Three Days, Three Betas
In a surprise, hardest-working-man-in-game-design move, I have three betas of three different games that I'm lead designer of happening on three consecutive days:
- Monday: Kongai, 1.8 balance patch, closed beta
- Tuesday: Yomi: Fighting Card Game, semi-closed beta for shoryuken.com members
- Wednesday: Street Fighter HD Remix, open beta
Yomi: Fighting Card game is a fixed-deck card game using modified poker cards that simulates the mind-games that go on during fighting games. I started this as a side project three years ago. Kongai virtual card game is the main site-wide game at Kongregate.com and is also an exploration of "reading the mind of the opponent." I started the design of this game about 2 years ago. Street Fighter HD Remix is an update to the 14-year-old classic, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. It has all sorts of features, but most importantly, I completely rebalanced the game and I hope it will hold up under the intense pressure of tournament play. I started the balancing process about a year ago.
Kongai: 20 characters
Yomi: 18 decks (18 characters)
Street Fighter HD Remix: 17 characters
That's 55 characters total, and tens of thousands of variables that have to be set a certain way to make sure things are balanced for competitive play--and fun!. (Maybe hundreds of thousands if you really count everything in Street Fighter.) It's a lot to balance! Especially all at once.
If you're not in the closed beta for Kongai, you'll get your chance to play it soon anyway. The public release is getting close. Shoryuken.com members can play Yomi right now if they are willing to print out some playtest cards and are invited to bring prototype cards to the Evolution Fighting Game Championships this August in Las Vegas. The real Yomi game should be out next year. And anyone who buys Commando 3 on XBLA can play the Street Fighter beta starting tomorrow. The full game will be out when the art is done.
Enjoy!
--Sirlin
June 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am
mmmm.. 10$ for st beta very tempting
June 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
So Sirlin…wanna play some ST tomorrow?
June 25th, 2008 at 10:25 am
You’re the effin man Sirlin! Can’t wait to get on the SFHD beta. I’ll also definitely be downloading Yomi as well. Keep up the good work!!
June 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
[…] Talk to the author know. […]
June 25th, 2008 at 10:37 am
[…] Three Days, Three Betas Yomi: Fighting Card game is a fixed-deck card game using modified poker cards that simulates the mind-games that go on during fighting games. […]
June 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I’m looking forward to “Kongai vs. Yomi vs. Street Fighter: New Age of Yomi Layers” with 55 characters and hopefully no roll-cancelling glitch.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it really is hard to believe you’re good at so many different things, heh. While the common thread may be balancing, there’s still lots more in there (as evidenced by the Yomi layout work).
I think you really have found your true genius that goes beyond your specific talents: balancing (or whatever you want to call it). It seems to be a strength beyond measure for you, hence your crazy effectiveness and ability to do three things at once without burning out.
Steve Pavlina (of www.stevepavlina.com) initially impressed me with his output and ability to do so much, too. I initially put it down to awesome character development and the various systems he implemented (Getting Things Done being one of them) but now I know it’s that Steve relentlessly plays to his strengths and has setup his life so that he can do that easily. The various systems are a result of this strength alignment, however gradual. It’s not that the systems grant the effectiveness, because you see people using the same systems with much less effectiveness and capacity.
It’s kind of interesting comparing both of you together because, at the core, you’re in similar positions (mostly; you’re different people, granted).
But yes, bravo Mr. Sirlin. I think if anyone was doubtful of whether or not you cared or whether your motives were genuine, all they’d need to do is look at the various trappings around your life. You don’t get this level of output from someone lacking good character. =) At the very least, you’ve had a profound impact on the course of my life, shaping the way I see the world. I’ll always have that Sirlin on my shoulder when I write, channeling the wisdom of great writers long since past, telling me to say it straight, vigorously and concisely. But I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the last part. ;)
Enjoy I will.
*stands and claps*
— Bruce
June 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Can you tell us what is missing from the game in the SF2HDR beta? Given that the art is unfinished, will certain characters be unavailable? Or are there just random missing frames of animation or what?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I think only ryu is playable in the beta… it’s supposed to be for testing their netcode. But, I heard that quite a while ago… could be wrong.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
It’s only Ryu and Ken.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Thank You.
I have waited a long time, sometimes a little crazed up. Just finished playing against my friend. Holy cow……. I want to say so many other things and add some curse words to make it sound even better. Play the beta you will not be dis. This brings back a lot of good memories. The thing that makes me so happy is the slew of kids that have never played the old games that are getting this game. It’s a rebirth of fighters history pun intended. Thank you Mr. Sirlin. This is worth the wait.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Oh I don’t want to double post.
Just got back from playing player match online. Damn I have not had this much fun in YEARS. I just keep thinking to myself how great this game is going to be. I am happy as a bug in a rug to play RYU or KEN. But let me get my hands on Edmond or cap stretch neck. OH man the sweet changes. Ken and Ryu are starting to become so different…..LOVE IT. Mr. Sirlin the control is out of this world night and day from the last street fighter that was released on live.
