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Author Archives: Eric
App, FB Connect, and Cornelius V2
The past few weeks we’ve been hard at work to bring you several significant bundles of joy. The first bundle is something we are very proud of, an app for iPhone and Android. That’s right, two of them! The graFighters crew uses both platforms, so instead of fighting to the death over which phone we would conquer first we did both at the same time (with some help from our friends at Appfury).
The app is very simple right now. In fact, it only does one thing, but it does it well! Imagine you had a super special, really really cool personal graFighters camera that was hidden inside your phone. Then, click iPhone or Android and make your dreams come true! The graFighters app is simply a camera utility that allows you to take pictures of your characters and send them directly to your online account, sidestepping the use of any ancient technologies like clunky digital cameras or scanners. Its the fastest possible way to bring your drawings to life!
Next on our to do list was good ole’ Facebook Connect. It just makes sense, plus who doesn’t want do sign up for games and services as easily as possible!? To go along with Facebook Connect we built an invite system so all of you special beta testers can send out invites to your friends. graFighters is “open” for a couple days to let some new people play with the app and see the new updates, but once it shuts back down into private mode the invites will be the only way to gain access until the next round of updates are ready.
Last but not least is the Cornelius makeover. We went all in for this one, messing with both beauty and brains. Instead of doing all his calculations behind the curtain, you can now see him go to work as he analyzes your characters silhouette, overall characteristics, and specific body parts as defined by you. Needless to say, he will always be a work in progress, but this update is definitely a step in the right direction. If you have already uploaded some cool characters but want to run them through the new version of Cornelius all you have to do is click the Edit button on that character’s page in your sketchbook. (Just a heads up, your stat bars will definitely change due to his new found wisdom.)
We would love to get your feedback on everything so feel free to leave a comment on this blog post or give us a rating and/or comment in the App Store or Android Marketplace. Thanks!
Posted in Uncategorized 3 CommentsMajor Site Updates!! And Cool Stuff.
If you’ve been keeping up with us for the past week or two, you know that we have been all over the place in terms of both development and our physical location. We’ve enjoyed the demos and joining forces with other startups (see earlier posts), but we have also been hard at work making magic happen to the site so that you have something to enjoy as well! Below is a list of all of the new features that have officially been implemented:
Big List of Updates
Health Bars
Finally, the update you have all been asking for! And it was a great suggestion. Now you will know exactly who is winning and how much damage each move does. The cool part is seeing comebacks happen from characters who are barely able to stand.
Big Hit Popups
When a character does a move that is especially powerful, you will see a cool popup with and old school Batman style sound written out. We did an earlier post that showcased all of the different ones. A good friend of ours @boochtunes08 is working on some sweet sound effects to go with these popups, so as soon as we get them done we can add them into the game.
New Fight Web
This is the piece that brings everything together. The new fight web is much more balanced and allows every type of character (damage, strength, toughness, intelligence, or speed) to reach their maximum potential. In the previous version, damage characters were able to perform more powerful moves than other types of characters, which is why you may have noticed that characters with high damage stats (the black bar) seemed to be dominating.
The way the fight web connects with your Cornelius stats is that the higher you character was scored in a particular area, the more powerful moves your character will be able to perform within that category. We are currently working on adding another level of complexity and awesomeness to the fights by allowing characters to go into different states within a fight. These states include offensive strategies like rage mode and combo time, as well as defensive strategies like blocking and counter attacks.
Because the fight web is now more balanced, you may see a shift in your character’s winning and losing habits. So if your character was completely worthless before, it’s probably time to give them a second chance!
It’s important to note though, that Cornelius has the most direct effect on how your character performs. He recently enrolled in some 800 level Image Recognition courses, so it won’t be long before he is ready to put this new knowledge to the test. His update should be happening pretty soon, so we will keep you all posted on that.
Personalized Challenges
Now when you send a challenge to another character you have the option of making it personal, and by that we me do some trash talking! When your opponent receives the challenge they will see whatever tastefully chosen fighting words you decided to send them. Lets keep it clean though! Well… cleanish.
General Bug Fixes and Speediness
As usual, there are always bugs to clean up so we have been getting after them as much as possible. Please keep posting them in the user voice section when you come across one! You may have noticed how slow the loading of the characters had gotten in the “graFighters” section where you can browse and search for them, and we are happy to announce that it is now fast again! It might not sound like a big change, but it really does make a big difference.
