Development Journal: Combat Kids

 (Not to be confused with Infight Kids)

Ah, Combat Kids... it's been such a long time. They were early attempts at full M.U.G.E.N games before knowing about MUGEN 1.0 at the time (August 2010). The series starred Fred Tabisto and Joe Camasto, two of my earliest MUGEN OC's. They were fairly nerfed from their original 2007 counterparts. The story, which isn't much of one to begin with, is that a few kids have been selected to compete at a tournament.

A few of the female characters consisted of characters taken from screenshots that were tediously edited to have their backgrounds removed. All of them were given names that I made up. All of the female OC's, as well as Moses used 3D models which completely clash with the character sprites drawn in MS Paint, Adobe Illustrator and Paint.NET. Since the Infight Kids series, I started to use 3D models for all boys in addition to girls.

The series started off with Fred, Joe, Carla, Mila, Bladezor (based on the Pokémon Gallade), Chikorita and Witch Vap. The latter four characters were removed in Combat Kids 2, and Suwaro, Suzy Jill, Pichu and Roll were added. However, Roll could only be selected through Random Select. Combat Kids 2: Special Edition saw quite an improvement in the character balance in May of 2011, although it used the CK1 versions of some characters as a base due to an accidental hard drive format. CK2SE brought back Mila, made it so Roll can be chosen without Random Select and debuted the diaper-wearing girl known as Marcella, inspired by a background character from a Hanna Barbera cartoon. Fred finally came in more than one color palette. Like all characters who make their first appearance in the Combat Kids series, Marcella was a pain to fight against, gaining invincibility frames whenever she dashes through projectiles.

Super Combat Kids 2: The New Overhaul was quite a shift in the play style in 2012, going for more Street Fighter II-like gameplay than the Marvel vs. Capcom gameplay that the previous games were using, without the tag team patched onto the characters. All characters had the same defense, and they could no longer air block, dash or use supers. Carla, Joe, Mila and Pichu were removed. It marked the debut of Claudia (Toy Form, who previously appeared in Joe's ending), Tanbo and Madison. Sadly, I don't have the original model for Toy Claudia, so I had to re-create it from scratch, with hands that look inferior. I wanted to keep Joe in the roster, but I had a hard time converting his sprites to Shared Palette format, so he was excluded. Marcella's diaper could be infinitely juggled when she was tripped, and Fred was given a new win pose where he makes a peace sign. In Super Combat Kids 2 XD, only Fred, Suwaro, Tanbo and Madison survived the character roster. Much like Super Street Fighter II Turbo, all characters were forced to be unable to wear their regular costume colors. Although supers were brought back, some attacks were generally made slower and worse than their SCK2 counterparts.

Maximum Combat Kids was created as a version that includes all versions of the playable characters, much like Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition. Two exclusive characters were added: Maddaneen, a magical girl and Moses, the true antagonist of the Combat Kids. Both later appear in Candra's ending in Diaper Enforcers. Some of the CK1 versions of the characters received a few nerfs. Because I don't have the source material to regular Combat Kids 2, I had to manually re-capture Carla's sprites that were exclusive to CK2.

Most of the characters started off stupidly (and annoyingly) powerful (namely CK2 Suwaro and CK2 Suzy Jill) before they were toned down in later Combat Kids games. Character balance got better in some ways, but worse in other ways. For one, Fred's 0-frame startup super was fixed, and Joe could no longer use his pet Getito as an attack. On the other hand, some girls became drastically weaker to the degree of no longer being viable.

All of the Combat Kids games were made in WinMUGEN and as such, one might expect constant music issues and frequent random crashes. I would have liked to port all the games to MUGEN 1.0, but that would require some modifications that wouldn't be worth the hassle. Overall, I felt that the Infight Kids series have fared better, but I've gotten bored of those games as well.