6 ms·

Ask HN: Review a startup - Grafighters

54 points by Jordanian 16y ago

Hey guys we are looking for a helping hand from the HN community. We are building a game that aims to bring your drawings to life exactly the way you envisioned them. graFighters is an online fighting game for your hand drawn characters. By taking a picture of your drawing with you phone and going through a quick process we can bring your character to life to battle other drawings on the site. The interesting part is that you don't control the character, they take on a life/attitude/stats/abilities all on their own based on our systems analysis of how it was drawn. We are calling this algorithm "Cornelius". I'm reaching out to you guys for feedback on the concept and the potential to spread the Kickstarter link to people who might be interested. This algorithm has been underway for a year and it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000. Thanks! graFighters on Kickstarter - http://kck.st/cnTzcP Main Site- http://www.graFighters.com Footage from the Demo - http://bit.ly/9J1wdc More videos - http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos Feedback, criticism, verbal abuse, and donations will all be highly valued.

jordanmessina 16y ago
Clickable: graFighters on Kickstarter - http://kck.st/cnTzcP http://kck.st/cnTzcP Main Site- http://www.graFighters.com http://www.graFighters.com Footage from the Demo - http://bit.ly/9J1wdc http://bit.ly/9J1wdc More videos - http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos
njl 16y ago
There is something really cool and compelling here, but I found it deeply disappointing that I wouldn't be controlling my drawings in battle. That makes it less of a game and more of an animated art gallery.
- dave_chenell 16y ago
  I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out there. It is much more rewarding to see your character preform an epic karate kick because you have drawn long legs and a headband rather than just pressing the B button. Its more of a strategy/design/creation game rather than a traditional fighting game. All the fun is had with a pencil and paper.
  - martinkallstrom 16y ago
    The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back. Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations. You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them. You're in awe of your excellent algorithm, but people are not going to be so happy when they don't get your algorithm on the first try. You could still map different moves to different keystrokes depending on the output from your algorithm and make the result depend on the characteristics . Last but not least, don't look down on "every other fighting game out there". The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game. They will expect to be able to use their honed fighting game skills in your game as well, but with the awesome addition of bringing their dream character to life. Above all, they will not get back to the drawing board when their awesome character is shredded to pieces by a simulation over and over.
    - dave_chenell 16y ago
      "very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it" In reality you are able to do alot about it. Aside from the actual fight, everything you do controls what will happen. How your draw, who you choose to fight, what arena you fight in, what items or weapons you select etc etc. Simply because you are not pressing buttons at the time of action does not mean all hope is lost and everything will become a random simulation. A la the video, we are working on the balance of the game. "The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game" Disagree, almost all of the people who have sent us sketches are not from the typical gamer crowd. They are drawn to the fact they don't have to control them, it takes the pressure off. "You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them." This is a really interesting argument that I go both ways on. History has shown both times where it pays to listen and times it pays to ignore your users requests and show them something new and better that they never even thought of. "Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations" Or exceeding them :) Thanks for your feedback though, you bring up some interesting points. We aren't ruling out controlling your characters forever, but for the initial launch we think it will ruin the purity of the game. We are exploring adding more decisive elements without adding live "control" if you know what I mean. Mini games etc.
JangoSteve 16y ago
This looks really awesome. I mean, I really like this. I can't wait to see how my little guy will develop and behave. EDIT: The $5000 pledge on your Kickstarter page says that you get to design a character that defies the visual rules other players are held to. But I didn't see any visual rules on the site, and the "Send us a sketch" button just opens an email. I'm afraid my character may violate some rules. Just let me know. /EDIT It's a late night in the office, so I sent you a whiteboard sketch of my company's robot mascot, Jango Webbot: http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285 http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285 I would love to see him battle our other mascot, Alfa Automabot: http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285 http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285 Funny story, my co-founder and I designed these guys to be sort of an odd couple, so this seems like the perfect outlet for them! I had actually forgotten all about these little mascot guys until just now.
