Skullgirls will (finally) be released in North America on PSN on April 10th for $14.99, with a European release in the following weeks. While that sinks in, check out the trailer for our eighth playable character, the disturbing Double.

Ready? Good. Now, just think about it...

A fully-featured fighting game…

…With endless hours of online, genre-refining gameplay by a tournament champ…

…With an amazing cast of characters, realized with stunning and smooth high-resolution 2D animation…

…For $14.99.

Of course, for any lingering skeptics and fence-sitters, we’ve prepared a great trial version to highlight Skullgirls’ real, honest fighting.

The trial version features:

• Two Characters, Filia and Cerebella
• An abbreviated Arcade Mode, with three AI battles
• Local versus play, limited to duo teams
• Four tutorials
• Practice Room

All in all, the trial should let you get a feel for Skullgirls’ fundamentals, experience the power and gameplay depth of two characters and get a taste of the single player content, all while leaving you wanting more.

You may want to pick the game up soon and start practicing, though, because Autumn Games will be sponsoring a number of tournaments throughout the spring and summer. The winners of each tournament will get a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind FoeHammer custom Skullgirls fight stick like the one below.

Each stick is unique, and you can see more pictures of these amazing sticks on our Flickr page.

So far, we’ve announced four tournaments:

• Texas Showdown Championships : Houston – April 6-8
• PowerUp : Cincinnati – April 13-15
• Stunfest : Rennes, France – April 13-15
• ESC – The Elite Series at Wizard World Toronto Comicon : Toronto – April 14-15

Many more will be added in the coming weeks, so check out our website to see if there will be a tournament near you!

Thanks for reading, and we can’t wait to fight you online next week!

Even though Skullgirls is a downloadable game for PSN, we’ve got a feature set consistent with a full-priced fighter.

• Story Mode
• Arcade Mode
• Tutorials
• Practice Room
• Ranked and Unranked Online Play
• Custom Soundtracks
• PS3-exclusive Trophies

Story Mode

The world of Skullgirls is vast and full of colorful characters well beyond the eight playable characters we’ll have in the game. These characters will show up throughout the characters’ stories, which are told with a series of short vignettes, and are told with over 200 pieces of unique art, character portraits and new music.

Check out our new Story mode trailer above, which features Skullgirls’ awesome attract mode and glimpses at some of the characters’ stories.

While there is a “true,” canonical story kicking around in creative director Alex Ahad’s head, the Story mode shows a number of “what if” scenarios playing out across alternate timelines. The characters are true to themselves in these altered circumstances, but events are unfolding differently.

Arcade Mode

In Arcade Mode, you get a single player campaign at its purest. You can pick any team size and make-up you like and fight a handful of rounds against the CPU and end with a climactic fight against… oh, I’ve said too much.

Tutorials and Practice Room

When you think about it, fighting games are really the only games left that doesn’t actually teach the basics of how to play them, so we’ve created an extensive series of tutorials.

Not only will these teach you how to play Skullgirls, but they should also help you learn the concepts underlying the fighting game genre as a whole. There are 17 courses explaining basic and advanced concepts, from movement to hit confirmation and advanced tactics, some of which use AI to help you learn. Of particular note, we’ve put a heavy emphasis on teaching defense, something of vital importance that is glossed over in most other games.

Of course, for the most dedicated of players, we’ve got a Practice Room to help you work on your game. In addition to a visual timer to display hit-stun and block-stun to help you learn combos, we’ll also have attack data and hitboxes to help you wring every bit of damage out of your favorite characters.

Ranked and Unranked Online Play

Of course no fighter these days is complete without online play, and we’ve got that covered. Skullgirls features ranked and unranked online play using the excellent GGPO networking library.

Custom Soundtrack

We went all out on Skullgirls’ music and signed the legendary composer of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Michiru Yamane, but after hundreds of hours of play even the best soundtrack can wear thin.

One of the first feature requests we had from PlayStation 3 owners was a custom soundtrack option, so I’m happy to announce that we’ll be delivering this surprisingly rare feature with the game.

PS3-exclusive Trophies

Finally… Trophies. Trophies are a requirement for all games these days, but we went the extra mile and created four exclusive Trophies for PlayStation 3 users.

There are a lot of complaints out there about fighting Trophies in fighting games, so we sought out forum feedback before designing ours so we could deliver the most satisfying Trophy-hunting experience possible. We think we’ve come up with a pretty good set.

We’ll be releasing more information about the specific Trophies in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that!

And that wraps up the features — in the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing the 8th and final character, the release date and price, and… more.

If you like what you see here, visit our website, Twitter @Skullgirls or Liking us on Facebook for the latest on the game! Thanks for reading!

A few weeks ago I gave you a run-down on our new 2D fighter, Skullgirls. Last time I discussed the game’s story and its characters, and exclusively revealed Ms. Fortune. This week we’ll be talking about the really important part: the gameplay.

As I noted last time, Skullgirls’ lead designer and programmer is Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont, a noted tournament fighter and (regretful) creator of the “real soviet damage” internet meme. While our art team strives to make the game look amazing, gameplay always comes first. Mike’s impetus to create Skullgirls was to make a game that was as fun to play as Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but addressed the system and balance problems that kept that game from being competitively viable.

The bane of many a fighter is the infinite combo: these are easily-repeated, inescapable attack patterns, and they can completely ruin games. Skullgirls gets around this by monitoring the players’ attacks, and if the game detects a looping combo the other player can break out of it free by hitting any button. Because we’ve eliminated the worst case scenario, we can free up the rest of the game in ways others have been afraid to – Skullgirls’ combo system is wide open, letting you experiment freely.

