A little over a week ago, development on Anthem began. Anthem is a game idea I had about 13 years ago in 1992, after playing Double Dragon 3 and other such beat em ups (I was late in getting an NES). Greatly influenced by the depth of Street Fighter II, I wondered why action games tending to favor a single attack button with only a few attacks when fighting games had such a large handful. Couldn't an action game have the same level of action?

From there I started drawing out levels and characters. Fast forward to 2005. 2D was all but replaced by 3D games, and still no one had really made the great fighting action game I had envisioned. At this time cool action games were starting to really come about though, such as Devil May Cry 3, God of War, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones... but all in 3D. I love 3D, but what about our old friend 2D? Well, by now I had been tinkering with Flash for a little over 2 years. I created a basic platforming engine and did some rough sprites for a game called Anthem (the title was suggested by the game's story backbone Mr. Trent Cantrell). I only posted the demo on a friend's forum (who happened to be Dan Paladin, aka synj, creator of Alien Hominid), but it got the attention of a few others. Being merely a quick proof of concept with no real graphics to speak of, I was amazed at the reaction. People really have been wanting a crazy 2D action fighting game, just like me!

That engine I made ended up being used for Wink: the Game, a popular Flash game in its own right, but not Anthem everyone was hoping for. School and projects got in the way, and now it's 2007, two years after I made the Anthem engine, and 2, almost 3 versions of Flash later (Flash 9 alpha is out, which is Flash 8 with AS3 support). While able to code decently, it was time Anthem was programmed by someone who really loved programming, and could get the job done as fast as I whip out sprites. Enter Matthew Bush, aka skatehead. He's relatively new in the world of Flash game programming, with only a couple games under his belt, but he's got what it takes to handle a complex fighting engine with some of the craziest combos you'll ever see.

And just so you know, I wouldn't believe me either. Some random guy on the Internet saying he's going to make a really awesome Flash game to rival the classic 2D games and most 3D action games? You aren't going to believe me, as you shouldn't! It's not responsible. I'm going to have to prove it.

So, no promises made, but hopefully in about two months, Anthem is going to knock your socks off. If you aren't wearing socks, put some on, and get ready for them to fly right back off. I plan to use this blog as a developer diary, with screenshots and the like. I know no one's really reading, so if you have read this much, thank you.

Check out my website for some games I've made in the past.