Just a GIF loop of an experimental combo thing that came about from my trying different things. I'm still planning out some details about how combos work, like making certain points that some combos like this one can be escaped with the right tech timing...

I'm thinking of making certain floor bounces tech-able/recoverable with the right timing on button presses, and certain launch situations are escapable. Leaving it to a mix-up or frame trap situation.

Also as a side note about my game, is that I'm not realyl focusing on it being a fighting game exactly. Along the progress of my work, I realized that I want to focus more on story telling and adventure of my characters. I've hinted at this before with my camera control tests and beat-em up concepts. Obviously I'd like to leave room for it to be played like a fighting game, since I want to keep a lot of the fighting game inspired mechanics there, but I've had to do a ton of experimenting with control schemes and ease of input. I still want this game to be enjoyable buy a general gaming audience, like platformers and beat'em-ups. Not just fighting game players. I'm trying to make the combos interesting and having that skill ramp, but still easy for folks to understand and get familiar with.

I think the system I'm settling on, is having two attack buttons, primary and secondary. there are directional and command inputs for each. There is also a Jump button and a guard button. (game has free turning, so there is now "back" since it turns you around) I'm workin in a partner button for using striker and assist skills from another character, and leaving room for an "action" button for interacting with objects and characters. I'm not certain if I'll definitely use the action thing... I just gotta see how things work out as I progress in concept and prototyping.

I will eventually throw some test material out to certain folks and try to get some feedback before I release it publicly.

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but the other purpose of this post is to just mention that I know it's seems to be a long time in the making with this work, and I'm eager to get playable things released, but life has been kind of an issue as some of you know. Things are overall looking way better than they were and I'm slowly workin everything out. as a part of this, I've been playing catch-up on a lot of backlogged commission work, which I've gotten through most of. I mostly have pixel animation commissions left to pound out, which I've began to resume work on. (but still have a batch of regular art commissions to wrap up.)All this catch up hasn't let me really feel right with workin on my game too much when I have folks waiting, so it's mostly just something I'd take small breaks playing with between job and commissions and social things. A large hinderance is that I haven't had time to progress on animation for the project, which is what's holding me back at my currant prototyping stage.

Generally things are much much MUCH better for my and taking sleep aids helped me clear my head from useless anxiety and depression... which was pretty much brought on hardcore because of my sleep trouble in the last couple of years. Having my head clear has me feeling great pretty much everyday since and my work focus has been on the rise. Getting proper sleep for once has been fixing a LOT of problems for me.

As I get my commissions back on a steady, up-to-date track, I'll be picking at this a bit more and hopefully have some stuff out soon.

Thanks everyone who's been following and showing support and also to the folks who commission me and such (and for those who dealt with my crash and slowness)

Thats all for now. Just got outta work late and I'm beat. looking to crash for a snooze now. Art tonight and work again tomorrow morning.