Hi everyone, Nantendo here. As Source Gaming has continued to grow we have opened ourselves up to allow guest and fan-made content on our website. Articles like the featured content, the cross content and the guests posts are all categories on the site that show this. Sometimes, we receive a lot of requests for the latter. Unfortunate not everything we receive is up to par. Sometimes the article just does not fit our site, and some times the article is pretty much nonsensical. One of the types of articles people really seem to enjoy are the ‘Dream‘ series of articles, especially Dream Smashers were I analyze a character, give that character’s history and outline how they might play based on the criteria that Sakurai uses himself when designing his own characters. A lot of these design decisions you can find on Source Gaming already. This is what I personally feel makes Dream Smashers stand out from most of the generic forum character posts, where some people try and make an idolized, or uninspired moveset for the character whose agenda they wish to push. As an important note, please only submit Video Game characters as they are the only ones we KNOW can get into Smash. Once in a while however, I find a character moveset or someone submits one to me that is just perfect and I know I cannot do better myself. When they submit the character to us for the site though, the way it has all been formatted and presented just does not match-up with what we have been trying to do on Source Gaming. It just does not have enough pictures, not structured well or completely ignores all the character history sections. So today’s article hopes to serve as guidelines for future submissions to ensure the article can be accepted. NOTE: General guidelines for guest posting can be read here.
Please bear in mind that if you have already made the moveset and showed it of somewhere else like on Smashboards or YouTube then we will not accept it for a Guest Post. We are looking for original content for the site. Following these same lines, if you submit a moveset to us then don’t always expect it to go through exactly as you wanted. We have strict guidelines and if you are not able to take some criticism then do not bother submitting anything.
Dream Smashers Guidelines
Introduction: Give a summary of the character and/or series that will be covered today.
Who is ‘Character’?: You need to start by just saying what this character’s gimmick is (i.e. Rosalina: Puppet master) and what niche they fill on the roster (i.e. Ike = Burly swordsman). This will be expanded upon later. Give a summary/history of who your character is. Write about their personality. If they have any special alts that are completely new characters (i.e. Olimar and Alph) then include a bit on that character as well.
Importance to Nintendo/Series: Start with a paragraph on why this character is important to their respective series and why they would make more sense over the other characters. If they represent an important part of that series then mention that here as well.
Next discuss the importance of that character to Nintendo. If they are not that important but are the only suitable candidate for their series then mention why that series is important to Nintendo instead and why it ‘deserves’ a place in Smash.
How will they play?: This is the main part of your article and will be the longest. We can provide sprites of the character for the alts, but start by talking about the characters general design. If the alts reference anything in particular then mention it here. If the character has been given a redesign (i.e. Pit) or had something added to their design for Smash (i.e. ZS Samus’ rocket heels) then mention it in this section.
Next is the stats which follow this grading:
A+ = 10
A = 9
B+ = 8
B = 7
C+ = 6
C = 5
D+ = 4
D = 3
E+ – = 2
E = 1
Note: for speed E is slowest, For height it is smallest, For weight it is lightest.
It should be laid out like this:
- Can they crawl:
- Can they wall jump:
- How many jumps do they have:
- Is there any exclusive abilities they have*:
- Weight Class:
- Height Class:
- Speed Class:
- Are they mirrored when they faces left:
*i.e. Peach’s float
Next go into written detail about these stats if you wish or anything needs clarifying (like the exclusive ability or why they have more than 2 jumps).
After this you need to mention what makes this character unique to smash. Elaborate on the character’s gimmick and how it would be used in Smash. If they have anything special like Little Mac’s Power meter then mention it in this section.
Finally it is the animations and moves themselves. Please provide pictures or gifs whenever possible.
Remember that in Source Gaming we don’t just accept any moveset. It really has to feel like something that would work in Smash but also something Sakurai himself would make. I recommend looking at any Smash character who may be closest to one you are doing and consider why they act like this from a game design perspective. Why did Sakurai make them like this? I have seen a lot of movesets online that really don’t make sense in Smash or for that character (i.e. a moveset where Dixie uses her guitar from DKC2. It probably wouldn’t happen). All movesets will be submitted to Nantendo before being accepted onto the site.
Start with the Entrance animation and then do general animation like Idle, running, jumping ,etc.
Next do the jabs, dash and tilt attacks, followed by smash attacks, then aerials and then grabs.
Now onto the specials. Ideally provide customs for this section as well. Go in the order of standard, side, up and down. Then finally do the Final Smash.
The last part you need to do is taunts and victory animations, closing out with what the victory fanfare might be.
Make sure to add an outro/conclusion on the end and then everything will be ready to submit to us via Twitter.
I look forward to seeing some of the potential future Dream Smashers I know you all have the skills to provide.
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For a moveset where the specials are a big part of the moveset and provide context for other moves (e.g. a minion that can be hit by different moves for different effects), would it be fine to swap the move order a bit so that specials come before the standard attacks? They are often quite important to the rest of the moveset after all.
I’ll probably be submitting a few movesets, I’ve had a lot of ideas over the years. I also can’t wait for future articles! 🙂
Yes that is ok. If the specials affect the standard moves then you can put the specials first after the animations.
What if its a purely hypothetical character as it doesnt have any relation with Nintendo at all?
What do you mean? A 3rd party character? Or an original character?
Like for example a movie character
We would rather not movie characters. Video game characters only please.
Thanks for this article, I’ve actually been working on an article like this for a while now that I was planning on submitting as a guest article. It still needs a lot of work, but this will certainly help format it much better. I hope you’ll like it when it’s finished, ’cause a lot of work is going into it!
I’ve always been a fan of these articles and I’ve looked at them for something I want to do myself with a character I personally really like (Ezio – Assassin’s Creed franchise) so I’ll keep this in mind when I get around to doing my thing. I’m honestly not familiar with Rayman and his franchise to visualize what kind of move set which would make him both distinct enough in comparison to the other fighters in Smash and video gaming in general, and how it compares to how I believe Ezio could be.