- dave_chenell 16y ago
  Right now we aren't limiting drawings with rules because we are gathering data for all the different types of drawings that can be thrown at it. On Kickstarter the reward means you get a character that can pretty much do anything you can imagine, because we can program specific moves for it that are not in the move pool.
  - UmbrellaExile 16y ago
    To clarify, the "drawing rules" are exactly that - the rules right now are that you upload a drawing and it becomes a graFighter. A graFighter that "defies the rules" would be one with animation, with multiple forms, with unique behaviors - things you can't convey in a sketch.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tansey 16y ago
I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you-draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game. > it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000 Why not just submit to YC then? You'll get $20K and much better publicity and VC connections.
- dave_chenell 16y ago
  We are part of a new incubator in Syracuse at the moment (http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com). The older VC crowds we have pitched to really cant understand what we are doing and why it could be huge. We opted to experiment with crowdsourcing from people who "get it". We will let you know how it goes.
- UmbrellaExile 16y ago
  In the future, we'd love to let people draw their own moves, stages, weapons, etc. For the initial launch though, it's going to be just your own characters for the time being.
gimpmaestro 16y ago
Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.
- philwelch 16y ago
  This is a serious concern, but if you get something for your money it seems not-unfair. Occasionally, fanatical TV viewers will try to get together and pledge enough money to produce another season of their favorite cancelled TV show. In return for that money, they get to see another season of their favorite cancelled TV show (well, they would if the networks were smart enough to work that way). So if I donated $5 to this startup and got a life membership with like 3 fighting dudes, while they charge $1/mo post-launch with the same plan, I'd call that a pretty fair bargain. Of course, I don't quite know the legality of selling a chance to possibly in the future own a product that isn't developed yet and might not ever exist, but at a discounted rate.
- dave_chenell 16y ago
  Why is that so ridiculous? The idea behind Kickstarter is to have people pay for something they want before its built. Actual customers funding you is much more powerful that some VC's who think people will one someday buy what you build.
- jordanmessina 16y ago
  Did you really make an account just for this comment? If you don't have to give up equity then why opt-in to do it? If enough people believe in an idea/want it built then it's a fine way to make the money that you need. From the sounds of it they've made it this far in a year with almost no funding so imagine what $20k could do... Also, I believe Diaspora was asking for $10k and simply had an idea, at least this team has executed.
- wicknicks 16y ago
  Seems like a good idea to me.
- erikb85 16y ago
  It is obviously not your concern if somebody else wants to donate for a startup or not. If you don't want to, you will not be forced to. So, why bother?
wicknicks 16y ago
Wow, this looks very awesome. You guys are doing something very interesting.
woodall 16y ago
There was an old game "kind of" like this. It had EVERY character imaginable; like a Waffle, DBZ, Street Fighters, Pirates, Ninjas, EVERYTHING. I'll find the name and post it if anyone is interested. I think it would be more appealing if you let the people control their characters. The problem with this is it will require more CPU work on your part- expensive for a start up. You could have them scan the characters in and use a "wire-frame", like the use in art, to lay out the different body parts. You could even use some OCR to see it the character had legs or if it is on some kind of "tracks". Awesome art, awesome idea, can't wait to see a working version. P.S. RazaBlaza is too powerful Edit: About the wire framing and OCR. Instead, to make your life easier, you could have your own custom character creator. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing your drawings to life, but hell of a lot easier.
- dave_chenell 16y ago
  Thanks alot for the input. Is the game your thinking of MUGEN? it was an old school open source fighting game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N
  - woodall 16y ago
    That is it!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
richtofen 16y ago
The product is very thought-provoking for a bunch of reasons: The positives: 1. It celebrates 'creation' as opposed to performance. The lose-control-of-performance-during-fight is an aspect that puts the performance of the character squarely in the court of its 'designed' attributes, rather than 'performed' action. 2. It is very intuitive and even 'humanist' if one can dare... Imperfections in character created by user translate into performance (or lack), and tend to become logical extensions of its behavior. Thus, this product becomes a celebration of this very imperfection - in the same manner that flaws in human nature are what make us human. 