The Avatar: The Last Airbender Fangame LJ

First off for this update, some news-- our little team has grown a bit over the weekend!  aiffe has generously offered her talents to the "ATLA Fangame" and will be helping by making frames and finalizing the look the characters!  This is a big help and (considering there's a reason I failed out of animation in college XD) will do a lot to get this game as polished and quality as we can get it!

Secondly, last time we gave you a look at the planning and design for Aang, but today we'll be looking at some basic enemies-- low-level Fire Nation soldiers! 

(rest assured, characters like Katara and Toph and Sokka et al are definitely coming-- I couldn't imagine a 'proper' "Airbender" game without them.  But for the purposes of getting the engine figured out-- and making sure the gameplay 'works' is the most important thing-- we really only need one or two player-characters and some baddies.  So there'll definitely be more on them as things get worked out!)

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Well, we now have a viable engine in Game Maker 8.1, and while we’re learning the basics, work on character development begins in earnest, starting with the show’s main character, Aang!

For the purposes of balancing him out and not negating the entire point of “The ATLA Fangame” as a multiplayer co-operative game, Aang is an Airbender, plain and simple.

(Though hey, who knows what could change between now and when the game’s finished?)

Aang is structured as a character with higher speed and maneuverability than most (including being one of the only characters with both a double-jump and an air dash), and conseqently sacrifices some attack strength for it. His counter-attack is a bit easier to pull off to compensate for less defense, and most of his heavy attacks can send enemies skyward for an Air Juggle (which leaves the enemy vulnerable for more damage and XP/coin bonuses for team attacks!)

Like most of the characters in the game, Aang can get different Super attacks as he levels up, but his starter is Avatar State, which allows him to unleash high-damage attacks that use all four elements for a short time.


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The pre-production work begins~

Some concept sketches for Level 1 (Southern Water Tribe) locations.

Okay so. The “ATLA Fangame” is a very real project I am starting work on as we speak. I’m no developer but I’m learning, and I want to make a fun game that fans of all stripes can enjoy, while also making a quality game itself. They say if you want something done you have to do it yourself, and since THQ has no desire to make a quality Avatar game…

At the moment I’m busy learning how to code and trying to teach myself the basics of sprite-work and animation and such, but here’s some info to get ya edumacated.

- Being planned as a 2D freeware side-scrolling beat-em-up (think Castle Crashers, Scott Pilgrim The Game, Gauntlet, Final Fight and so forth) for up to 4 players

- Choose from the main set of heroes — Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph or Zuko — or unlock other favorites like Azula, Jet, Iroh or Suki

- No restrictions on character team-ups, so you and your friends can build the ultimate ATLA tag-team

- Build your character the way you want by collecting XP, or tweak them for different situations with special collectibles

-Fight through memorable Avatar locations like Ba Sing Se, the Day of Black Sun invasion and the Northern Water Tribe assault

-Screw with canon! Characters react to unusual team-ups, and certain combinations of characters can go through special alternate storylines

-Fight tons of enemies using special power-ups, calling in animals like Appa and the Shirshu to soften up the hordes, or perform special Tag-Team moves with other characters to clear the screen

-Like in the show, weather and environment effect character abilities— a Waterbender might be stronger during rainy weather at the expense of a Firebender’s attack power, or an Earthbender might have a stiffer challenge on the all-metal Boiling Rock Prison

-Tweak levels to suit your playstyle or challenge level — go for Solar Eclipse for a laughably easy win, or set it to Sozin’s Comet for a tough fight

There’ll be more info and concept arts and such as things progress, and I plan to have a demo level running within a month or two to give a more concrete example of alot of these features, so look forward to it!