In Development Smash Retro (A Super Smash Bros. Fan Game built in Unity)

Hello, everyone! As the title has already given indication of, I am currently developing a Super Smash Bros. fan game in Unity. This project is a celebration of video games and their characters from the era of the Nintendo 64 and earlier. The hope of this fan game is to have a roster of 30+ characters and at least as many stages, with gameplay reminiscent of the mainline Super Smash Bros. titles and visuals that evoke a sense of nostalgia (if you enjoy the Nintendo 64 visual style, that is).

You might be saying to yourself, "Jester, that's far too much for one person to handle! How in the world do you plan to make that happen?" The answer is simple: One step at a time. Though I have big goals for this project, I keep my eyes on fulfilling what I know needs to be done for the next build of the game (or at the moment, the first build). I've made checklists of everything that needs to be done for the current in-progress version of the game, and I work on checking those off. Once I finish that list, it's time to release the build and make a list for the next build. Rinse and repeat until the game is done. Will it take a while? Absolutely. But by keeping realistic goals for each release version, I am certain I can eventually complete this game. Version 0.0.1a is already well underway, with all of the models needed for the build already completed (and showcased below), well over half of the necessary textures and materials finished and implemented, a number of animations from a sizable list done (honestly, this is the part of this project that has and will continue to require the greatest amount of work), and a solid chunk of the necessary scripting already written out.

A few things to note:
- Smash Retro is not a ROMhack or Mod of any existing Super Smash Bros. game. It is a fan game built with Unity game development software completely from scratch. Every 3D model was made by hand, one vertex at a time, and every texture drawn similarly, one pixel at a time.

• The goal of this fangame is not to "outshine" any official SSB game, nor to recreate the exact experience to be had in any of those games. Rather, the goal is for this project to be both a learning experience for myself and something fun for fans to enjoy.
• The roster size will be kept to something I am comfortable with being capable of creating, with the target being roughly 30-35 characters. If I feel other characters would be feasible, I may extend the roster to a larger size, but should not exceed 50-60 characters at most.
• To further keep my options to a more reasonable pool, and to keep to the concept hinted at in the title of the project, the characters represented in the roster will be restricted to those who originated in a video game that was released prior to September 2001 (the month that the Nintendo Gamecube released). I am not restricting the options to exclusively Nintendo characters, though that will be where the majority of characters originate from.
• The roster is not yet finalized, as part of the inclusion of characters is dependent on my ability to write the code relating to those characters. Characters who have extensive and complicated gimmicks (such as Ice Climbers) may prove to be too much of a challenge, and may be cut from the roster if I feel I cannot reasonably recreate their functionality.
• I am willing to listen to suggestions for character inclusions, provided those suggestions fall within the above criteria I have set for the project above. Stages and music will also follow similar criteria, though I have been somewhat less organized with those goals at this point in the project. If you would like to suggest a character(s), I ask that you please check this list before requesting, as there are 90+ characters already up for consideration, and your suggestion may be among them. Characters highlighted in blue are currently in the project, those highlighted in green are currently most likely to be included in the future, those highlighted in yellow have a moderate chance at inclusion, and those highlighted in red have a low (but still nonzero) chance at inclusion. (Please note that based on the above roster size limitation that not all characters on this list can make it into the final project.)
• The project is not ready for release just yet, as I still have a number of animations to make and I still have to complete a few scripts. I hope to have at least an early release sooner than later, but game dev can be unpredictable (especially seeing as I am a solo dev building this game in my spare time), so I will update this post when I feel I can more confidently predict a release date.

Goals for the Version 0.0.1a Release

• 4 Playable Characters (Mario, Link, Kirby, Pikachu)
• 8 to 12 Palette Swaps per character
• 1 to 2 Playable Stages (Battlefield, Final Destination)
• Items will not be included in this build (Exception: Link's Bomb)
• One Play Mode and Rules Set (VS Mode, Stock Elimination)
• Basic, Unleveled CPU Controller
• ***Physics may not be finalized in this build

Now for showing a bit more of the fun stuff...

CHARACTERS​

Spoiler: CHARACTERS

The following characters are currently included in the project:

MARIO​

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LINK​

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KIRBY​

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PIKACHU​

STAGES​

Spoiler: STAGES

The following stages are currently included in the project:

BATTLEFIELD​

CREDITS​

Spoiler: CREDITS

These will be updated as more is added to the game.

VOICES
Nobuyuki Hiyama - Link
Charles Martinet - Mario
Makiko Ohmoto - Kirby
Ikue Otani - Pikachu
Jester252 - Announcer

ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGNS
Masahiro Sakurai - Kirby
Shigeru Miyamoto - Mario, Link
Atsuko Nishida, Satoshi Tajiri - Pikachu

SUPER SMASH BROS. ORIGINAL CONCEPT
Masahiro Sakurai
Satoru Iwata

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Jester252

PROGRAMMING
Jester252

Special Thanks to The VG Resource and all its staff for creating a hub with so many helpful resources that served as invaluable reference material in the development of this project.

Made in Unity

If you're interested in helping with this project, or if you'd like more moment-to-moment updates, feel free to check out my Discord Server, where you will find this project among other projects by myself and other server members.

 

[JesterT252]

Fixed broken images in first post. Weird that they broke in the first place, but they appear to be working on my end now at least

 

[JesterT252]

I'm going to try to post weekly progress reports here just to keep everything up-to-date. Then I will try to update the first post once a month to reflect said progress reports. So without further ado...

PROGRESS REPORT 8/13/2025​

For the majority of the last week, I have not been at home to work inside of Unity on things like scripts and animations (Unity is installed on my desktop, but not my laptop), so while some small amount of progress has been made on those fronts, most of the progress I've made has had to be things I can do on my laptop.

Music​

I've started work on the music for this game. It is not yet complete, but if all goes well, I should be able to share something more on that front next time I post one of these reports.

Bosses​

The first boss model has been made: Master Hand. And it's quite easy to turn this model into Crazy Hand as well by simply scaling its X axis to -1, so I suppose it can be seen as a 2-for-1 in a sense.

Stages​

Final Destination is nearly ready! The model for the stage is made, textured, and animated (a couple of the textures may yet change). The background is still not yet prepared, as backgrounds for Final Destination have a tendency to be complex, and I intend for this one to be much the same. I may end up making a simple starry background for the first release of the game, as much as I'd like to do more.

Items​

Sprites for a number of items have been made, and one model (Fire Flower) has been finished. The goal with these is to keep them as simple as possible, as the hope is that this game can be played effectively on a "Potato PC". Not sure there will be enough ready when I release the first version to warrant their inclusion, but they'll be in the game at some point, at the very least.

Bonus​

Here's an appropriately-styled model I designed for R.O.B. before I began properly developing the game. R.O.B. is one of four such character models that fit that descriptor, and for each of these four characters, I hope to be able to make them playable at some point in the future, but if any of them ends up not working out for one reason or another, I will make it my personal goal to make assist trophies for each of them. These are definitely not something I want to let go to waste, but for now, they'll be added to the end of each progress report as a bonus over the next few weeks.

And that's all I have to share for this week! Until next week, farewell!