3. This product celebrates the hand. And how. It seems to capture the nuances of hand-drawn art, and I hope it eventually discerns medium - the quality of paper, the weight of the finger, and the stroke of the pen. If one can dare to think of the ideological similarities between the arts of calligraphy and sword-play - and if this product can begin to map those aspects, these will be very interesting times to live in. The negatives [or fears, actually - being the incorrigible cynic one is]: 1. I am curious about the level of human intervention from the product-developer end once a user submits a character. I can imagine figuring weapon-attributes, body-limitations, some vectorization and animation 'rules'. If Cornelius can do all this himself - over time, if not immediately - it would be great. 2. The nature of 'conflict' - from the demos I see so far - each character's primary objective is attack-and-kill. If human-centric intelligence becomes a gradual attribute of the character - knowing its strengths and limitations, knowing the same for its opponents, being environment and constraint conscious, etc - it would be a great build-up. I am talking experience here, with which a character grows 3. Where do we go from here? I already see this becoming a cult activity. It can go further from there into the leisure/gaming/media end. It can also become a basis for a better tactical combat simulator. This is where the creators would have to answer the question - is this a product that treads the path of creation, art and design - or goes in the direction of solving(?)/mapping(?)human combat and conflict
instakill 16y ago
I think the idea of not having control over your fighter is great. The doubts about people returning because their fighter will get his ass kicked is fallacious, I think. It'll just incentivize you to come up with a better character, which means that as long as sequential incentives to keep returning back the ability to do so, the non-control acts as a positive game dynamic/mechanic.
markkat 16y ago
This is a very fun idea. I really hope to see this come to fruition.
Jobzle 16y ago
In my opinion, if your algorithm is that solid and unique, that's your real selling point. This whole "you can't control the player" is a bad idea, it doesn't drive the usual gamer and you're going to find that maybe it's exciting for people to watch their creature fight the first time but there's no repeat value in that (watching the same moves over and over and over again just isn't exciting). The perfect blend of your idea and the wishes of the masses is to have your 'Cornelius' algorithm analyze the drawing then return a skill set. So it gives the player 6 movies + 10 combo moves based on their drawings attributes. You get a combination of the "my ninja vs. your ninja" as well as the ability to actually influence the outcome and promote replay value.
Flux61 16y ago
I'm a fan of the complete ingenuity of this entire concept. We've all seen and played the timeless smash and grab player-controlled games that have dominated our obsessions since Pong. However, in this day and age with video games becoming more and more complex, I love this simple idea. Instead of letting the player with the best reflexes, or an ability to seek out glitches in game play become the best, this concept attacks it from a completely different means. A game where creativity, humor, engineering, and street smarts all combine into one to form a brand new niche for gamers. I've read all of the comments thus far and I have to say that I agree with many points on both sides. However, I would have to definitively say that if you want to control your player, this concept isn't for you. This is of course through the basic player moves that so many people are used to. Click A for jump, B for attack, different combo moves etc. Yes this appeals to many for great gaming, but I would argue that it is a gaming genre that may be at it's absolute peak. Even with today's most complicated games, there is a certain amount of creativity, street smarts and ingenuity in how you play the game. What I love most about these arguments is that the creator (argued most notably for by dave_chenell) is telling you that you in fact DO have control over your character and the fight. It's just a higher level of control than one is used to. Basically, the 'player' gets to play 'god' in creating characters. By changing the slightest drawing, weapon accessory, and proportions (as is my understanding of this algorithm), one has complete control in how one should act in an all out brawl. If you want your gorilla to have great grappling moves, provide him with powerful arms, etc. I would argue that this feature gives complete control to the gamer. This game type wouldn't be for anyone, that is certain. However, look at the massive amount of popularity games like Armadillo Run (http://www.armadillorun.com/ http://www.armadillorun.com/) have received. You don't have any control over the armadillo in this either. One must use their knowledge of physics, materials, and common sense in order to build a device to complete the objective, like a puzzle. This graFighters idea seems very similar; spend some time playing to learn how the game works, and it'll be just as addicting. I understand that this concept isn't for everyone and it'll be tough to spread word to gamers who are willing to give it a shot based just on concept alone. But let me ask these gamers something. How many times have you been bored maybe in class or talking on the phone, and you doodle some complex robot. Maybe you give him a lightsaber for good measure. Wouldn't it be nice to put him to some use instead of tossing him away with your class notes?
kazuya 16y ago
Mmmmm, smells like MediaMolecule.

