Levelling Up – Community Spirit

Levelling Up

Welcome back to Levelling Up; the one stop shop for advice on upping your game competitively. This time we are taking a step back from just how to level up and looking at how far a community will go to to improve their game.

Squigly was the first to be funded by the IndieGoGo project.
Squigly was the first to be funded by the IndieGoGo project.

That’s right, how can you help support your game? Well the words that’s on a lot of lips at the moment is Skullgirls, aka the little game that could. The game has been described as being made for the fans by the fans and rightfully so. At the helm is Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont a fighting game enthusiast who had spent years working on his own fighting game engine who eventually collaborated with Alex Ahad, who was working on his own world and characters.

After a short time and the recruitment of a few more staff Mike Z and Alex Ahad formed Reverge Studios to give us Skullgirls on Xbox Live and Playstation Online. Unfortunately the company hit hard times, and were forced to lay off all of their staff. The game was thought to be finished. Six months later, though, it was announced that they had formed a new and better company backed by Autumn Games. Thankfully.

But it’s not just the resurgence of Mike Z and his friends that have kept the game alive, it is the community that stood by it. The players who have spent countless hours learning the small, but well thought out cast to make countless team formations and set ups that will keep the game alive for years. Unfortunately due to issues with the way games are patched on Xbox the most recent patch for Skullgirls didn’t quite make it to those consoles, but those who do have a PS3 received the update and still play it today.

The second character to be funded is like a jazzed up Robocop.
The second character to be funded is like a jazzed up Robocop.

Now with the formation of Lab Zero Games and the IndieGoGo crowdfunding Skullgirls looks to be back on track. With an initial goal of $150,000 to add Squigly to the roster as DLC and to ensure the patch went live across all consoles the page was set up. Within the first day not only had they met their goal but they had far surpassed what anyone could have imagined and with 29 days left.

With the massive amount of interest and a strong community behind it Lab Zero announced “stretch goals” for those willing to donate more. These include new announcer packs, another additional character, story modes for the characters and even a mystery character competition from the many, many wonderful designs that Alex Ahad had worked on.

Currently Skullgirls is sitting at $390,000 and there is still almost two weeks left in the 30 day campaign. Although it doesn’t seem likely that they will hit the most stretchiest of goals at $625,000 it truly is inspiring to see a whole community back a project. And Lab Zero knows this.

Their rewards for Skullgirls backers are exceptional. Along with being able to have your name and a title placed in the games credits you can get a downloadable OST, wallpaper, steam code for Skullgirls, animation cells, postcards, the list is endless. They even had a very finite set of contributor packs that allowed you to work alongside the team to create a custom colour for one the characters. Oh and a trip to Evo to spend an evening with the team. But the best thing about the squiggly DLC is that even if you can’t afford to buy it now, it will be free one release with the patch.

There is no excuse not to play Skullgirls and join such a dedicated and wonderful community. It’s amazing.

Skullgirls wouldn’t be here without a community, and the same goes for many other games. Recently Capcom have been taking polls to see what games to release next and because of such high demand we have seen HD remakes of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Marvel vs Capcom: Origins, and Darkstalkers: Resurrection.

Being an active member of a community doesn’t just help level up your community, it helps level up your games too. If you keep playing it someday, somewhere, they will thank you, and with just a bit of luck your game might be at EVO again. Or maybe they will make a sequel that really does the franchise justice.

UPDATE: Since originally writing this article there has been an influx of funding to the campaign. Now with well over $400,000 and about 10 days left to raise the left of the funds Lab Zero have changed their stretch goals again to boost the funds. In doing so they have also agreed to provide the game engine of Skullgirls to Mane6, the creators of My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic. Even if they don’t quite make it the campaign for Skullgirls has been amazing and not only has the community supported their game but it has evolved in to a community of games developers supporting one another if possible. It really is inspiring. Here’s to Lab Zero Games and hopefully to 3 new wonderfully designed characters in the roster.

 


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