Shareable Fights and Character Pages
We think this update is a pretty cool one that will play a big role when we make the leap from private to public beta. The reason we are excited about this is because making all of the cool experiences that users are having on the site shareable to other like-minded people with help graFighters extend its reach to thousands of new doodlers who can bring their talents to our battlefields.
And Some Cool Stuff Because It’s Friday
Funky Feet
“He’s gonna punch yo…or kick…hue…well he’s gonna hurt ya…badly…
mad emotion.”
Crafted by: el-lucoIt’s really hard to describe how funny this character is to fight against, so you are just going to have to challenge him yourself. It reminds me a lot of Eddie Gordo from Tekken, and the breakdance fighting scene from Zoolander.
Girrafenator
“Fear the almighty Girrafenator and his secret weapon… the Dirty Hobo!”
Crafted by: PimpIAI’ve been laughing about this character for 2 days now. No, it’s not a drawing per se, but it’s still hilarious. The Girrafenator is also 31 and 6 right now so I’d say Cornelius likes him too.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged bugs, fight web, friday, funky feet, girrafenator, health bars, popups, shareableness, speed, trash talking, updates 1 CommentDoin It Big: Demo at #NYTM
Last evening the graFighters team had the opportunity to demo to a sold out crowd of over 900 tech enthusiasts at the New York Tech Meetup. In short, it was AWESOME… the whole entire thing. It was our first time at a NYTM, but it definitely set the bar high for future meetups. The theme was college startups, and we did our best to make Syracuse U proud. Also in the house were some other notable SU alum including the founder of Foursquare, Dennis Crowley, and our good friends from Everything Butt Art, Alexis Moniello and Brian Snyder (you may recognize all of these names from our previous post about @raisecache, lots of collaboration going on).
This might be a bold statement, but the lineup of students and ideas from the NYTM last night could rival, if not demolish, the demos from any incubator or conference as of late. A huge round of applause goes out to everyone that was involved, including special shout outs to Jessica Lawrence who helped us prepare, and LoCreep, Ad Runner, and Imaginary Marching Band for having such cool demos. Best of luck to you all (and pretty much everyone else who wasn’t mentioned, because it was really, really impressive).
The entire event was filmed so if you weren’t able to make it, you won’t be missing out. If you want to jump straight to the graFighters demo you can go to the 28:15ish mark.
NYTech Meetup November 2, 2011 from NY Tech Meetup on Vimeo.
If you were at the meetup and want to take us up on our special invite to the private beta, you can sign up for an account and mention #NYTM in the reason why you want to play graFighters. The invites should be going out within the next day or two, we just have to make a few minor tweeks to some of the cool new updates first! (More on those in the next post!)
Thanks again everyone from the NYTM crew. Job well done!
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ad Runner, demo, Imaginary Marching Band, LoCreep, New York Tech Meetup, NYTM Leave a commentWeek Numero Tres
A cool thing about this past week was seeing some new artists come out of the woodwork. We’re not sure what they’ve been up to the past two weeks (maybe getting all of their characters ready), but they came out guns blazing to start week 3. Probably the most important thing to note is the work that being done in preparation for the next big update to the game. You can learn more about that and some of the cool characters from this past week below.
Beast Mode
ROBO DESTROYER
“KIIIIIIIILLLL!!!”
Crafted by: BingoBangoYup, that just happened… 54 times. ROBO DESTROYER, with 54 Wins and 0 Losses, may be a lot of things, but one thing he isn’t is a liar. By the looks of it, ROBO DESTROYER must have fought Cyclops from X-Men, destroyed him (obviously), then visited his local optometrist to have the one slightly cool thing about Cyclops surgically attached to his face. Boom roasted! Who’s next!?
Not So Beast Mode
Shaolin Cucumber
“Open your fridge and he’s all like HIYYAAAAA!”
Crafted by: PaperGagnstaMissing from the description is the part about how after he yells “HIYYAAAAA!” he yells “BYEYAAAAA!” and scurries out of the kitchen and into the living room where he attempts to hide, but ususally gets stuck going under the couch, or picked up by the dog. 3 Wins and 23 Losses, c’mon man!
Fan Favorite
HipstarusMaximus
“So chill he didn’t even feel the ice age.”