Useing the xbox controller feels so good almost like having an ascii controller all over again. The sound the colors, flow of the game not choppy any more Smooth like silk. I have played at home against friends and online both hardline and wireless. The game is great on hardline had a few hiccups and burps when playing wireless but for the most part was SPOT on. I am crazy happy right now all my old street fighter friends a starting to show back up and get all giddy like school girls. Ok gotta get back and play…I love Mr. Sirlin, backbone, capcom, udon, all the folks that have been putting time… thank you from the bottom of my black heart.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:30 am
0/3 for me - no sureyoucan, and no xbox…. still, glad to hear you’re cranking stuff out. congrats.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Its a freaking shame the HD beta is such a mess right now, I hope they can patch it so its at least playable most the time, FFS I cannot even sign up at the beta site due to the lack of the confermation emails (tried not once, not twice but thrice, all fail).
June 26th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Despite the huge amount of work you have, not to mention the pressure for Kongai and Super Turbo HD. You have done a darn good job, I’m very impressed! Thank you very much!
June 26th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Yeah, the HDR beta’s fucking up pretty hardcore. And not in a good way. I can’t make games, can’t join them most of the time…and this is all assuming that I can actually get that far, since about 40% of the time it switches menus, it freezes.
What I DID play, though, looked and felt great.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
If you don’t mind me asking, why does the Remix version still do the framerate slowdown at certain times when animation is heavy? Seems like you’d have gotten rid of that from the original…
June 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
banthur: It’s not a framerate issue, it was designed to look that way in the arcades, and it looks slow because there fewer frames of animation drawn, not because it’s actually updating the framerate slower. HD is supposed to match the arcade version, so they left in all that designed slowdown.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I’ve always disliked it how the game would suddenly slow down if somebody was hit by a fireball; especially nasty if you’re close by and try to add a hit.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Grats Sirlin. Ken is completely broken in the beta. its only one reason too, strong shoryuken. Its crazy damage, guarantied knock down, and ability to juggle into itself or the super, is just wrong. I know that its fixed for the real game, but it is annoying to deal with in the beta. It makes me want to avoid using ken at all…
June 26th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Ken is beyond broken… How did that slip through??? I really can’t believe how bad that beta is. You can barely get a game in! What’s the point? How can you really test a game you can’t even play. The very few games I did play were laggy, I maybe had one good one out of 5 or 6.
Beyond that, what were they thinking giving Ken the ability to juggle with his uppercut like that??? That’s so broken it’s just sad…
June 26th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
@Greedy McNasty, you must have never played a good video game in your life, this beta is absolute garbage. I lost pretty much all faith and I was looking forward to SF HD Remix SO much. I don’t think it is gonna end up being good.
It’ll NEVER be as good as VF5 is online… They have a long way to go getting the netcode to be as good as Sega’s in VF5 for 360.
Sorry, it’s the truth. I play a lot of games and tons of online VF5, hours every day. The netcod in SF HD Remix isn’t even in the same galaxy as VF5’s.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Jake
I have been playing street fighter and VF since the start my friend. I ran an arcade in MI for a long LONG time. I collect fighting games. You assume to much. Traveled all over the world to collect games. Yes VF5 is great and handles wonderful online however it still has slow down hiccups and lag, If you say it doesn’t your liar. I am sorry you don’t like the beta, I played all day long yesterday and had a blast. Played one guy for 4 hours straight he was really good with Ken and didn’t need to use the uppercut juggle. The important thing that everyone is missing is that it is a BETA! To try and fix the online burps and lag. The amount of info from yesterday alone was incredible. And if your looking for a fighting game that is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE and broken in half go play critcom or kasumi ninjas. The list can go on forever and a day, street fighter is one of the best fighting games on the planet. So again I say thank you to all involved in the SWEET beta, and I will see ya online. RING OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Isn’t that kind of the point to testing it before release? So it can be improved?
June 27th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Interestingly enough, after one solid day of endless freezing, HDR runs like a kitten now, had fantastic lag free runs in Ranked and 6 player matches, its fantastic to see it run now without the freeze issue, I have no idea if anything was even done, but it works real nice now.
And straight up, it runs as good as GGPO 8-10 times, fantastic for the Beta, Ken is a bit broke, but whatever he is not the final version anyways.
Now gimme my Guile Backbone ;P
July 1st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Well I’m in London, UK and I’m loving the beta. It’s run like the wind since I fired that bad boy up.
I’m pretty sure Ken’s medium shoryuken has been fixed to disallow the juggle at the time of writing (and as mentioned before, I had no problem with it slipping through into the beta, as it is just that, a beta).
I especially like the fact that there was a post on the Capcom blog from the producer of the game, Rey Jimenez, holding up his hands and admtitting what was going on. It’s things like that, that let me know I’m correct in holding Capcom in the highest regard. Big up Sirlin.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
the beta is fantastic, but one thing to say. it has ALREADY been confirmed that ken’s uppercut will not juggle in the final version of street fighter, but i cannot help but to wonder that what if there is MORE “broken” moves/ combos” like that with the OTHER CHARACTERS?? if that version of ken made it to the beta (after all the testing) then what other characters will make it to the final cut that STILL need to be fixed?? email me if yo can please about this!! i can’t wait for the game though. i would gladly pay 40 bucks for this game.