Project NG, The Newgrounds Fighting Game Dojo/Development
Development
Early Development
The earliest info about the game development was on April 25, 2022, when Notakin posted a forum of "A Newgrounds 2D Trad Fighting game." Later on June 6th, 2022, Notakin posted a teaser for their new project for Pico Day which shows Pico stylized as a Neo Geo Pocket Color character. On June 11th, 2022 for Pico Day Notakin announced the project as "Project: NG" and revealed the game is a fighting game featuring Newgrounds characters similar to Newgrounds Rumble but the game plays like a 2D/traditional fighter with everyone from Newgrounds Rumble returning with seven additional fighters. They showed the (old) character select screen (CSS) mockup, character roster, character portraits, and stages.
Trouble Programming Development
The game had a troublesome early development when trying to find a programmer to make the game. The game was originally going to be built in GameMaker Studio 2 (GMS2), with them showing an early prototype of the game built in GameMaker Studio 2. The reason why they chose GMS2 is because they have a copy of the engine. Multiple programmers left the project early in development causing the game to change the engine to "I.K.E.M.E.N GO" on November 15, 2022, which turned out to be better than expected with development going smoothly than before.
Who's Working on the Project
Who's Working On the Project When Project: NG was announced, a bunch of users would ask if they could help with the project. So far matt, Nautical, skyeetee, IGJH, Kardly, Shy Fire, marbardan82, and Yamahearted have volunteered to help with the project and in a Dev Log post in July 30, 2023, Notakin announced REQ, KokoroHatsaru, and RadicalRonik to help with Project: NG development.
Old Dev Log
On June 27th, 2022, they announced the game would be on widescreen and slightly redesigned the CSS screen. On July 18th, 2022, they announced they wanted to remake the old sprites to make them look better. The sprites they changed were Pico, Nene, Samurai Asshole, Tankman, Convict Hank, and Darnell. They also planned to add alt colors to the game, each character will hold up to 10+ different costumes that reference something relating to said character, they showed the alts for Pico and Convict. On September 22, 2022, they released a WIP track for the Nevada stage. After they announced they were going to change the engine on November 15, 2022, they also showed resprites for Alloy and P-Bot. On November 25th, 2022, they revealed a sneak peak of the new Wartorn stage which features a ton of character cameos from the Tankman cartoon series. On Mugen Guild forum post, they posted a forum about "Project: NG (The Newgrounds Fighter)" which revealed new resprites from Henry Stickmin, Tricky the Clown, Darnell, and Meatboy with Hank and Blockhead getting different default color looks only posted on the Mugen Guild forum until reverted to their original look, we were also able to see more of the Wartorn stage with Alloy and P-Bot on it. On December 29, 2022, they announced a ton of resprites/edits of the characters of Pico, P-Bot, Nene, Samurai Asshole, Alien Hominid, Hank, Convict, Fancy Pants Man, Red Knight, Meatboy, Blockhead, and Grunt/Henchman. On February 2, 2023, they posted another sneak peek of the Nevada stage which shows a Grunt bleeding on the floor. On February 4th, 2023, they recap what they got so far and revealed new resprites for Pico, Salad Fingers, and a slight edit of Darnell. On February 27th, 2023, they revealed a resprite for Newgrounds Rumble Piconjo/Buttchamber. On April 27th, 2023, they revealed the new training grid resprite called "The Training Grounds" and revealed the whole Wartorn stage. And on May 6th, 2023 for Pico Day they revealed the new CSS redesign, a new render portrait for Pico, and a idle animation sprite for Pico. On July 30, 2023, Notakin announced they hired a few more people to help with the project, revealed three new sprite animations for Pico and some scrap Pico sprite animations from his old sprite, and revealed the Nelvana stage from Madness Combat with a small teaser of the new stage. On August 5, the Project: NG Twitter account posted another teaser of the next stage they're working on. On September 19, 2023, they revealed another Pico animation sprite shooting from the Uzi/Mac-10. On September 22, 2023, for Madness Day, they revealed Hank's idle animation and on October 1, 2023, they revealed Hank will be the next character they're working with deciding to change Hank's default look and reveal 6 alt colors. They reveal another animation sprite for Pico and decided to keep the name Project: NG despite being a placeholder name because the devs liked the name that they decided to keep but it can still be referred to as the Newgrounds Fighter/Newgrounds Fighting Game, the game was originally called "Newgrounds Rumble Petit." On December 27, 2023, Project: NG early gameplay was revealed showing early gameplay of Pico moveset and combos, the training grid, and a new UI. On December 30, 2023, they decided to upload their first ever "Things of the Whenever" post which was the reveal of parry mechanic being added to the game. The second "Things of the Whenever" post was about the dash mechanic. On February 10, 2024 the Project: NG Twitter account announced they are working on the Windows and Linux versions of the public demo however it's unknown when Mac versions will release since they don't have any plans for the Mac version at the moment unless they have someone with a Mac.