Crafted by: Ink_machineAlways going against the crowd “doin his thang”, HipstarusMaximus decided he wasn’t too cool for school when he was just a youngster. In fact, HipstarusMaximus has learned just about everything there is to know about fashion and fighting as his both his fedora and solid record of 22 Wins and 11 Losses suggest. Having a reasonably successful street-fighting career never looked so good!
Artists Of The Week
mish
“Napoleon 2.0″
With an army of shorties ready to roll, you’re doing big things with some little dudes. Seriously the collective height of all your characters is probably waist high on an average graFighter. P.S. It’s awesome!Waterwood
“The Iron Chef”
Between the character made completely of saw blades and the deliciously constructed, yet not exactly great at fighting Salamisamari, “The Iron Chef” seems like an extremely fitting nickname. Also, tell the Musclesam family we said hello.
Staff Pics
Whale Lord
“Using the best of whale technology, Whale Lord has made a battlesuit to wage war on the surface land. He can’t move his face, but he knows your fear. He knows.”
Crafted by: aid001
Bond
“he means business”
Crafted by: mish
Salamisamurai
“Watashi wa sarami no ryshu ni watashi no chsei o chikau.”
Crafted by: WaterwoodCool Things That Happened Multiple Times
Characters with really long yelling sounds for names:
Buuulllaahahahaa and HUSAWWWWWWWWWWSea Creatures
Week 3 Stats
Characters Uploaded: 537
Challenges Sent: 5125Stuff In The Works
Some of you may have noticed the seemingly unstoppable forces propelling characters to crazy records (AOH Man, cough cough) along with a couple others. We have been asked a lot of questions like “How do I get better?” or “How can I learn more about the system?”. We are excited to start unveiling some of those other dimensions to the game, but before we do, there are some updates we are currently working on to several pieces of this puzzle.
We will keep up to date with the progress being made, but in the mean time here are some things you can look forward to:
A more balanced fight web which will give all 5 types of characters an equal chance of going on crazy winning streaks and doing a full range of awesome moves.
Greatly improved shape recognition so that even the smallest details you have put into your drawings get analyzed by Cornelius.
Health bars, more deadly moves, different status effects for you characters during a fight like rage mode and combo attacks.
Basically all of these things are related to one another and are part of an intricate system, so when it’s ready it will be a massively epic update!
Posted in Uncategorized Leave a commentWeek 2 Recap
Now that the dust has settled since our private beta launch 2 weeks ago we’ve really been able to sift through all of the feedback we have received and start working on some updates. This past week our users submitted a lot of ideas and we hope to deliver some of these changes / new features by the end of Week 3. However, one thing that remains unchanged is the creativity of the artists on graFighters, and the awesome characters they have been uploading. So without further adieu here are the standouts from the second week.
Rising Star
Pan Andy
“Cyborg Panda. All he wants is a hug.”
Crafted by: JHCIf the fights were based solely on intimidation factor Pan Andy could officially park himself at the top of the leaderboard. This terrifying combination of panda and titanium lures you uncomfortably close then shreds your face. It’s probably the subtle classiness that comes from the top hat and bow tie that makes you think he can be trusted. However, with a record of 35 wins and 6 losses he must have some kind of weakness. We just don’t know what it is yet. Can we please find this guy a worthy opponent!?
Current Leaderboard
Fallen Hero
Pixel bob
“The only eyeball that is made of blocks, Bob dreams of being a doll factory worker.”
Crafted by: abledbodyPixel bob got off to a hot start racking up 28 wins and just 3 losses in only a few days time, but since that sprint of domination he has gone missing from the activity feed. Bob, if you’re still out there… give us a sign! It’s possible that you completely exhausted yourself and need a few days to recover, or maybe you saw a commercial for Clear Eyes starring the one and only Ben Stein and decided to walk down to the pharmacy to get that crazy looking retina taken care of.
Most Popular
Trogdor
“Burninating the countryside”
Crafted by: PaperGangstaClearly a lover not a fighter, this ancient internet relic of the early 2000′s has taken a break from burninating the countryside to put those consummate V’s to the test in the ring. With a record of 0 wins and 7 losses his fire might not pack as much heat as it used to, but his sleek frame made from an “s” shape with a slightly different “s” shape is just as enjoyable as ever.
