Hey everyone, I just wanted to post an announcement here to let the players who still keep up with the game know what's been going on.
During 2021 we spent a lot of time porting SPBF to GameMaker Studio 2 and we have proper bots and proper rollback netcode in place as well as a matchmaking server. The palette system was reworked to use the full palette of each charcter, We even have 8 player local! These changes are in an internal branch at the moment as they were being actively developed and tested up until December 2021. The code is nice and clean, the pipeline for adding new characters/movesets/stages is all there however, many of the characters are still missing attack animations and more.
During the pandemic our artists enrolled/graduated school and are now full-time programmers at other places. This has left us shorthanded with our art workload and until we can find new artists/animators development is kind of at a stand still.
If you or anyone you know is looking for work as a pixel artist (primarily an animator) please don't hesitate to join our discord and let one of the programmers know!
As a final note, We aren't giving up on the project and we have faith that we'll find one or two artists/animators to help us continue our roadmap
AI refactoring begun for unique personalities per character
Dash boost exists on all characters
Main menu changes
Increased Air control
Various bug fixes and stability fixes
Please join our Discord and feel free to ask us anything!
-Prazon ːlunar2019piginablanketː
SPBF Stage Hotfix
We're working with some great artists to bring more life to our stages and we wanted to show a glimpse of what we're working on specifically in our current dev branch which can be accessed in the Betas tab under Properties when Right clicking on Super Powered Battle Friends in your Steam Library!
Astral Abyss specifically received a complete makeover on the background assets and the stage assets.
Dark Rossa received an upgrade on the mountains and lake which is now animated with a fish that can drop by randomly
The tree on the left of the ruins/cliffs is now animated
The right side of the ruins has power lines coming down which are animated and a bird may perch there sometimes.
There is also a new satellite on the ruins... someone must be living there?
As always please drop by our Discord and join our community to stay updated and involved with Super Powered Battle Friends!
-Prazon
SPBF Opulent Owl 1.1.4 Linux Native returns
Please access this update in our Dev branch by using the access code "superbetafriends" without quotation marks!
This update features the return of native Linux support and updated portrait artwork for our latest character addition Theodore!
Changes:
native linux builds
engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 4.24
stability improvements
fixes for dinput support
SPBF Dev Branch available for testing!
Hey everyone!
If you are like most people and want to play our game with your GamecubeController or DS4 playstation controller then we invite you to give our dev branch a try on Steam!
You can access our dev branch to try upcoming patches and features before they are live on the default steam branch of Super Powered Battle Friends!
To access this dev branch you need to right click on Super Powered Battle Friends in your Steam Library and click Properties. From there you click on the Betas tab and type in "superbetafriends" without quotation marks and click Check Code.
It will say success and you can click from the drop down menu to switch over to the dev branch and update your current copy of the game. To keep up to date in real-time with our testing branch information head over to our Discord server and ping one of our admins telling them you would like access to the testing channel!
Thanks for reading!
-Brendan "Prazon" Miller-Young
Opulent Owl 1.1.3 Patch
Just a little update that adds very basic GameCube controller support. There is a basic remapping menu in the options for them that will slowly be improved and eventually have art to go with it
Right now the only issue with Dinput devices (such as the GameCube controller) is that they can't utilize the same actions as Xinput devices. The only place this seems to come up is in the Options menu which you'll have to use Keyboard and mouse for or a Xinput device.
I wanted to push this update out ASAP because I assume most people who went through the effort of setting up their GameCube adapters on their PC are okay with fiddling around in the options with keyboard and mouse as long as their controllers work during gameplay.
Changes
Unreal Engine 4.21 upgraded to 4.22
Bug Fixes:
FreezeFrames werent stopping some special attacks
Knockback smoke wasn't coming out
Prazon's Upspecial cancel window was moved a frame forward to prevent accidental cancels when spamming special
Arc's jabs were nerfed. Their minimum KB was 50 and is now 5. This prevents Arc from having an advantage on foes early game
Lighting was improved
SPBF Major Update: Theodore, Online Play Returns, and The Theme Workshop!
Steam Build Updated: Opulent Owl 1.1.3
The SPBF Team has been incredibly hard at work to get our biggest update yet ready. This update has been a huge accomplishment so far for us and we are very proud of the fixes, additions, and return of online play!
We know these weird times and world events can be hard for everyone and in order to support all those people who are still staying home and social distancing we have set Super Powered Battle Friends on sale for 90% off! We thank our amazing discord users for countless hours of bug testing in this update and helping us stay motivated!
Unfortunately with all this work comes one pitfall we had to deal with as a team. Our native Linux support is being temporarily dropped in favor of Steams built in Steam Play/Proton support. We spent the last month trying our best to get our new workshop backend to compile native builds for Linux but we haven't been successful yet. As soon as this changes we will be supporting Linux with native builds once again!
If you want to stay updated on the latest work we're doing please do yourself a favor and join the discord!
Game Loop improvements
Players can now begin combat on BATTLE!
Post Game results should be correct 100% of the time
Taunting is now implemented! Press T on Keyboard or down on the D-PAD to taunt! "Toodles!" (Only Daxter and Luna have these available currently)
Welcome Theodore!
The newest cast member is here!
This heavy grappler can now be selected in-game!
Online Play Returns!
Text chat in lobby!
