, Paul Robertson, Skullgals captures all the charm of the console original in only 1/38th the pixels.

In addition to the full console cast, Skullgals introduces two all-new characters. Squigly is a zombie opera singer inhabited by the parasite Leviathan, and bests her opponents using “stance cancels” and spatial control powers. Umbrella, little sister of Skullgirls mainstay Parasoul, wields her voracious living umbrella in battle, which grows hungrier and more powerful the longer it isn’t used.

Finally, in a first for the Neo Geo Pocket Color platform, Skullgals’ cartridge will feature online play using a proprietary 3G-enabled 2 megabyte cartridge. Autumn Games has selected AT&T as the exclusive U.S. service provider. Service pricing and additional regions will be announced at a later date.

“Very soon, fans will be able to enjoy the old-school fighting gameplay of Skullgirls in their living rooms, and next year we’re going to let them take it anywhere on an old-school handheld gaming platform,” said Jason Donnell, President and COO, Autumn Games. “From the crisp 40×40 pixel sprites, to the new characters and the first-of-its-kind 3G online play by AT&T, Skullgals is the handheld gaming experience our fans have been clamoring for.”

Skullgals puts players in control of ten female warriors in an extraordinary “Dark Deco” world, where they battle for control of a mysterious artifact known as the Skull Heart. Legend says it has the power to grant a woman’s wish, but those judged impure will have their wish twisted and be transformed into the new Skullgirl.

The Skullgirls team is led by renowned fighting game champion Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont and artist Alex “o_8” Ahad, whose work has been featured in many publications, including Lava Punch and Girls of Gaming. For Skullgals, they are joined by Paul Robertson, whose previous works include Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game and Pirate Baby Cabana Battle 2006.

Sign up to receive Skullgirls and Skullgals news at http://www.skullgirls.com, become a fan on Facebook or follow @Skullgirls on Twitter for game updates, exclusive artwork and more.

About Autumn Games
Autumn Games is a premier publisher of interactive entertainment focused on empowering independent, world-class game developers to create cutting-edge video games, and related media. As the pace of change accelerates in the games’ business, digital and mobile gaming explodes, and the best game developers increasingly look for independence, Autumn Games’ mission is to support talented creative teams in their efforts to make culturally impactful entertainment.

For more information, please visit http://www.autumngames.com.

About Reverge Labs
Reverge Labs, LLC is a new independent developer committed to creating high-quality downloadable games. Founded by CEO Richard Wyckoff and CTO Emil Dotchevski, Reverge draws on combined game development experience of more than 40 years to create unique artistic visions using cutting-edge development techniques.

For more information, please visit http://revergelabs.com/.

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Official Skullgirls Store Launched!

Peter Bartholow — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:32:15 +0000

The Official Skullgirls Store has launched!

Run by MashOn, the new store not only allows you to buy a number of pre-made T-shirt and gift designs, but also create your own custom item from art assets we’ve provided.

We plan to continually expand the art offerings in the future, so stay tuned!

First Video of Skullgirls’ Tutorials Up On IGN!

Peter Bartholow — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:00:12 +0000

We took Skullgirls on tour recently, and IGN recorded a video from the game’s tutorials with commentary.

You can see the video here!

They also posted two character walkthroughs with commentary: one for Ms. Fortune and one for Parasoul.

Be sure to check them all out!

1Up: “Skullgirls is The Fighter That Every Competitive Player Should Pay Attention To”

Peter Bartholow — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:51:49 +0000

1Up has posted a new preview of Skullgirls, by none other than iPlayWinner’s Haunts, a.k.a. Neidal Crisan.

With long time tournament player Mike Z. behind the wheel — making adjustments to the gameplay system at tournaments on the fly based on player feedback — it’s safe to say the game is in good hands. After spending just a few minutes with the game, I can instantly tell it’s been carefully crafted for the tournament level fighting game community.

You can read the full preview here!

Skullgirls On the PlayStation Blog!

Peter Bartholow — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:05:39 +0000

Skullgirls was featured on the PlayStation Blog this morning!

In the post, I detail the game’s innovative game balancing systems, and we’ve provided a short video demonstrating them all, too.

You can read the full post and see the video here!