Another common problem in team-based fighters is the high/low unblockable. For example, you attack low and call a high-hitting assist attack at the same time making it impossible for your opponent to block. It’s a cheesy and frustrating tactic, and so Skullgirls has a short grace period after blocking that will guard against other hit types. You’ll still need to read your opponent and block the first attack, but at least you’ve got a fighting chance now.

While all of this was designed with the tournament scene in mind, it’s actually great for the casual player, too. If you’re new to fighting games, you can jump online without worrying about losing to these sorts of frustrating exploits – you may still lose, but at least it’ll be a fair fight you can actually learn from. That said, we’re doing everything we can to have the most comprehensive tutorials in a fighting game – we’ll not only teach you how to do things, but also why you should do them.

Being a small indie fighting game with an initial roster of eight characters, we’re giving you more ways to play with those characters. Skullgirls lets you play with mismatched team sizes of one to three characters. Single characters can give and take tons of damage, while teams are weaker but compensate with the myriad strategic benefits of multiple characters. Also, by eliminating the possibility of high/low unblockables, we’ve been able to allow custom assists and let you call on any of your teammates’ moves in battle. So despite having only eight characters, these systems give you a huge number of ways to build your team. It’s also a great way in for Street Fighter and BlazBlue players, too – if you’re not used to playing team-based games, you can start with one-character and build up to a team, or not – it’s all up to you.

Balance is something we’re taking seriously, and we’ve been aggressively play-testing the game and getting community feedback at events such as the East Coast Throwdown, the EVO Finals and Seasons Beatings. All of this is well and good, but what’s the point if you can’t play online with people? To ensure the best possible online experience, we’ve built our gameplay around the excellent GGPO networking library, the best one out there for fighting games. We’re also committed to providing free content and balance updates, as well as expanding the character roster through DLC.

Finally, a little bit of bittersweet news: as you may have heard, Skullgirls is now set for a release in early 2012. We’ve been getting tons of community feedback, and all the little tweaks and new features we’ve added delayed us a bit.

If you like what you see here, visit our website, Twitter @Skullgirls or Liking us on Facebook for the latest on the game as we approach release!

Thanks for reading!

A few weeks ago, you may have noticed that Street Fighter IV’s venerable producer Yoshinori Ono said he was looking forward to a new game called “Skullgirls.” A lot of you probably hadn’t even heard of the game before, so I’m here to remedy that.

Skullgirls is more than just a PSN fighting game, it’s the realization of two peoples’ long-held dreams… seriously! Creative director Alex “o_8” Ahad has been working on the characters and story since he was in high school, and project lead Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont had been working on a fighting game engine in his free time since 2008. When mutual friends introduced them to each other, Skullgirls was born. Joining the recently founded Reverge Labs team in 2010, they signed with publisher Autumn games, and at E3 Konami announced that it will be distributing Skullgirls.

Skullgirls takes place in the Canopy Kingdom, a country reminiscent of a 1940’s post-war America tinged with magic and intrigue. Hanging over the kingdom is the legend of the Skull Heart: this ancient artifact is said to be able to grant a wish to a young woman, but if her heart isn’t pure her wish will be twisted and she’ll be transformed into a living nightmare known as the “Skullgirl.” As the game begins, a new Skullgirl, Marie, has emerged and is terrorizing the kingdom, and so once again people are lining up to save the country from this menace and claim the Skull Heart for themselves.

Skullgirls’ initial eight characters are all females that range from the elegant to the macabre, and each has a distinct play style. In the future we’ll expand the roster with DLC characters, including (gasp!) men.

Thus far, we’ve revealed four characters:

• Filia is an amnesiac schoolgirl playing host to a powerful parasite creature named Samson. Wielding her shape-shifting hair, she’s nimble and excellent with combos.
• Cerebella wields a powerful living hat, Vice-Versa, in her dual jobs as circus performer and Mafia leg-breaker. With a wide range of powerful throws at her disposal, she excels in close combat.
• Peacock is a psychotic biomechanical monstrosity created to destroy the Skullgirl, whose weaponry manifests as murderous cartoon characters and deadly gags. With lots of ranged attacks and a teleport, she’s best when attacking from a distance.
• Parasoul is the princess of the Canopy Kingdom and leader of its elite military force, the Black Egrets. With exceptional attack range, projectiles and strategic command of her soldiers, she’s a formidable opponent.

Each of the characters is 100% hand-animated by our amazing art staff, and features an average of high-resolution 1300 frames per character, the most of any fighting game to date. Furthermore, our engine allows us to get really creative with their coloring, as well as light them in real-time.

Now, all-girl fighting games have a bit of a rep: they’re usually more about showing off their girls than showing off their gameplay. However, just because our cast is entirely female (so far!) doesn’t mean we’re neglecting gameplay: Mike’s primary goal is to make a truly balanced, tournament-worthy fighter by addressing a number of the lingering problems with the genre… but that will have to wait for another blog post.

One last thing…

We’re excited to announce our fifth character exclusively on the PlayStation.Blog!

Her name is Ms. Fortune, and she’s a cat burglar with a penchant for puns. While stealing a powerful life-giving artifact, the Mafia captured her, cut her up and left her for dead on the bottom of the ocean… but the artifact kept her alive through the ordeal, so now she can now detach her head, separate her limbs and generally dismember herself to perform a variety of amusing and grotesque feats of combat.

If you like what you see here, visit our website, Twitter @Skullgirls or “Like” us on Facebook to stay abreast of the latest developments and future public demonstrations.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to fighting you online later this year!