Dash item tossing and canceled item tossing work for many characters in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, offering massive ground coverage in the blink of an eye. This sort of technology is good to learn, but only sees play in competitive settings when characters who can create items are involved in the match. Peach has her turnips (as well as the rare bombs and Mr. Saturns), Diddy has his banana peel, Mega Man has his metal blade, and Pac-Man has…well, Pac-Man packs a copious amount of chuckable goodies. It’s sort of his thing.
Since each of these items act differently once the Namco rep sends them spiraling skyward, PEPESPAIN’s latest video will help aspiring key flingers make the most of every object.
On top of gaining some interesting stage presence while sliding around, Pac-Man can dole out massive damage and secure ridiculous kills by utilizing this technique. There are also plenty of setups to trap opponents, so check out the guide and see if you can pick up a thing or two.
This week’s installment of Next Level Battle Circuit is now streaming live courtesy of Team Spooky’s Arturo Sanchez. As usual, the event is being broadcast from its namesake, Next Level Arcade, in New York City. Tonight, they’ll be running Ultra Street Fighter IV and Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, featuring some of the best players on the east coast.
If you would like to check out these weekly tournaments, be sure to head on over to Next Level Arcade and take part every Wednesday. The address has been included below.
4013 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11232
The stream is currently live below, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat. Full brackets will be made available through Challonge.
This week’s installment of Next Level Battle Circuit is now streaming live courtesy of Team Spooky’s Arturo Sanchez. As usual, the event is being broadcast from its namesake, Next Level Arcade, in New York City. Tonight, they’ll be running Ultra Street Fighter IV and Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, featuring some of the best players on the east coast.
If you would like to check out these weekly tournaments, be sure to head on over to Next Level Arcade and take part every Wednesday. The address has been included below.
4013 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11232
The stream is currently live below, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat. Full brackets will be made available through Challonge.
After taking last week off, the folks over at VGBootCamp recently went live with another installment of Smash @ Xanadu from Xanadu Games in Baltimore, Maryland. These weekly broadcasts provide a great look at the region’s Smash community, and tonight’s installment will feature competition in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
If you’re interested in some Smash Bros. action, be sure to tune in. The stream is live below, but you can also head on over to Twitch to join the chat.
After taking last week off, the folks over at VGBootCamp recently went live with another installment of Smash @ Xanadu from Xanadu Games in Baltimore, Maryland. These weekly broadcasts provide a great look at the region’s Smash community, and tonight’s installment will feature competition in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
If you’re interested in some Smash Bros. action, be sure to tune in. The stream is live below, but you can also head on over to Twitch to join the chat.
Last month, Level|Up Series’ weekly tournament, Wednesday Night Fights, stepped away from the world of online competition to return to a physical location. That location, the eSports Arena in Santa Ana, California, has housed games ranging from Hearthstone to Counter Strike: Global Offensive, so it’s only appropriate that such a well-known fighting game tournament series would make its mark there.
For those of us too far away from California to attend, and who are therefore perpetually stuck watching the stream, the recent return to a live meetup may not seem like much. Through its foray into the online world, Wednesday Night Fights’ streams maintained the same level of quality that we’ve come to expect from Level|Up, so the view from behind our computer screens has remained largely the same throughout the transitory phases.
In the footage below captured by The Players’ Stories, you’ll get to see a tournament in action, but not any one particular game; instead, you’ll get a look at the event as a whole. You’ll alsoo hear from community members like Level|Up president Alex Valle, streamer Kevin Ha, and commentator James Chen, all of whom discuss what the transition has meant for them and the fighting game community as a whole.
Be sure to tune in to tonight’s streams to catch plenty of high-level fighting action, or, if you’re in the area, head out and throw down in person.
He rarely shows his face on social media. You probably don’t recognize him at a tournament. But Paul “Koogy” Kugler’s brand, Brokentier, is visible in nearly all aspects of the fighting game community, whether it’s the BT tag sported by players like Jay “Viscant” Snyder and Daniel “Clockwork” Maniago, the sponsor logo during a tournament ad break, or that spiffy tee hanging in your closet.
Brokentier crashed the scene in March 2010, and now this grassroots brand founded by a 31-year-old Reno native is now a household name in the community. We recently talked with this entrepreneur about his road to success, sponsorships, starting a business, and more.
Shoryuken: First off, give us a little bit of your fighting game background.
