Gay Fridge
Date: July 4th-July 20th, 2021
Roles: Animator, Programmer Trailer Producer
Mod Game: Rivals of Aether
Genre: Platformer, Fighting
Engine: GameMaker Studio 2
Summary: Gay Fridge is a slow but powerful heavyweight with a randomized food projectile and a trade-off stage control gimmick that sacrifices your ranged moves for better mobility.
Development Experience
The idea for this project actually came to me back in late June, when one of my friend in the Rivals of Aether community posted a picture of their fridge at work, which had a Pride flag slapped onto it. I then made the mention of "what if Gay Fridge was a character," and it all devolved from there.
After having made Darc Sharc, I wanted my next project to be a LOT smaller in scope. Thus, Gay Fridge was simple enough where I was able to handle the majority of the programming for the character. I still got some additional help from McDucky (the person who helped me program Darc Sharc) when it came to the randomized projectile and stage control gimmicks, but everything else in Gay Fridge's kit was done by me. The real challenge of making Gay Fridge was animating them in a way that reads well as a fighting game character, given they're a simple inanimate object. I think the final product animation-wise turned out well, but it's still a criticism the character receives to this day.
Gay Fridge thus far has been a resounding success. A character like this is always gonna be divisive when it comes to Steam reviews, as they tend to attract homophobic comments and negative ratings, but in general, the Workshop community has accepted Gay Fridge with open arms. The character is legal in both of the major Workshop brackets (Blueberry Bout and Workshop Weeklies), and they've also been selected for Heatwave 2021 - a supermajor Rivals of Aether event happening in November this year.
Victory Portrait
Forward Aerial
Forward Strong
Neutral Aerial
Down Strong
Down Special Cold Aura
Up Aerial
Down Tilt
