Skullgirls

History

Skullgirls began its life as two separate “doujin” projects. Tournament fighter Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont had begun working on a fighting game engine, while Alex “o_8” Ahad had begun working on a world, story and characters for a fighting game. Some years later, mutual friends introduced them to one another, and their two personal projects were merged into the game we see today.

Richard Wyckoff and Emil Dotchevski began Reverge Labs in 2010 after Pandemic Studios was shut down. Mike Z teamed up with Wyckoff, also a former Pandemic employee, and Reverge Labs to bring Skullgirls to home consoles.

Gameplay

Skullgirls' primary design goal is to be a great competitive fighting game, mostly by addressing some of the design and balance issues that plague other games in the genre.

GGPO Netcode

Skullgirls' online experience is built upon the Good Game, Peace Out (GGPO) networking library, a favourite of the hardcore fighting game community.

Infinite Detection

Central to Skullgirls’ design is a unique infinite detection system, designed to make the game somewhat “self-balancing.” If the game detects that a player is looping a combo, the hit-sparks will change colour and the opponent can break out of it with a single button press. However, as long as the player is changing up their combo and improvising, the combo can continue.

“Ratio System” Tag Battles

At the start of battle, each player can pick one super-powerful character, two stronger characters or three normal characters - team sizes don't need to match. Single characters do more damage and have more HP, but lose the strategic advantages of character assists and the ability to regenerate health while off-screen.

Custom Assists

While each character comes with a few preset assists, Skullgirls also offers support for custom assists, allowing you to choose an assist move by inputting its motion during character selection. Aside from super moves, any ground action can be chosen - this includes throws, normal attacks, dashes, and any special move.

Easier Inputs

In order to shift the game’s focus from executing difficult moves to fighting strategically, the game features simplified inputs.

For example, if a character has any 360 moves, the game will be able to tell if the player completes a 360 even if the player didn’t execute it at speeds that would be required in a Capcom fighting game, such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX. Not only does this make it easier to execute these moves and make grappler characters more accessible (at least after the player looked up movelists online), it also prevents the character from hopping (which occurs whenever the 'up' direction is pressed) at the apex of the 360 movement.

Additionally, the number of motions used thus far is lower than that of other games in the genre - most special moves require simple quarter-circle motions.

Building Super Meter

Players can build their super meter by whiffing normal attacks (attacking without hitting the opponent), but only if they stay in place or are moving forward - moving backwards and attacking will not build meter. Additionally, only one level can be built this way - if the player already has a super stocked, normal attacks must make contact with an opponent to build any more meter.

High/Low Unblockables

High/low unblockables exist in many fighting games, and are an extremely strong tactic when discovered. In Skullgirls, however, after a character blocks a high or low hit, they are protected for a period of time from being hit by the other type. The protection is short enough to not affect regular gameplay, but long enough that a player can successfully defend against the first attack and still be protected from what might otherwise be an unblockable second attack.

Story

Legend has it that every seven years a mysterious and ancient artifact known as the Skull Heart grants a single wish to a young woman. However, with this power comes a terrible price: if her heart isn't pure, she'll be transformed into a monstrous being of immense power known as the "Skullgirl" and unleash chaos upon the world.

Female fighters from all over the Canopy Kingdom now seek to claim the Skull Heart from the current Skullgirl. Some seek power for themselves, some to heal their friends or the war-torn world, while others seek to destroy the Skull Heart forever. Whoever defeats the Skullgirl will decide the fate for the entire world... at least for the next seven years.

Characters

Skullgirls has eight playable characters, although there are plans to release more later as DLC. The eight launch characters are: Filia, Cerebella, Peacock, Parasoul, Ms. Fortune, Painwheel, Valentine and Double.

Filia

Filia was an average schoolgirl, but one day awoke without any memories. In their place was a powerful parasite named Samson, grafted to her head in the form of unruly hair - with eyes and teeth, no less. Unable to remember how her partnership with Samson began, Filia must trust the ancient being and wield his strength if she ever hopes to piece together her past... and survive the inevitable confrontation with the Skullgirl.

Filia is a "rushdown" character. As such, she has only three special moves and makes up with it with lots of manoeuvrability and easily-comboed normal attacks.

Cerebella

Cerebella is the biggest sensation in the Cirque des Cartes - a tumbling, soaring dynamo of star power! Throughout the kingdom, Cerebella is admired for her daring, and lusted after for her curvaceous form. Sadly, the kind of approval she craves is the one kind she isn't getting: what Cerebella really longs for is praise from her patron and de facto father, mobster Vitale Medici, who rescued her from the street for a life of fame.