Paul “Koogy” Kugler: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 got me into fighting games. I saw Iceman and his arctic blast super and that was it. Then Guilty Gear XX came out in America, and I got addicted to its mix of footsies from Street Fighter and Marvel’s insane air control. I played with the Reno crew for four to five years and went to a lot of tournaments. We didn’t make big splashes, but I was one of the better Guilty Gear Slash players. I actually won Evo West and managed to beat [Peter “Combofiend” Rosas] at one tournament.
I played until about 2009, and I was more focused on the business at that point. Evo 2009 was going to be my last year. BlazBlue beta was boring. I didn’t think Guilty Gear was ever going to get a new game. I was done. So I talked to [Ben “Tragic” Cureton] about my t-shirt idea and he told me to do Brokentier. Today, I try to play 10 hours a week if I can. It’s hard now. I’m a business person. I’m getting older. I have a wife now. I have life stuff, so gaming is in the backburner. But because I’m in it, I have to put more time back into the scene, making contents and things like that.
SRK: What about graphic design?
PK: I’ve always been an artist making graphic design. I used to make Shoryuken avatars back in the day, but it was always a hobby. I worked in finance. I did title loans. I worked for pawn shops. I repossessed cars. One day, I made graphic designs making fun of fighting games to relieve stress. All these parodies blew up and became big. I actually quit my job a couple of months after just doing that full time.
SRK: What was the initial reception like?
PK: I was and still am an admin on the Dustloop and Shoryuken forums. I would show people designs and people would be like, “Cool, I like or don’t like this design.” And after the first month, I sold a lot more than I thought I would. Then it snowballed. [Mark “MarkMan” Julio] bought the first gold Tiger foil, and he started posting photos and blowing it up with Mad Catz. Seth Killian wore the Air Hyper Viper Beam. Then I made a shirt for [Daigo Umehara]. It was insane.
SRK: It’s funny that you mentioned those avatar topics in the Shoryuken forums. They were hottest things back in the early 2000s.
PK: I still remember my favorite Photoshop guys: PsychoSkrull, even BossLogic. A lot of those guys inspired me by to get into graphic design and to learn the trade. All this other stuff was directly because of these guys pushing the limits of how much art you can fit into a small space–especially with character sprites, because you have to find the right place to put the art and mix it up to make it interesting. It’s a causal thing to most people, but these artists took it to the next level and inspired me. Now people look up to me for graphic design, but I was looking up to these guys as an artist.
SRK: What do you do to keep your skills fresh and up-to-date?
PK: Recently, a big thing for me is trying to learn new programs like Illustrator. [I’ve been] a Photoshop-only guy for the last 10 to 15 years, so I had to learn a lot of new programs. A lot of things I make aren’t public because I don’t think they are good enough. I’ve been learning and drawing a lot of graffiti. I want to do something different. I’m playing with my arts and incorporating more of my style. So it’s a lot more vectors based, a lot more small details, and more branded elements. I;m stripping things away for a less messy, cleaner, adult look.
SRK: It’s good to hear an entrepreneur like you is still trying to reinvent yourself despite the success. How do you choose your designs, and how long does it take to go from concept to reality?
PK: It depends on the timeline. I’ll make a couple designs and sketch them. I’ll spend time thinking about how they’re going to be on the shirt or the audience and the range of it. A lot of the best designs–the Tiger shirt, the Adapt–those came in flashes of brilliance. I’ll be done with them in 20 minutes. I spend a week and a half cleaning it up and making sure all the little details are good.
I used to be stubborn about how I have to be the one that chooses everything. I had to pick every color. If everyone else in the world thinks it’s the best design, I would still trash it. Lately, I’ve been trying to accept critique and making it less of a personal work and more of a collaboration with my fiancée. The longest was the Monster shirt. I commissioned an artist. We went back and forth on the concept for nine months. The ink had to be perfect. The line had to be right
SRK: Near the beginning of the decade, you had Michael “IFC Yipes” Mendoza, Kevin “Dieminion” Landon, Jay “Viscant” Snyder, Daniel “Clockwork” Maniago, and Kyohei “MarlinPie” Lehr. You had some of the best Marvel players around and suddenly, it split. What happened?
PK: This story has been rough for me but I’m over it. For preface, I want to say I love Kevin and Yipes, and we’re still super cool. At the time, I was livid. I was working for my friend’s company. I got a call from an anonymous friend telling me I need to plan for the worst because one of my players will leave, and he’s not going to tell me. And sure enough, Dieminion announces he’s leaving the day after. He didn’t even call me or tell me. I found out through an EventHubs article.
