Fans of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate may be familiar with a series of fan games known as Super Smash Flash. Recently, the creators of the Super Smash Flash series announced an original 2D platformer fighting game called Fraymakers, and Smash fans need to be paying attention. Fraymakers looks like it'll be the indie-game Smash Bros. that fans have been asking for.
Development team McLeodGaming on November 18th announced Fraymakers on November 18th with a gameplay trailer and Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter met its funding goal on the first day and reached its first stretch goal, which guaranteed an additional character. Fraymakers's roster includes several notable indie game characters such as Octodad, Orcane from Rivals of Aether and Commander Video from Bit.Trip. The game also includes several "assist" characters, used to extend combos, that feature of numerous other indie games.
Fraymakers is tackling an issue with Super Smash Bros. that fans of noticed with how the Nintendo-published fighting game handles its guest characters. Minecraft's Steve is the first character who originated from an indie game to join Smash's roster. Whilst others like Shovel Knight have been added as assist trophies, Smash still seems to shy away from dipping into the world of indie games despite the sheer number of options for amazing characters.
What makes Fraymakers so exciting is how it holds the potential to stand as the indie-equivalent to Smash, expanding on the genre of platformer fighting games that has only seen a few notable additions. McLeodGaming is the perfect group to create their own crossover fighting game, as their updates to Super Smash Flash 2 have shown their ability to transfer iconic character into a platformer fighting game faithfully.
Smash Flash 2 includes characters that fans have wanted to see in Smash for years, including Bomberman, Lloyd and even Goku, and manages to stay faithful to how the characters behave in other fighting games. For example, Goku's final smash is just as cinematic and flashy as one might expect, which matches his appearance in anime fighting games such as Jump Force and Dragon Ball FighterZ. McLeodGaming is a team of people incredibly knowledgeable about recreating the Smash crossover formula in 2D, with even competitive tournaments being held for the game.
With the success of McLeodGaming's previous platformer fighting game titles, Fraymakers is shaping up to be a wonderful new fighting game. However, there's much more to look forward to Fraymakers for. The game's Kickstarter advertises a user-friendly set of modding tools called FrayTools, which would allow players to create characters, assists and stages for some of their favorite franchises. Games like Rivals of Aether and M.U.G.E.N have shown just how creative people can be when given the tools to create their own fighting game.
It's not just characters and stages that the modding tools allow players to create. According to the Kickstarter, players will even be able to create their own menus and game modes for Fraymakers. This brings a level of customizability to a fighting game that is rarely seen outside of the incredibly modular M.U.G.E.N. "Unlimited possibilities" and "replayability" are two of the main focuses of Fraymakers, and FrayTools reinforces those points.
What's probably the most exciting part of Fraymakers, however, is their proud declaration of their game having rollback netcode. Rollback netcode has become the expected standard for most competitive fighting games, rather than the more commonly used delay-based netcode. In the simplest terms, delay-based netcode briefly pauses gameplay to process inputs from online players, which results in lag that can range from indistinguishable to so horrendous it ruins gameplay. Rollback netcode tracks player inputs locally and updates any frames that unstable online may have missed retroactively by "rolling back" to the previous state, which provides a more stable and fluid experience.
Smash Bros. Ultimate's netcode has been a huge topic of criticism for Nintendo, as it still uses delay-based netcode. In fact, before this year's online EVO was canceled, Smash Ultimate was dropped from the list of featured games due to its unstable online. It's probably a necessity for Fraymakers to include rollback netcode to stand out from its triple-a competitor. It certainly speaks volumes towards the level of competitive gameplay that McLeodGaming is aiming for.
Fraymakers is currently slated to launch into early access sometime in 2022. The dev team has promised that, at minimum, the early access version will include four characters, with additional content being added throughout the game's early access lifespan. Though the game has already hit its Kickstarter funding goal, there's still plenty of stretch goals that can be reached for fans who wish to support McLeodGaming.