Gay Fridge (Rework)
Date: July 4th-July 20th, 2021
Roles: Animator, Programmer, Trailer Producer
Mod Game: Rivals of Aether
Genre: Platformer, Fighting
Engine: GameMaker Studio 2
Summary: A major update to Gay Fridge that enhances their animation quality and refines their moveset with the addition of new moves and options out of their Down Special flag!
Development Experience
Gay Fridge is easily my best received work. They're a silly meme character on the surface, but with a ton of love and passion poured into every aspect of their design. Competitively, however, they were very lacking; their animations were very rough around the edges, and what was intended to be an all-rounder turned into more of a dysfunctional zoner. So, I figured I'd give Gay Fridge some TLC with a new update.
The first major change I made was swapping Forward Air with its flagless variant, turning the move into a short-but-fast weak combo tool that can chain into itself multiple times. Next, I reworked the physics on Neutral Special, not only bouncing Fridge back when the projectile fires, but also allowing the player to wavebounce the attack. Then, Forward Special was changed from a simple tackle to a dashing command grab that spits the opponent out after it connects.
The last major change to Gay Fridge was the addition of a completely new way to pick up Down Special's flag - their aerials! Picking up the flag with an aerial empowers the attack depending on the aerial used. This was ultimately where I moved the flagged variant of Forward Air to, buffing its power in the process. I also simplified Down Air, turning the stall n' fall version of the attack into its enhanced variant. Afterwards, the remaining changes were all visual updates to the rest of their kit, including full reanimations of some attacks, plus a colorful custom kill screen effect.
This update has been my biggest success on Workshop thus far! Gay Fridge is now a mainstay in pretty much every Workshop tournament, and they've even been included in Genesis 9, a major offline fighting game tournament. The future looks bright for this homosexual piece of hardware, and we're only just getting started!
New Portrait
Big Hit VFX
Adjusted Forward Strong
Empowered Down Air (Reanimated Old DAir)
Reanimated Up Tilt
New Forward Special
Reanimated Back Air
New Forward Air
Empowered Forward Air (Adjusted Old FAir)
Adjusted Forward Tilt
