Scruffy Dragon's 2009 Scruffyversary Preview and 2008 Recap

Volzzilla has written an awesome article that serves as a preview for the Scruffy Dragon's Release Party for 2009 and a retrospective on the 2008 Release Party.

By Volzzilla

Disclaimer: I do not have much inside information. The following is based off of a few conversations with Buyog (special thanks to him for providing a little bit of guidance here and there for this article), the interview he did for us, my own internet research, and pure conjecture.

Last year’s inaugural Scruffyversary got off to a very interesting start to say the least. The first release was Pocket Batman on April 1^st. So because of him being a pocket character, the date, and the community not being ready for an event such as this, people initially thought what was going on, was just an April Fools joke. Boy, were they mistaken, as last years event was truly something memorable. But before we get into the recap, let’s discuss why there even is such an anniversary.

A few years ago, Buyog initially had this vision of bringing a DC vs. Marvel crossover game to Mugen. He posted this idea on a few forums in hopes of finding other creators who may be interested. There was quite a bit of interest shown from people, but the earliest partners that are still around to this day are Magus and SethZankuten. This team would later gain the likes of great creators such as McCready, Loganir, Wucash, Verz36 and others. You can see the official Scruffy Dragon Roster by going to:

http://www.scruffydragon.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dragons

This team, working on one great vision would eventually be known as Scruffy Dragon Productions and set up operations at Scruffydragon.com which became the home of the DCvM project, and shortly there after other projects. They would then celebrate the first anniversary of their coming together at Scruffydragon.com with last years April event and now we are ready for the second one!

Okay, let’s recap last year’s event. The format the Scruffy Dragon team decided to go with for the event was a new theme each week, the first of which, Pocket World Project. Like I said, initially people thought it was an elaborate April Fool’s Joke, but they soon realized this was something real, a new direction for the team, and fun. After Batman, other Pocket releases were: Superman, Wonder Woman, Pocket Gotham City and Pocket Metropolis and Pocket Bizarro (during Bizarro themed week; more on that later). Since then, there have been pocket releases for Ice, Flash, Captain Cold, and the Flash Museum. To see everything you need to know about this project, including the WIPs, go to: http://www.scruffydragon.com/f/pocket.html

The next theme of the week for Scruffyversary was Preview Week. During this period, the team released a number of YouTube videos showing either character WIPs in action, or in the case of Plastic Man, what MamboJambo had in store for an update. Buyog started things off with a humorous video of his Lobo vs. the Duck Hunt bonus stage. This was then followed by previews for: War Machine, Cyborg & Mandarin, Joker, Plastic Man update, Savage Hulk (who has since be released and is awesome), Electro (received a very good beta release), and Iron Man (v.99 released in Janurary which I think is not only the best Iron Man out there, but one of the best comic content related characters out there period).

The third week was sort of multi-tiered under the header of Bizarro Week. During this week numerous things were released all under that same concept. Things were kicked off with a preview video and were then followed by: Pocket Bizarro release, DC Bizarro palettes, Marvel Bizarro palettes, the release of Plasticzarro, and finally culminating with the release of the Bizarro beta. The character releases here were a prelude to the next week of…

…DCvM week, the final event of the 1^st annual Scruffyversary. During this week not only were there quite a number of great character releases, but you also had various information about the game dropped. The released content (many times videos were included) consisted of: Storm remix, Bishop w/Danger Room remix stage, Ryker Prison & Lexcorp Tower stages, DC/M Character templates, Mongul & Debstam IV stage, Iceman remix, Silver Surfer and Out In Space stage, sprite tutorial video, DCvM game intro, and finally Starfire.

For more info on the game in general:

http://www.scruffydragon.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=474&st=0&p=31763&#entry31763

http://www.scruffydragon.com/f/dcvsm.html

If you would like to check out all of those corresponding threads, go to:

http://www.scruffydragon.com/forum/index.php?showforum=9

What is on the horizon for the 2^nd Annual Scruffyversary? Well, that is harder to answer, due to the team deciding to take a more underground approach to progress because of past leaks. But I would expect another weekly theme format where there will be eventual content releases, maybe some contests, more videos, and anything else that they have up their sleeve to build up the anticipation and enjoyment for all.

