Project Description

INKTOBER 52 2024 Week #24: KNOCKOUT.

“It was basically impossible to avoid referencing my favorite fighting game of all time, ‘Tekken’, for this prompt. This specific illustration is based on a screen shot I found of Jin absolutely decking Hworang. It was very dynamic and cool, so I just had to use it as reference. I have played and been a fan of the franchise since the original game was in my college campus arcade in the mid to late 90s. It had a pretty simple concept of one button controlling one limb (two punch buttons, two kick buttons), but the real fun came from all the different combination strikes each character had, as well as unique grabs and throws. One of the great things about it was some of the martial arts were grounded in reality. I still remember being stupidly excited when in one iteration of the game I recognized one of the karate-based characters performing a kata that I knew in a cutscene. Each character was pretty unique, not just in appearance, but the way they moved, too. I took great pleasure in battling through the various game modes to unlock each character’s cinematic cutscene, which furthered each fighter’s story from game to game.
I love the original cast of characters as well as all the new additions in each installment (even though I find many of them very annoying to match up against while playing). My nerd dream is to have Plunger Monkey be a playable character in the franchise one day (he would need to get a lot more famous first, though). Over the years, ‘Tekken’ has included a wide variety of non-human and ‘guest’ characters from other games or intellectual properties. There was Roger the kangaroo, complete with a joey in his pouch that also punched when Roger did. There was Alex the velociraptor. Gon the dinosaur appeared in one of the games, too. There’s also some history of characters being able to change into another physical form mid-fight, like Kazuya becoming Devil Kazuya. So, having PMD show up wouldn’t be too out of character for the game. I’d envision him being a cross between a Shotokan fighter (the karate style I have practiced since 1995) and Yoda from ‘Attack of the Clones’, with the ability to ‘hulk out’ and become his larger, angrier alter-ego Gorilla Monkey Dynamo. And since some characters have weapons or projectiles, maybe he could wield a plunger or a squid or something for certain moves.
I think I need to make a PMD fighting game.”

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