News

Hey guys,

We are back with another developer update. This month we have another change in personnel! Midio has done a fantastic job doing the cleaned up sprites for Forsburn. The character just oozes with personality and we’re quite happy with how he turned out. However, as Midio has other projects and responsibilities that he must attend to, Forsburn will be the last character from Midio. We thank him a ton for his great work. As a sample of his quality, here is Forsburn’s Forward Strong Attack:

With Midio leaving, we have secured another talented pixel artist to fill his shoes and pick up on the next character:

Ellian is a pixel artist from France who has done some great work on his One Game a Month (#1GAM) projects and the indie project, Catam. His style matches quite well with the character sprites in Rivals of Aether and we feel Ellian will be a great fit on our team. He will be tackling sprites for our newest character and we can’t wait to show you what the next Rival has in store!

We have also been improving the game engine this month. After a great GDC, we made some balance changes to Zetterburn, Kragg and Wrastor, who we discovered had tricks which made them quite powerful compared to the rest of the cast. We also introduced Forsburn into the mix and while we are looking to improve him over time, he does fit nicely into the roster’s balance so far.

We have been working on implementing additional features in the game. One such feature we can show you now is Player Tags!

Player Tags allow you to customize the text above your Rival to display a name of your choice up to 6 characters long. The cool thing is, we’ve designed the interface to allow you to choose, create and delete tags right on the character select screen. There’s no need to back out and visit other menus just to add a player! We are also reworking our control logic so that by the end of April, players will be able to store their custom controls into their Player Tags to have quick access to their preferred control scheme. This means when friends come over, they won’t have to keep setting up their controls every time!

With Player Tags, you can style on your opponent and make sure they know who’s doing it! They will also be useful in tournaments to give spectators an easy way to keep track of who is playing which Rival.

The month of April holds a lot for the development of Rivals. We will be diving headfirst into network multiplayer as well as improving the engine all up. At the same time, we are developing the next character who we hope to reveal in early May!

And lastly, tomorrow we have a very important announcement regarding the future of the game that is sure to blow your minds! Be prepared.

We are very excited to reveal the latest character to join the Rivals of Aether roster!

Profile:

Forsburn is the disgraced, eldest son of the Firelands’ ruling family. While his brother Zetterburn served the kingdom through leadership on the battlefield, Forsburn was the Firelands’ chief diplomat. Forsburn was the right hand of the Fire King, and he could be relied upon both to broker treaties and to quietly take care of threats to the kingdom. However, after years of unquestioning service, Forsburn began to smell corruption simmering beneath the surface of the Fire Council. But before Forsburn could expose the conspiracy, his father was discovered slain with Forsburn’s own dagger protruding from his heart. Assumed to be the assassin, Forsburn was condemned by his brother and barely escaped the Capital with his life. Left wounded and nationless, he wandered for months before meeting a groups of rebels on the outskirts of the Firelands. These outsiders of the kingdom had rejected flame and mastered the way of smoke, a philosophy of truthful deception. Forsburn joined the smoke tribe, soon becoming their leader. He plots to reclaim the Fire Capital from the Fire Council and their unsuspecting pawn, Zetterburn.

Elemental Powers:

Smoke Screen – Forsburn can use his Neutral Special to obscure the battlefield allowing Forsburn to remain hidden inside a cloud of smoke.

Decoy – Through his Forward Special, Forsburn can create a smoke facsimile of himself that can attack opponents. The illusory Forsburn breaks into smoke after being hit by a single attack.

Consume/Combust – By using his Down Special, Forsburn can consume his smoke clouds back into his body. After consuming three clouds, Forsburn is charged up and can use Down Special again to combust: knocking opponents away at high speed.

Gameplay:

As Zetterburn and Forsburn are brothers, they share some similarities in how they control. However, their fighting styles are as different as night and day. While Zetterburn is straight-forward and relentless, Forsburn’s gameplay is based around deception and trickery. Forsburn will keep your opponent guessing and give you an edge in the mental jousting of a 1v1 match.

Forsburn can hide behind smoke while other characters remain visible. However, this cover is not permanent, as a single attack from any player, including Forsburn, will clear the smoke away. Using his Down Special, Forsburn can absorb clouds of smoke. Once he’s absorbed three, his fur becomes filled with smoke and changes to match the smoke’s color. His smoke clouds are removed and he can no longer hide, sacrificing his deception style while relying on his powerful Combustion attack.