Faced with Cerebella's inherent goodness, the only way Vitale can keep her doing such dirty work is withhold affection. Cerebella is the only person capable of controlling the living weapon Vice-Versa, so the cold and calculating Vitale must keep her wrapped around his little finger.

Cerebella is a grappler with command throws for virtually any situation. Unlike typical grappler characters, she doesn't have difficulty getting in close, either, thanks to an armored charge and aerial glide.

Peacock

The magnum opus of the Anti-Skullgirl Labs, Peacock is a mechanical monstrosity built from a broken little girl.

When she was rescued by the Labs’ Dr. Avian, she was just the orphan Patricia, her mind and body broken by the slave traders that captured her in the aftermath of the Grand War. Taking pity on her, Dr. Avian rebuilt the child with an arsenal of reality-defying weaponry, which was promptly twisted by the memories of the cartoons Patricia used to escape the pain of her slave life. Perhaps irretrievably damaged, she behaves like a rotten, spoiled and extremely unstable child. Terrifying as she may be, Peacock may very well be the best chance the Labs have to destroy the Skullgirl.

Peacock is a "zoning" character, and plays a mean game of keep-away with a variety of projectile attacks and escape moves. While she's best at a distance, she can still hold her own up close.

Parasoul

The princess of the Canopy Kingdom and leader of its elite military, Parasoul's own mother became a Skullgirl when she was a child. She is fiercely protective of her little sister, Umbrella, and is frequently torn between defense of her country and defense of her family. Wielding the living umbrella, Kreig, Parasoul fights with grace, poise and cunning.

Parasoul is primarily a "poking" character, and uses a variety of "charge" moves. In addition to her long attack range, she can place napalm "tears" created by her umbrella around the screen as traps, as well as call on her troops for a variety of support functions.

Ms. Fortune

A pun-loving cat burglar, Ms. Fortune is a feline humanoid of the undead persuasion. With her friends in the Fishbone Gang, she was hired to steal the Life Gem from the head of the Medici Mafia, which she swallowed it for safe-keeping. When the Mafia caught her and the rest of her gang, they murdered them, chopped them to pieces and threw them to the bottom of the ocean. The power of the Life Gem suffused Ms. Fortunes body, and she alone survived the ordeal, but her body still bears the scars of her murder - as a result, she can detach her head and stretch her body along those scars.

Ms. Fortune is a hybrid "rushdown" and "puppet" character. She can detach her head and control it independently from her body, and many of her attacks function differently depending on whether or not her head is currently attached.

Painwheel

A normal schoolgirl named Carol, until she was kidnapped by Valentine and transformed into Painwheel. Host to two synthetic parasites called Buer Drive and Gae Bolga, Painwheel draws her power from pain and fury.

An "aerial dominance" character, Painwheel can fly using her Buer Drive blade and charge her attacks, as well as confronting foes with spikes that eject painfully from her body. She can also contort her body into inhuman shapes and unleash her rage with brutal moves.

Valentine

The only survivor of the Last Hope, a group of special Anti-Skullgirl Lab operatives, Valentine now dutifully serves the Skullgirl. She keeps to herself, so much of her true nature and personality are unknown.

Valentine is a "rushdown" character with the ability to inflict status effects on her opponent: damage over time, increased hit stun and button lag, although only one may be active at a time. Her level five super allows her to revive a fallen team mate to one third of their health - made possible thanks to the fact that in Skullgirls a team mate's corpse remains on the screen after they are eliminated.

Double

An amorphous creature capable of assuming the form of any person, most frequently a smiling nun.

A 'mimic' character, each of her normals looks like that of another character but will have vastly different frame data and properties. Though she transforms into other characters during her specials, they are completely unique, such as a projectile using Parasoul's gun, a Cerebella rush based on R-Mika's Flying Peach or a Sub-Zero ground slide as Filia. Her level five special transforms her into a Moai head in an homage to Gradius.

Other Characters

A wide variety of other characters have been shown over the game’s long doujin past, but have not been confirmed for the commercial release. While the cast of the initial release will be female, Reverge Labs has announced that there will be male characters released as DLC.

Other Features

Graphics

Skullgirls features a powerful 3D engine to power its predominantly 2D presentation.

Characters are assembled from three layers (line, shading and color) and colored via a custom shader. They are illuminated by dynamic rim lights and per-pixel lighting generated by light sources in the environment and hit sparks.

The backgrounds are 3D, although use minimal geometry and high-resolution textures to retain a painterly look.

Animation

Averaging around 1400 frames of animation per character, Skullgirls features the most frames of animation per character of any 2D fighting game. Additionally, the sprites are of very high resolution - they're twice the size they are on the screen for filtering and zoom-in purposes.

Soundtrack

Reverge Labs announced that Skullgirls' soundtrack will be composed by Michiru Yamane, a composer on numerous Castlevania games.