RWBY Moonlit Crisis

Fighting Game Prototype

Game: RWBY Moonlit Crisis is a fan game prototype based on the indie web series RWBY owned by Rooster Teeth, which was bought by Warner Bros. recently.

Genre: Fighter, 2D Fighter, Action, PVP, Local Multiplayer.

Platform: PC

Engine: Made in Unity, with art made in Aseprite and programming done with C# in Visual Studios.

Development Time: After school hours for almost 3 years where I had nothing else to do, I spent time working on this fan project until there was news of an official RWBY fighting game coming out. Currently, it is on hold until more information is available. The total after-school hours spent on the project so far count up to 50 weeks.

Team Members: 1 Designer (Me) - 1 Programmer (Me) - 1 Visual Artist (Me) - 2 Outsourcers.

Origin: I was a fan of the indie series RWBY, and when I started working on it, there were already a good amount of fan games of the show. The only kind of fan game missing was a fighting game that me and my friends would like to play. That is when I started to work on it myself.

My Responsibilities:

Designing the combat system.
Designing the Move set's.
UI/UX Design and Functionality.
Programming in C#.
Animation and visual art.
Testing and updating.
Communication with Outsources.

Early on, there was a character select screen made for the 4 main characters that each represented one of the 4 letters in the title of the show, "RWBY." The plan was to make each a playable character before continuing with side characters. After developing the first character, the game was put on hold, but the place holders and functionality to select the other 3 characters were already implemented.

The combat and fighting mechanics were based around directional inputs like Smash Bros., with the difference being that there were two extra types of inputs: "light" and "heavy" inputs, as well as "gun" and "special" inputs. This decision was made because each weapon in the show was also a gun (with different kinds of elemental projectiles), and each character had a special power unique to them. The combination of these four types of inputs allowed the players to make combos like in an actual fighting game.

Itch Page

The plan from the start was to only have 4 playable characters, but to give the players more options, I made the different types of elemental bullets for the gun attacks that can be selected in the character select screen, giving the players a total of 20 different playstyles. Fire: does more damage; gravity: pulls the opponent in your direction; ice: freezes the opponent in place for a set time; thunder: has increased hit stun; and wind: has increased knockback.

As I was the only person who developed most of the systems and mechanics for this game, there would have been no reason to make a credits screen. However, halfway through development, I received a few messages and emails from people who were interested in helping with this fan project, so I made one to credit them. Because of this, it began to look like the start of my experience in the producer role as well. Please note that I used my online alias "ShiroKyodo" in the credits here.

Like most fighting games, I implemented 2 types of dashes depending on direction you are facing. These dashes would be triggered with a double tab on the movement input. Each character would also have a separate button for their "Semblance (special ability) to trigger if they had enough "SEM" gauge buildup.For Ruby, the first character I worked on, her ability was bursts of speed, which I translated to longer and faster dashes when using it. When she has enough gauge buildup, it will be shown by the particle effects coming off of her.