However, it looks like things have sort of hit a prelude state for this year because of this post about a Treasure Hunt:

http://www.scruffydragon.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6471&st=0

This can also be seen on the front page of their main website, but as of right now, it is hard to deduce what this means. It looks like they are giving hints to finding parts of a website address that will play a huge part in kicking off the festivities but we will have to wait and see what is really going on there.

Other than that, there are other hints here and there of what may come. For instance, there is a possibility that we might see more from the characters previewed in week 2 of the 2008 event. There are also a number of WIPs team members are working on, some of which they have given forum posts about, or in the case of Buyog, listed at his website, Buyog's Lair: Buyog2099's MUGEN Creations. They include:

Bizarro by Buyog

Captain America by Verz36, Alienmorph, and Jinzo

Cyborg Superman by Kal-Elvis

Dr.Octopus by Verz36

Astonishing Cyclops by Verz36

Elektra by Buyog

Mandarin by Buyog and McCready

Parasite by Buyog

Sinestro by Buyog

Ultron by McCready and Enzo

Wildcat by JeffPR and Magus

This team probably has more in the works privately, so perhaps we will find out more about them. And who knows, maybe some community members who are showcasing their WIP topics in their forum will get involved. You can see a table that includes these publicly known WIPs, as well as others, by going to:

http://mmcelhaney-fiction.blogspot.com/2009/03/mugen-wips-sumary-march-2009.html

Please bear with us if information needs to be updated, as the table is also a Work In Progress itself, and relies on readers to help correct things when we can.

We can also expect some potential updates to characters, as the team is very committed to updating their characters for the community. For instance, Buyog has stated at his website that Savage Hulk and Elektra will be updated for Scruffyversary. Savage Hulk is already great, so any improvements will be awesome. And Elektra will basically be a brand new release given the original beta and this new incarnation. During the 12 days event, some of the incredible character releases were not quite v1.0. These are: Darkseid Alpha, Kon-El, Vulture, Electro, and Iron Man (v.99 but still, if .01 is missing, then Magus must have some surprise for us all on what is already a great character.) You want more info? Also check out the current download files for Mongul and Ghost Rider. Mongul is said to be v.80 and Ghost Rider is a beta file on the website and said to be v.60 in the readme file. They already rock, so any chance at updates for them would also be unbelievable. Especially if one of those updates was something called, ‘Penance Stare,’ but that might be wishful thinking on my part ;) So it is fair game that any of those characters, as well as any of their other releases might be updated as well.

Other possibilities discussed include: Parasite and Sinestro beta releases by Buyog at his website, SethZankuten working on general play-balancing and changed effects such as Darkseid’s new Omega Blast, and Amalgam hypers for a number of already released characters. Plus, do not forget, Shazam was previewed during the 12 days of Christmas, so that is another possibility. And perhaps I was seeing things, but I could have sworn I saw a comment about an update to Superman somewhere in the forum. Again, I could be mistaken in that regard.

And finally DCvM Phase 1. Judging by the nature of the teaser post on their front page and in the forum, I would be willing to guess there would be some involvement there. Why do I think this? Well, there were comments during the 12 days event saying they were trying to rush that out the door then, so there has been time to polish up the work that was completed then and do something more. Then all the previous things that relate to the project already discussed in this article. But one more piece of evidence I submit, during that interview with Buyog, he did say he could see the light at the end of a long tunnel in regards to Phase 1. We choose to save this tidbit until later, and I am sharing it with you now. Besides, would this not be the perfect time for something like that? And why go through all the trouble of the elaborate Treasure Hunt if something big was not planned?

I do have one other theory for an additional possibility, but I think it is best if I keep that to myself for now…other than teasing you all here about it, LOL.

Anything else, your guess is as good as mine, but it will be fun watching to see what happens!