54 points by Jordanian 16y ago

jordanmessina 16y ago

Clickable: graFighters on Kickstarter - http://kck.st/cnTzcP http://kck.st/cnTzcP Main Site- http://www.graFighters.com http://www.graFighters.com Footage from the Demo - http://bit.ly/9J1wdc http://bit.ly/9J1wdc More videos - http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos http://vimeo.com/user1881676/videos

njl 16y ago

There is something really cool and compelling here, but I found it deeply disappointing that I wouldn't be controlling my drawings in battle. That makes it less of a game and more of an animated art gallery.

dave_chenell 16y ago
I'm really glad you brought that up, many of people say that when they first hear the idea. However, we assure you by not controlling your drawing, its actually much cooler. Its not really about me vs you, its about my ninja vs your dinosaur. We are bringing these drawings to life. By letting people control the characters it would belittle the intelligence behind the game and be like every other fighting game out there. It is much more rewarding to see your character preform an epic karate kick because you have drawn long legs and a headband rather than just pressing the B button. Its more of a strategy/design/creation game rather than a traditional fighting game. All the fun is had with a pencil and paper.
- martinkallstrom 16y ago
  The point is that you will also very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it. In the demo movie you showed I was deeply rooting for the gullible girl with huge arms but had to see her getting beaten over and over. After putting that much time into your first character, only to see her not being fit for fight, I don't think anyone will be coming back. Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations. You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them. You're in awe of your excellent algorithm, but people are not going to be so happy when they don't get your algorithm on the first try. You could still map different moves to different keystrokes depending on the output from your algorithm and make the result depend on the characteristics . Last but not least, don't look down on "every other fighting game out there". The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game. They will expect to be able to use their honed fighting game skills in your game as well, but with the awesome addition of bringing their dream character to life. Above all, they will not get back to the drawing board when their awesome character is shredded to pieces by a simulation over and over.
  - dave_chenell 16y ago
    "very often see your drawing getting roundedly ass-kicked without being able to do anything about it" In reality you are able to do alot about it. Aside from the actual fight, everything you do controls what will happen. How your draw, who you choose to fight, what arena you fight in, what items or weapons you select etc etc. Simply because you are not pressing buttons at the time of action does not mean all hope is lost and everything will become a random simulation. A la the video, we are working on the balance of the game. "The only users that will be interested in your game will be people that are deeply in love with every other fighting game" Disagree, almost all of the people who have sent us sketches are not from the typical gamer crowd. They are drawn to the fact they don't have to control them, it takes the pressure off. "You say that many people expect to control their character, so let them." This is a really interesting argument that I go both ways on. History has shown both times where it pays to listen and times it pays to ignore your users requests and show them something new and better that they never even thought of. "Providing a quality product means meeting people's expectations" Or exceeding them :) Thanks for your feedback though, you bring up some interesting points. We aren't ruling out controlling your characters forever, but for the initial launch we think it will ruin the purity of the game. We are exploring adding more decisive elements without adding live "control" if you know what I mean. Mini games etc.

JangoSteve 16y ago

This looks really awesome. I mean, I really like this. I can't wait to see how my little guy will develop and behave. EDIT: The $5000 pledge on your Kickstarter page says that you get to design a character that defies the visual rules other players are held to. But I didn't see any visual rules on the site, and the "Send us a sketch" button just opens an email. I'm afraid my character may violate some rules. Just let me know. /EDIT It's a late night in the office, so I sent you a whiteboard sketch of my company's robot mascot, Jango Webbot: http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285 http://cdn2.alfajango.com/images/jango_web.jpg?1279741285 I would love to see him battle our other mascot, Alfa Automabot: http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285 http://cdn1.alfajango.com/images/alfa_web.jpg?1279741285 Funny story, my co-founder and I designed these guys to be sort of an odd couple, so this seems like the perfect outlet for them! I had actually forgotten all about these little mascot guys until just now.