Forsburn uses his signature dagger in his combos. He can also use his Strong Attacks to whip his smokey cape and draw opponents from afar closer to him. Forsburn excels both in the air and on the ground and can be seen as a well-rounded fighter in that regard.

Forsburn’s Decoy is a valuable technique to learn and to master. The Decoy that Forsburn creates is fragile and can only take a single hit before bursting into smoke. However, a skilled player can protect their Decoy and even learn to create deadly combos with the smokey illusion.

Additional Screenshots:

That’s all for now! Expect to see more Forsburn action in our third trailer coming later this spring!

Hey guys!

We are back from GDC 2015! It was an amazing event, and we are incredibly grateful to the ID@Xbox team for inviting us to show off Rivals of Aether.

Both the press and game developers had a chance to try out the game, and the response was overwhelmingly positive! We had people who played multiple rounds and really wanted to dig into each character. There were a ton of free-for-all, team and 1v1 matches, so players were able to experience multiple types of battles.

Along with the new stage, Merchant Port, players were able to get the first glimpse of our newest Rival, Forsburn. We plan to reveal more information about Forsburn this week, so keep your eyes peeled on this blog!

We also had controller skins at our stand representing the first four characters – Zetterburn, Orcane, Wrastor and Kragg. These controller skins are not available for sale as of now, but let us know if controller skins are something you would be interested in for Rivals of Aether.

GDC 2015 was also the first time we demonstrated the game as playable on Xbox One. Thanks to help from the team at YoYo Games, we were able to have the game running perfectly at 60 fps and with 4 player support. I am very excited for the next couple of months as we begin development on more features including online multiplayer and our single player modes.

Hey guys!

The shortest month of the year has come and passed, but nonetheless there has been a lot of Rivals development progress behind the scenes.

We have finalized the 5th Rival that will join roster! We are not revealing the character just yet but expect to see a teaser post in March that gives you a glimpse of it. Midio and Rafael have both worked hard on contributing animations and sounds for this character, so we’re all excited for the upcoming reveal. In the meantime, perhaps a tiny tease now wouldn’t hurt…

Who could this nebulous figure be? What unique elemental fighting style will this Rival bring to the roster?

We also have a new stage reveal for this month:
The Merchant Port that Orcane calls home is fully playable in all its glory!

On this stage, fighters find themselves on an offshore rig that is used to pump fresh water to the surface. As you’d come to expect by now, the Merchant Port is beautifully illustrated by Johan Vinet and features a fantastic new oceanic track by flashygoodness. The stage is filled with hazards designed for active and skilled players. A water wheel with rotating platforms rests at the center, and two pipes sit at near the edges of the stage. These pipes constantly draw water from the ocean below, and when they are completely filled, they can be triggered for a powerful attack:

For players who would prefer to play without these hazards, the Basic version of the stage contains only stationary platforms and removes the pipes altogether. You can enjoy this great arena even in a barebones fight:

That’s all for this month. Check back in March for more exciting updates!

Hey guys,

It has been nearly two months since our last update. At that time, we revealed two new characters: Wrastor and Kragg. We don’t have any characters to announce today, but we do have some juicy new information to share with you all:

Joining the Rivals of Aether team are two amazing new members!

The first is Midio, a fantastic 2D game artist based in Brazil. Midio is well known for his craft in the indie game scene and will be lending his skills for the character animations in Rivals of Aether. He will be working on new characters moving forward, so get excited to witness his handywork when the fifth character is revealed!

The second is Rafael Langoni Smith, an audio wizard who also hails from Brazil. Rafael will be working alongside flashygoodness on our sound effects from this point onward, giving more time for flashy to concentrate on making more pumping tunes for our upcoming stages! We’ve also heard some feedback from players mentioning that they’d like to hear hits with more of an extra punch. To that end, Rafael is enhancing our gameplay sounds and creating more variations to make every impact feel that much more satisfying.

You can check out some of the great audio updates and other changes in our first officially revealed gameplay clip featuring a match between Zetterburn and Orcane. Enjoy the heated combat in fluid 60 FPS goodness.

We have also been accepting playtesters and collecting feedback at our Smashboards thread. Many great players have been stress-testing Rivals and have not only made an impressive number of bug reports, but also provided us with numerous great ideas regarding the engine and the balance. If you want to get involved in the discussion or apply to be a playtester, check out our thread at Smashboards!

And we couldn’t leave you guys without at least a little tease. Feast your eyes on this glimpse of the next stage featuring Johan’s amazing art:

Boy, does that statue in the distance look familiar. I wonder whose stage this could be?
Check back next month for more exciting updates from the Rivals of Aether team!