I was blown away, because I spent thousands of dollar sending these players places and getting hotel rooms. I tried to do what I could to take care of my guys. I was sad because I didn’t know what I did. I blamed myself. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I mean, who sells t-shirts and flies players around? There was no r/Kappa. After that, I stopped focusing on the team, because I don’t want that to happen again. Also, my philosophy changed a lot, because it was my first backstab.
I was salty at Kevin for a year. We saw each other at Evo that year in an elevator. He said, “You still hate me? So much that you aren’t talking to me?” I was like, “It’s cool. It’s a business right? What happened was your decision. You made a really bad decision. That’s life, right?” But I didn’t understand at the time that Empire Arcadia meant so much to those guys that they would leave what they had. EMP offered them a lot of crazy shit. From what I heard, some serious numbers were thrown around. It turned out to be bullshit.
SRK: To me, you set the standard of a grassroots sponsorship in the fighting game community. How did you select those players?
PK: This whole sponsorship started because of [Abdulatif “Latif” Alhmili]. I met Latif in the Guilty Gear days. I saw him at ReveLAtion 2011, and he’s like, “I play Street Fighter now.” I was like, “That’s cool. I sell t-shirts now. You want to wear one?” He was like, “Yeah,” and I was like, “You want to wear a lot of t-shirts?” He’s like, “Like getting a sponsorship?” I was like, “Yeha dude, you want to rep Brokentier?” That was it. He got fourth at ReveLAtion, then had this run with C. Viper that whole year and blew up my brand. After that, Razer hit him up. I wanted him to be successful, so I went on building the team up beyond just him.
Yipes got signed because I sponsored West Coast Warzone 3, the event that hosted the infamous Clockwork vs. Neo exhibition. I got an email from Yipes the next day because the commentators were hyping up my ads. We hit it off.
After a couple of months, I was talking to one of my old Reno crew guys about getting Clockwork on the team. I wanted to get more fun players on my team, so I posted on Facebook and Clockwork had just added me two weeks before this. I thought it was a sign. So I decided to throw a little effort and asked people on Twitter who I should sponsor next. Clock was the only person who hit me up.
After that, I took a break from sponsoring, and I looked to the two players I liked the most from their playstyle and personality. I tried to contrast it with Yipes and Clockwork. And because I got a New York guy and a SoCal guy, I thought I should pick people that were close to each other so they could make contact and go to tournaments together. It’d be easier to coordinate. So I looked at Jay Viscant. He’s the best writer in the scene. He understands fighting games on another level, and he knows how to explain them. I offered it to him, and he was in 100%.
Dieminion was a friend of Yipes. Obviously, Dieminion and Yipes go back. I talked to Yipes about it. I loved his Guile play. I loved his Marvel play. He’s the best lame guy. And he’s mysterious. Dieminion is really quiet. He had a different persona back in the day before the stream monsters blew him up into this racist joke. It used to be “Dieminion the Wall.” You could not beat the wall. That guy’s defense was impeccable. I had to take him on.
MarlinPie was signed at the last Season’s Beating tournament. He was off Always Godlike and was bummed. I’ve known him a long time. We were rival Slayers, because he was the best east coast Slayer and I was the best west coast Slayer. So he was kind of the fun, reliving my old school days player.
As for [Armando “Angelic” Mejia], I met him at a Marvel tournament and beat his ass. He was hungry and wanted to be on the team. And I was like, “I have so many gods on my team, guys who have been in the scene forever, and you are not there yet.” Then he got third at Evo 2013. He worked so hard getting his team up to where he could beat gods. He joined shortly after.
[Samantha “Persia” Hancock] was in the works for a long time. When I first signed Yipes, she was there. She visited my house with him for a few weeks and we chilled. She was always interested in helping. Every time I asked for help in anything, she’s always the first one. So she became the team manger after a while, booking flights, helping with the team, rallying the team who had all different kinds of communication, expediting things to help me focus on the business. She’s such a hard worker.
SRK: You have a recognized brand, but your personal life isn’t as public as other notable members of the fighting game community. Why’s that?
PK: We live in a generation where everyone wants to be seen and heard. I don’t think there’s a photo of me on the Internet. I don’t think any fighting game players know who I am other than the guy who runs Brokentier–and I like that. I don’t want to be known. I want to be a guy that does stuff because it’s fun. The only way you know me is when you see my stupid avatar on Twitter. If you see me at tournaments and know what I look like, that’s cool. But I can walk through a tournament and nobody would know who I am except the top dogs–and that’s cool.
SRK: What advice do you have for upcoming entrepreneurs venturing into the scene?