dave_chenell 16y ago
Right now we aren't limiting drawings with rules because we are gathering data for all the different types of drawings that can be thrown at it. On Kickstarter the reward means you get a character that can pretty much do anything you can imagine, because we can program specific moves for it that are not in the move pool.
- UmbrellaExile 16y ago
  To clarify, the "drawing rules" are exactly that - the rules right now are that you upload a drawing and it becomes a graFighter. A graFighter that "defies the rules" would be one with animation, with multiple forms, with unique behaviors - things you can't convey in a sketch.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

tansey 16y ago

I really like the idea. I have a very similar idea on my to-do stack, but with one major difference: the characters would be controlled with neural networks. Then the game becomes about not just drawing your character, but also designing sparring arenas that they can train on, etc. It's more of a you-draw-it real-time pokemon'ish game. > it is not cheap, so we are looking to raise 20,000 Why not just submit to YC then? You'll get $20K and much better publicity and VC connections.

dave_chenell 16y ago
We are part of a new incubator in Syracuse at the moment (http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com). The older VC crowds we have pitched to really cant understand what we are doing and why it could be huge. We opted to experiment with crowdsourcing from people who "get it". We will let you know how it goes.
UmbrellaExile 16y ago
In the future, we'd love to let people draw their own moves, stages, weapons, etc. For the initial launch though, it's going to be just your own characters for the time being.

gimpmaestro 16y ago

Donations for a startup? Are you serious? You should be offering equity if you are going to profit from this.

philwelch 16y ago
This is a serious concern, but if you get something for your money it seems not-unfair. Occasionally, fanatical TV viewers will try to get together and pledge enough money to produce another season of their favorite cancelled TV show. In return for that money, they get to see another season of their favorite cancelled TV show (well, they would if the networks were smart enough to work that way). So if I donated $5 to this startup and got a life membership with like 3 fighting dudes, while they charge $1/mo post-launch with the same plan, I'd call that a pretty fair bargain. Of course, I don't quite know the legality of selling a chance to possibly in the future own a product that isn't developed yet and might not ever exist, but at a discounted rate.
dave_chenell 16y ago
Why is that so ridiculous? The idea behind Kickstarter is to have people pay for something they want before its built. Actual customers funding you is much more powerful that some VC's who think people will one someday buy what you build.
jordanmessina 16y ago
Did you really make an account just for this comment? If you don't have to give up equity then why opt-in to do it? If enough people believe in an idea/want it built then it's a fine way to make the money that you need. From the sounds of it they've made it this far in a year with almost no funding so imagine what $20k could do... Also, I believe Diaspora was asking for $10k and simply had an idea, at least this team has executed.
wicknicks 16y ago
Seems like a good idea to me.
erikb85 16y ago
It is obviously not your concern if somebody else wants to donate for a startup or not. If you don't want to, you will not be forced to. So, why bother?

wicknicks 16y ago

Wow, this looks very awesome. You guys are doing something very interesting.

woodall 16y ago

There was an old game "kind of" like this. It had EVERY character imaginable; like a Waffle, DBZ, Street Fighters, Pirates, Ninjas, EVERYTHING. I'll find the name and post it if anyone is interested. I think it would be more appealing if you let the people control their characters. The problem with this is it will require more CPU work on your part- expensive for a start up. You could have them scan the characters in and use a "wire-frame", like the use in art, to lay out the different body parts. You could even use some OCR to see it the character had legs or if it is on some kind of "tracks". Awesome art, awesome idea, can't wait to see a working version. P.S. RazaBlaza is too powerful Edit: About the wire framing and OCR. Instead, to make your life easier, you could have your own custom character creator. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing your drawings to life, but hell of a lot easier.

dave_chenell 16y ago
Thanks alot for the input. Is the game your thinking of MUGEN? it was an old school open source fighting game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.G.E.N
- woodall 16y ago
  That is it!