Top Users
el-luco
“The Tree Slayer”
Already on your second page of the sketchbook!? Nicely done el-luco, we would love to see characters like ludicrous head being uploaded all day long.Jigsaw
“The Collector”
Ok, we get it. You still have an awesome collection of action figures that make for really sweet grafighters… and you are good at drawing. Well done sir.IceCreamSandwich
“IceCreamShakespeare”
Top 3 reasons you are the most poetic fighter in the graFighters kingdom. 1. “Schmogasborgathon of tastiness” 2. Visible Nipples “The invisible-Man’s nearly invisible cousin.” 3. “the California Pimp Slap”Staff Picks
After much debate, these are the characters who ended the week at the top of our list:
Moustachio
“After the death of his brother, the guy from the Pringles can, Moustachio set out to avenge his death. Losing face in the process.”
Crafted by: doodlesofdestruction
ManBearPig
“Elusive like a pig.”
Crafted by: IceCreamSandwich
dr. Bubbles
“fun fact: great with mayo”
Crafted by: el-lucoNoticeable Trends
ManBearPigs, Mustaches, America (needless to say it was an awesome week)
Site Updates
Footer
Change Log
2 new levels:
Stats After Week 2
Characters Uploaded: 457
Challenges Sent: 4264Summary
To be completely honest, the Noticeable Trends section pretty much summed up the week. A ton of facial hair, the map of the united states with flexing coastlines, and multiple man/bear/pig concoctions. We can’t wait to see what week 3 has in store for us!
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged America, good times, Grafighters, paper punishment, Recap, Star Wars, water slides, Week 2 Leave a commentBeta Launch and Week 1 Recap
Week 1 Recap
Yesterday concluded the first week of graFighters beta testing. With it being the first time we have ever opened up our game for anyone outside of the graFighters inner circle, we were really excited to see what kind of response it would receive. The official welcome to graFighters email was sent just around midnight last Monday and within 20 minutes the characters started pouring in. It ended up being a late night for our team, not because we were cracking down on new bugs, but because it was even more fun than anticipated to upload our own drawings and try and take down the characters of our first beta testers.
With this post the graFighters team would like to honor the characters and artists who created the most buzz through Week 1.
Top Fighter aka: The Champ
AOH MAN
“AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH, man.”
Crafted by: locomoWithout a doubt the most victorious character thus far in the graFighters world is AOH MAN. Touting an outstanding record of 134 wins and 1 loss AOH MAN is seemingly unstoppable. As his articulate character description may suggest, he hasn’t climbed the ranks quietly either. Seemingly unfamiliar with the word modesty, AOH MAN is almost as good at trash talking as he is at winning fights. And while other characters on the site may look at him as a villain, we say what good game would be complete without one!?
Other Notables
Worst Fighter aka: The Chump
Frostbite
The barbarian penguin is back. He is 2000 years old.
Crafted by: PaperGangstaWinning this weeks award for worst fighter (in almost as convincing a fashion as AOH MAN) is Frostbite who has tallied up an abysmal record of 5 wins and 73 losses. Even more unflattering than his record may be the 3 pats on the back he gave himself in the comments section. Maybe he has seen “Rudy” one too many times or just genuinely likes taking a beating, but either way his endless challenges to newly uploaded characters have become something of a welcome to graFighters gift basket, complete with a first victory and the probable false sense of confidence that comes from unknowingly beating the worst character in the game. Frostbite… we thank you for your generosity.
Most Popular
Ink Dink
“When Inkdink heard that graFighters was released, he grabbed the four nearest objects and rushed into the fight! Nothing says “I got this!” like icecream.”
Crafted by: UmbrellaExileWhat’s not to love about this disheveled ball of scribbles? He’s kind of like that oddly sympathetic, evil mastermind who plans never work out. With 2 wins and 16 losses, this little guy is all bark and no bite, but the likes and comments don’t lie. Inkdink… get yourself cleaned up, you’ve just be named the most popular character of the week!
Top Users
ruggedboy12
“One Man Wolf Pack”
Maybe you could let us in on your secrets to mastering the uploading process. Seriously, how did you make those butt cheeks so good at grappling moves? And if there were any players with foot phobia you have surely scared them away.ThornB123
“The Fearless Feminista”
Somehow you managed to pull off two of the sites most outrageous characters (Anne and Kawaii Uggs) in a tasteful manner. Oddly they even add to the elegance to your collection of alluring and undeniably cool drawings.Leo_Crow
“The Michelangelo of MS Paint”
From smiling sea captains to “fruity” men in tights, your throwback, 16 bit style, is an inspiration for us all.Staff Picks
When it comes to straight up impressing us here at the graFighters headquarters no characters did it better than these two:
rugged foot
“will take socks off for jelly doughnut!”