PK: Just do it. You are going to suck and you are going to fail. It’s just like a fighting game. Business is just learning how to play a character and learn how to play the game. You got to learn the basic rules. You got to learn your restrictions on what you can and can’t do. Then you just go. But there’s the time you have to commit. You have to put in a good year before you understand what you are doing. It took me nine months before I started Brokentier. I had all these ideas, I tweaked them, and they weren’t good until I fought off all the bad ideas. I stopped dropping inputs.
You guys will suck for a while. Don’t bet the bank on it. It can potentially fail. You are taking a risk when you go into business. You are spending money on something that can lead to nothing. But you can also be putting time and money into a fulfilling life. A lot of these guys, Tragic, Omni, Mike Zaimont, they went along and became legends; and you start by applying your interests and learn more about it.
There are classes you can take to be an entrepreneur. You can sell one t-shirt a month and that’s being an entrepreneur. It can be a hobby. You don’t have to get a degree to be a business owner. A lot of people think the only way you can be successful in life is getting straight As, going to college, getting a degree and a tons of debt, and working a miserable job. But there’s also the possibility that your interest and hobby can lead to a successful life if you are smart about it and focus.
On a personal level: I was a total screw-up before I got into fighting game scene. I was at the bottom of my class in high school. I played video games the whole time. I never went to college. And this worked. But I realize now that it’s not necessarily the best path. So my philosophy is, “Get your own shit. Get your side hustles going.” Look at [Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez]. He makes contents all the time. Maximilian. He was a random Street Fighter IV scrub, but that guy made and put so much time into content. He was consistent.
If there’s one quote I want to contribute, it’s from this guy named Bobby Hundreds. He runs a clothing company, The Hundreds. He talked about his success and he said, “I was just a kid who blogged every single day, once a day. I formed a community off of that.” The only thing that was successful about him was he was consistently consistent. He kept doing the same thing, tweaking it along the way, and building it up like a snowball. Over time, that snowball will get very big and out of control.
SRK: Anything else you want to add?
PK: Shoutout to Tragic for inspiring me and helping me realize my potential. Shoutout to [Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar]. He gives me an opportunity to sponsor his event every year. I can’t tell you how much that means. Like I said, fighting games changed my life, improved me dramatically as a person. Shoutout to the team, the scene, people getting into it, and people being there from the beginning. I want everyone to have fun.
Money is cool and all. I can say that because I’m a business person. It’s exciting putting a team together, doing fun things, and using the money I make to contribute and give back to what made my life more interesting. But everyone needs to realize that we are trailblazing. In 10 to 15 years, we’ll have this ceremony. We are in this ride together, and we should have fun in it. I don’t know what’ll happen, but I certainly hope I’m still designing for it.
In a game as varied as Killer Instinct, learning the unique options available to your character of choice (or the opponent’s, for that matter) can mean the difference between dominating a match and finding yourself a round down. Luckily for all you budding combo breakers out there, a group of players recently joined forces on a brand new series devoted to exploring these intricacies.
Of course, you’ll be bombarded with jokes and non-sequiturs just as often as gameplay details thanks to Geoff the Hero’s involvement, but that doesn’t mean the video below isn’t full of useful information. With the help of Infil and bastfree, Geoff covers ARIA’s vortex and mixup options as well as how to make use of her Instinct drones, armor crush, and more.
Geoff, Infil, and bastfee plan to put together similar videos for each Killer Instinct character, so stay tuned for more. In the meantime, let us know if you learned anything new in the comments.
With the holidays in full swing, Steam has joined the festivities by marking down a number of titles for their Autumn Sale. Thanks to the growing presence of fighting games on PC, you can now pick up numerous one-on-one (or two-on-two, three-on-three, and so on) releases at discounted prices.
Some, like indie fighters Divekick and Skullgirls, have seen the steepest reductions, but you’ll also find decent sales on Ultra Street Fighter IV, Mortal Komat X, King of Fighters XIII, and more. The whole group has been collected in the table below, along with selected downloadable content.
These sales will be available until December 1. Let us know what you plan to pick up!
With the holidays in full swing, Steam has joined the festivities by marking down a number of titles for their Autumn Sale. Thanks to the growing presence of fighting games on PC, you can now pick up numerous one-on-one (or two-on-two, three-on-three, and so on) releases at discounted prices.
Some, like indie fighters Divekick and Skullgirls, have seen the steepest reductions, but you’ll also find decent sales on Ultra Street Fighter IV, Mortal Komat X, King of Fighters XIII, and more. The whole group has been collected in the table below, along with selected downloadable content.
These sales will be available until December 1. Let us know what you plan to pick up!