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

richtofen 16y ago

The product is very thought-provoking for a bunch of reasons: The positives: 1. It celebrates 'creation' as opposed to performance. The lose-control-of-performance-during-fight is an aspect that puts the performance of the character squarely in the court of its 'designed' attributes, rather than 'performed' action. 2. It is very intuitive and even 'humanist' if one can dare... Imperfections in character created by user translate into performance (or lack), and tend to become logical extensions of its behavior. Thus, this product becomes a celebration of this very imperfection - in the same manner that flaws in human nature are what make us human. 3. This product celebrates the hand. And how. It seems to capture the nuances of hand-drawn art, and I hope it eventually discerns medium - the quality of paper, the weight of the finger, and the stroke of the pen. If one can dare to think of the ideological similarities between the arts of calligraphy and sword-play - and if this product can begin to map those aspects, these will be very interesting times to live in. The negatives [or fears, actually - being the incorrigible cynic one is]: 1. I am curious about the level of human intervention from the product-developer end once a user submits a character. I can imagine figuring weapon-attributes, body-limitations, some vectorization and animation 'rules'. If Cornelius can do all this himself - over time, if not immediately - it would be great. 2. The nature of 'conflict' - from the demos I see so far - each character's primary objective is attack-and-kill. If human-centric intelligence becomes a gradual attribute of the character - knowing its strengths and limitations, knowing the same for its opponents, being environment and constraint conscious, etc - it would be a great build-up. I am talking experience here, with which a character grows 3. Where do we go from here? I already see this becoming a cult activity. It can go further from there into the leisure/gaming/media end. It can also become a basis for a better tactical combat simulator. This is where the creators would have to answer the question - is this a product that treads the path of creation, art and design - or goes in the direction of solving(?)/mapping(?)human combat and conflict

instakill 16y ago

I think the idea of not having control over your fighter is great. The doubts about people returning because their fighter will get his ass kicked is fallacious, I think. It'll just incentivize you to come up with a better character, which means that as long as sequential incentives to keep returning back the ability to do so, the non-control acts as a positive game dynamic/mechanic.

markkat 16y ago

This is a very fun idea. I really hope to see this come to fruition.

Jobzle 16y ago

In my opinion, if your algorithm is that solid and unique, that's your real selling point. This whole "you can't control the player" is a bad idea, it doesn't drive the usual gamer and you're going to find that maybe it's exciting for people to watch their creature fight the first time but there's no repeat value in that (watching the same moves over and over and over again just isn't exciting). The perfect blend of your idea and the wishes of the masses is to have your 'Cornelius' algorithm analyze the drawing then return a skill set. So it gives the player 6 movies + 10 combo moves based on their drawings attributes. You get a combination of the "my ninja vs. your ninja" as well as the ability to actually influence the outcome and promote replay value.

Flux61 16y ago

I'm a fan of the complete ingenuity of this entire concept. We've all seen and played the timeless smash and grab player-controlled games that have dominated our obsessions since Pong. However, in this day and age with video games becoming more and more complex, I love this simple idea. Instead of letting the player with the best reflexes, or an ability to seek out glitches in game play become the best, this concept attacks it from a completely different means. A game where creativity, humor, engineering, and street smarts all combine into one to form a brand new niche for gamers. I've read all of the comments thus far and I have to say that I agree with many points on both sides. However, I would have to definitively say that if you want to control your player, this concept isn't for you. This is of course through the basic player moves that so many people are used to. Click A for jump, B for attack, different combo moves etc. Yes this appeals to many for great gaming, but I would argue that it is a gaming genre that may be at it's absolute peak. Even with today's most complicated games, there is a certain amount of creativity, street smarts and ingenuity in how you play the game. What I love most about these arguments is that the creator (argued most notably for by dave_chenell) is telling you that you in fact DO have control over your character and the fight. It's just a higher level of control than one is used to. Basically, the 'player' gets to play 'god' in creating characters. By changing the slightest drawing, weapon accessory, and proportions (as is my understanding of this algorithm), one has complete control in how one should act in an all out brawl. If you want your gorilla to have great grappling moves, provide him with powerful arms, etc. I would argue that this feature gives complete control to the gamer. This game type wouldn't be for anyone, that is certain. However, look at the massive amount of popularity games like Armadillo Run (http://www.armadillorun.com/ http://www.armadillorun.com/) have received. You don't have any control over the armadillo in this either. One must use their knowledge of physics, materials, and common sense in order to build a device to complete the objective, like a puzzle. This graFighters idea seems very similar; spend some time playing to learn how the game works, and it'll be just as addicting. I understand that this concept isn't for everyone and it'll be tough to spread word to gamers who are willing to give it a shot based just on concept alone. But let me ask these gamers something. How many times have you been bored maybe in class or talking on the phone, and you doodle some complex robot. Maybe you give him a lightsaber for good measure. Wouldn't it be nice to put him to some use instead of tossing him away with your class notes?

kazuya 16y ago

Mmmmm, smells like MediaMolecule.