Crafted by: ruggedboy12
DudeOnHam
“This dude rides a mean ham. He doesn’t wear pants. He has a red hat and blue eyes. When he rides up on his ham, chicks drop like slinkys. What did you do today?”
Crafted by: blingblangblongNoticeable Trends
Robots, Bananas, and Dubstep
Popular Requests
More levels and HP bars
Week 1 Stats
Characters Uploaded: 376
Challenges Sent: 3,447Summary
Without a doubt this has been the best week we have ever had here at the graFighters headquarters. As many of you know the product has been in development (sometimes more slowly than others) for the past 2 years, so it has been so much fun to share it with all of the talented doodlers who have been eagerly waiting its arrival. There has been a lot of positive and constructive feedback provided so far and we want to keep it coming. Please continue to submit bugs, comments, and your own ideas to us using the User Voice icon on the bottom right corner of the site. Thanks and keep on drawing!
1st Legit Fight in graFighters History!
Cornelius has done it!! It took an entire year to get to this point, and it’s all worth it. Literally moments ago, the graFighters team witnessed the first ever fight between two characters powered by the freshly built game engine. If you’ve been following us over the past year you have probably noticed that graFighters was more of a design and video production company than a game
well those days are over! No longer do we need to fake fights happening in Flash and After Effects. Instead we can just play the game. And hopefully soon, you will be able to join in on the fun.Now, as much as we would love to show you documentation of this historic occasion we are going to hold off on releasing this top secret information until Demo Day. (Demo Day is the grand finale of the tech incubator that we are a part of) and it’s happening this Wednesday. But in the mean time, we will do our best to describe the scene…
Meet Petunia, part dinosaur, part the sandwich you found under your couch cushion last week. She’s one tough piece of paper. In fact, she is the epitome of toughness in the graFighters universe. She was born from the hand of Cornelius, with the sole purpose of busting skulls. In fact, Petunia’s so tough that she challenged herself to a fight. (We promise it had nothing to do with the fact that she was the only character programmed into the game). After punching the sky, the ground, and just about everything else that wasn’t Petunia, she landed one mean punch that rocked the entire graFighters world. The next 30 seconds was a mix of punches, blocks, and donkey kicks that looked something like a pair of 3 year-olds throwing temper tantrums side by side and eventually knocking one another out. In other words… it was absolutely beautiful.
Posted in Company News Tagged game, Grafighters, old sandwich, Petunia, something that actually works Leave a commentLate Night Luchadores
It was late last night, about 12:30ish, when we received one of my personal favorite emails of all time. The author, Andrés, and his subject… Luchadores for Beta. Our first reaction was almost disbelief. Had graFighters just been spammed by some sort of underground Mexican wrestling league?? (Basically we imagined a picture of something that looked like Jack Black from Nacho Libre pointing a bloody and battered finger straight at our souls, recruiting the graFighters team to join forces with them like some sort of twist on the old school Uncle Sam posters. Well, our first instincts were slightly off… but not by much!
We laughed, we cried, we took a siesta, and then it hit us… graFighters is really happening and not just for our close friends and family, but for everyone. Whether the game is a day, a month, or a year from launching it doesn’t really matter. (actually we know that it really does matter) But the point is that graFighters spirit is in the air!! People want this game to happen, and it’s not just us. We can’t tell you how encouraging it is to get an email from someone we’ve never met that says (in many different ways) “I’m so ready for this game, here’s a taste of what’s to come.” And then they drop one or several awesome drawings right in our laps.
Right now, there’s this very exciting feeling that comes from these emails. It’s kinda like lighting the fuse of a firework, and watching the flame slowly creep towards the explosives. Basically, what we really want to say is thanks to all of you who have sent us drawings over the past few months. It’s way cooler to us to get your drawings in our inbox than you can probably understand. It definitely keeps us going.
Shoutouts to the dudes from Coburn Design, Chris and Alden. Also, Jack and the manager of the Luchadores, Andrés.
And so, without futher adieu, the Late Night Luchadores and other awesome creatures!