Voice chat in lobby and during game!
b]Character Changes
Arc's Fspecial has been replaced entirely
Prazon's Uspecial can be cancelled early by inputting the special attack button/key
Sudden Death
Sudden Death is now here!
When 2 or more players have equal kills and deaths the game will enter sudden death on timeout
All players involved will start with 300% damage and 1 life
Theme Workshop
The Steam Workshop has been implemented for our new Theme Workshop!
Currently you can upload your themes to the workshop from the in-game menu
Subbed themes will be checked on opening the theme workshop so any themes you subscribe too will show up there and then will be available for use in-game
Bug Fixes
TOO MANY TO COUNT
Steam Build Updated: Opulent Owl 1.1.2
Steam Build Updated: Opulent Owl 1.1.2
Arcs weight increased by +10
Run and walk boost from Arcs static lowered to +35 +15 (compared to the +80, +25)
Timers that stop Arc from spamming projectiles lowered from 1.8 to .6
Added a slow down on Arcs dtilt (fixing a bug where he could dtilt off the ledge)
Arc jab 2 min kb raised, angled lower
Arc nair min kb raised
Rearranged Luna nspecial movement to try to make it feel more natural
Prazon Jab 4 hitbox and movement implemented (although is near impossible to pull out in combo, until jab rework)
Prazon Dsmash values changed (kills at 110 now vs 70 before)
Prazon Ftilt min kb raised
Prazon Uair strong hit max kb raised (to allow it to kill)
Prazon nair min kb on launch raised
Prazon Fsmash min kb raised
Prazon smash charging frames raised to standard of 9
First pass putting tumble on most moves at varying percents on all characters
Fixed Bot Spike Bouncing when grounded
Improvements to Bot Recovery
Improvements to Bot Movement
Improvements to Bot decision making
Improvements to Jab3 on Daxter and Luna
Fixed some issues with special attacks on scaffolds/platforms
Moving platform on seaside steppe
Moving platforms on Astral Abyss
Training mode with no Bot AI except recovering off stage (first pass)
Acceleration adjustments all around
Air control added .5 to compensate for less acceleration
Arcs static gain now adds + Air control (+0.05) merge might have deleted this
Adjustments to Directional Influence
Added Lunas new animations (get up att, laying, shocked, Dsmash charging, helpless fall, nose on spot dodge)
made Luna go into heavy landing lag after helpless
Standardised all get up attack (to 7 frames)
air dodge max speed reduced from 500 to 400, control move speed reduced from 100 to 50
We’d like to officially announce Michael Flaherty as our Voice Actor who is bringing life to Daxter! As we work with more voice actors to get more of our characters voiced you’ll notice them making sounds when they are hit, do certain actions or fall off screen! Eventually we’ll be creating a simple taunt mechanic that will include some more voice lines as well.
You’ll get a first glimpse of Daxter’s new voices once we've pushed the next update!
As always don't forget to join our Discord and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on news, sales and events or subscribe to our mailing list on our Website!
Daxter is now has a voice! Voice acted by Michael Flaherty!
Damage numbers now fly out when damage is received in the direction of kb and are colored to represent who did the damage
Daxter utilt scaling up by .1
Shrunk Luna nair hitboxes
Extended Luna ftilt hitbox
Luna frame 1 uair the proper hit sound
Luna Jab 3 kb angle raised
Arc utilt scaling up by .1
Arcs dsmash more consistent
Nerfed both of Arcs uspecials (were doing silly base kb, max kb)
Idona Fsmash has 1 less startup frame, another set of hitboxes on effect and weakbox/strongbox
Idona Usmash now more consistent with hitboxes
fixed idona dtilt sound when hitting
Idona jab 3 launch hit kb angle higher and more in line with animation
Idona dair weakhits have less horizontal kb
Idonas Nspceial is now longer and has super armor
Idona Fspecial no longer keeps her in a single spot with lowered gravity and will slow at start of the move
Cleaned up/Reworked/ Resized Luna Dair, Landing, Hurt and DBL Jump
Gave extra startup time to Luna jab 1
Fixed Luna jab 1 sound
Fixed Daxters Uspecial hurtboxes
Made Daxters Uspecial hitboxes higher up and bigger
Daxter jab 2 now does 2 dmg
Weight changes to all characters, Movement feels more deliberate
Breaking deceleration falling + .3
falling lateral friction + .3
default air control - .3 or -.2
braking friction factor -2.5 (to 5.5)
braking deceleration walking + 100 (to 600)
max acceleration by -300
make air control and default air control the same for all (use lower value
added ~20 mass per char
default jump v +10
default jump + 10
gravity + .1
increase prazon weight to 110
If you aren't in our discord you may have missed our latest announcement regarding Online Multiplayer.
Due to a number of outstanding issues, Online Multiplayer functionality is being disabled in the next build. Our strengths are in local multiplayer and as such we will be doubling down on our strengths to ensure the smoothest local multiplayer experience. Do not fear as Online play will return in a future build and branch. As it stands right now we're stretching our resources thin by trying to fix bugs online while introducing new characters. We know this will likely upset some of you but we ask you to bare with us as we are simply a 4 man team with zero funding. Most of us will be or have already been returning to school full-time and work full-time so our spare time is the only time we have to work on SPBF right now.
This decision allows us to move forward with our Xbox One Game Preview version of SPBF which will open up a new audience to the game. We will be able to focus on ensuring current and new characters and gamemodes are polished and fun to play by the time online is brought back into focus.