Tutorials: Teaching the Untechable

Ian Cox — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:57:46 +0000

This is Mrs. Victoria.

She’s a teacher at Filia’s school, and will be your guide through the tutorials I’m creating for Skullgirls.

Creating new fighting game fans is an important goal for us at Reverge Labs. Not only do we need to make sure players pick up Skullgirls, but then we also need to make them fall hopelessly in love with it and stick around for the long term. We need this mostly so everyone has a wide variety of players to fight against online once the game comes out. But it’s a tough problem – fighting games are really complicated, and sacrificing any level of gameplay depth to appeal to new players is strictly off the table. Lowering the skill cap is certainly an easy way to get people to it faster, but they’ll inevitably become bored with shallow gameplay and leave. Instead, we want to help players get to the heart of the game faster.

Teaching people to play is an area that fighting games have traditionally done very poorly in. Some games attempt to ease the introduction to the world of fighting games by including beginner modes with simplified controls. The problem is this creates a real disconnect between the player’s controls and the actions they see on screen – while they can press buttons to make rainbows and get in faster, it tends to make things more confusing in the long run. It also forces the player to unlearn almost everything they’ve learned if they ever want to start playing without assistance turned on.

Some fighting games have made strides in bringing new players into the fold, however. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift has tutorial that goes in depth enough to get to topics like 50/50 setups, and Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike Online’s parry tutorials are a great way to interactively teach new players one of the harder parts of the game. We want to take this to the next level in Skullgirls by including an expansive set of tutorials aimed at teaching players the fundamentals of the game. We want to teach people not only the basic controls, but also help them approach the game from the right perspective.

When teaching new players their first fighting game, it’s tempting to first teach them how to perform special moves, and start doing combos. And those are important concepts to be sure, and certainly ground we’ll cover in our tutorials. But it’s at least as important to teach people how to defend themselves, and how not just to do attacks, but put together an attack plan. With that in mind, we plan to include tutorials in fundamentals like poking, hit confirmation, and high/low mix-ups.

For the various elements of the game, we start with defense, not only teaching you guard against various types of attacks, but also how people will try and get around those protections. Then we teach you how to employ those techniques yourself. We think this approach will give people a better foundation. Not only will people learn how to perform techniques, but also when they should and why.

Tutorials in games have a habit of being kind of boring and tedious, but we’re doing our best to keep Skullgirls’ tutorial engaging at all times. The tutorials are designed to keep text at an absolute minimum, so we can follow the old adage about showing and not telling. We’re also trying to keep the learning as interactive as possible. As an example, I’m working on a tutorial now about punishing unsafe attacks. The obvious way to implement this would be to have a computer opponent perform unsafe attack strings, and ask the opponent to follow up with a counter attack. And we do that. But in the next challenge, the opponent attacks you with both safe and unsafe strings, and asks the player to punish only the unsafe strings. This way, we not only teach you about safe vs. unsafe, but also make you apply that knowledge in a (more) realistic situation so that knowledge really sticks.

Brief aside: The point at which fighting games moved from fun to a full blown obsession for me was when I read James Chen’s X-Men vs. Street Fighter FAQ. Before that moment, air combos were just this thing that the computer occasionally hit me with that I never really understood. After that moment, I spent every spare moment I had in training mode, trying to find new ways to string sequences of moves together and perfecting my execution. Tutorials are usually one of the things developers generally dread making, but I hope you can now understand how genuinely excited I am to be working on a tutorial for our fighting game.

Combos in Skullgirls are very fluid, and almost a means of creative expression at times. But to experience the joy of creating new combos, you need to understand the tools you have available to you. I hope that running through the combo system tutorial will spark the imagination of others the way mine was when I first learned I could delay Cyclops’ Gene Splice to get a relaunch or use Ryu’s Up + HK to do flying screen shenanigans in the corner.

Creating the tutorial system has by far been the part of Skullgirls I’ve been most excited to work on. All too often I’ve talked to people who like fighting games but feel intimidated by them: they see a future of being ground down by loss after loss and spending hours in training mode learning execution. And I don’t think any tutorial will eliminate that, but I do hold a lot of hope that we can give them a head start and some direction by shining a spotlight on the heart of fighting games, and really showing people why they’re so much fun in the first place.