Indie Smash: The Ultimate Indie Crossover Game - Build the Roster

For years now I've dreamed of someone making the perfect Indie Crossover fighting game. And we've gotten close, but nothing ever felt right. So today on Build the Roster I'm assembling the greatest cast of characters from Indie Games ever to imagine how great it would be if they came together to brawl.

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0:00 - Intro
1:41 - What is Indie Smash?
6:26 - How Many Characters and Who Counts?
11:35 - The Roster First Half
32:55 - The Roster Second Half
54:46 - Assist Characters
1:07:20 - Stages
1:17:31 - Finale

[TheBurkissWay]

No matter who's in this game, we need the trailer to be narrated by the Stanley Parable voice.

[tjackknife]

“Sora in Smash Bros? That’s just crazy talk!”
Boy how well that joke comment aged LOL!

[rubberduckproductions]

To everyone talking about fraymakers, he addressed it on a twitch stream, he knows about it but wanted to make this video anyways.

[travisshumway]

"Rivals of Aether doesn't really have a face"

Orcane: *sad whale noises*

[TheOnlyTDdamediaman]

"The Goose doesn't want to fight anyone."
A Canadian Goose on the other hand wants to fight everyone.

[travisshumway]

People really just straight up forgot Hotline Miami existed, huh? I mean it released to critical praise, won multiple awards, has fantastic gameplay, great music, an engaging story, and an iconic main character, and yet I barely see people talk about it. It makes me a little sad.

[metamaster]

Thorgi: I just couldn't think of a way to make Untitled Goose and Freddy Fazbear work in a Smash Bros style game.

BrawlFan1: Allow me to introduce myself.

[matheusvasiliauskassoares]

Finally someone who acknowledges Guacamelee, everyone talks about Undertale, Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight and so on as their favorites when it comes to indie games. But Guacamelee is my personal favorite and I'm glad to find someone who also appreciates it.

[MHSchonberg]

43:50
Just a quick correction here - Shantae was never a Nintendo character. She’s always been created and owned by Wayforward, even back on the GBC. The confusion of if she’s indie or not comes with some people thinking she was a CAPCOM character... but they only PUBLISHED the first Shantae game, they had no hand in creating or funding it, hence why the game was released so late in the GBC’s lifecycle - the game was finished, but Wayforward had a hard time finding someone who would publish a GBC game with an expensive 32 megabit battery.
Long story short, Shantae is 100% indie!
Beyond that, this is an absolutely awesome video as usual. I really think a massive indie crossover of this caliber would be incredible to see - the characters, the movesets, the MUSIC! It makes me want to get rich just to fund it.

[ellolired]

I think we could add Reimu from Touhou Project to the roster. It's been around since 1996, it's absolutely MASSIVE in Japan and still to this date, the mainline games are made ENTIRELY by just ONE dude, it's creator, Jun'ya Ota, better known as ZUN.

Touhou Project has been the inspiration to a TON of indie developers, not only in the videogame industry, but also art, anime, and specially music. But perhaps what might shock you the most is that Touhou was one of the main inspirations behind Undertale. Toby is a big Touhou fan, and his music was inspired by the way ZUN composes his music. They even hang out together from time to time.

Touhou might not be that well known on the western side of the world, but it is still fairly big, with many large conventions all about it every year. Touhou fans are everywhere, we are just kinda an underground community.

[shellyvision]

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion would be a great stage. Imagine the Specimens as stage hazards, who would be signaled by a change in music, and then they'd try to kill you. Also Spooky being in the background and saying something every once in a while would be cool.

[mrspiffy]

"Goose doesn't have any fighting abilities"
*Looks at BrawlFan1*
*Looks at Rivals of Aether workshop*
Sure

[agenthappypotato]

Ngl I think it would be hilarious to have a Build the Roster episode dedicated to making a crossover dating sim game

Edit: imagine if it was a Valentine's Day special. Monika would be an obvious mastermind, but could you imagine non-dating sim characters in this? Would be hilarious to see people like Samus being frustrated that she can't just blast her way out of her situation and has to abide by visual novel rules

[DeathAlchemist]

So happy you mention thems fighting herds and helltaker. Some of the characters I would want are Reimu from Tohou, Madotsuki from Yumme Niki, Frisk from Undertale, Dust from Dust: Dust an Elysian Tale, the knights from castle crashers, Brad Armstrong from Lisa, the Stranger from Furi, Niko from Oneshot, the Batter from Off, Iji from Iji, Raz from Psychonauts, Wayne from Hylics, or one of the countless characters from visual novels (like uminkeo) or flash games (Pico Schoo, Chainsaw the children, Friday Night Funkin' etc). Freddy Fazbear and the hooded figure from Journey would make good assists. The home screen of hypnospace and Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion would also make good stages.

If I had to offer a critique though I don't think you should limit yourself to characters who are "fighters". Smash has demonstrated that they don't need to be combatants to be playable (Villager, Wii-Fit Trainer, Duck Hunt, etc). They could have exaggerated movements that do damage like Phoenix Wright. If you want to include a dating sim character, I say go for it. Also, might just be me but I would love for you to go in-depth on everything else. I loved how much passion you put into the initial MVC 4 video. Like obviously you don't need to do that for every video because it would take way too much work, but if you ever want to revisit the finer points of these hypothetical games in a part 2 I definitely wouldn't complain.

[EverydayGuy]

I’m surprised Touhou didn’t have any representation in this hypothetical game, considering its practically the most iconic indie game series in japan, and has been part of internet culture since the early-mid 2000’s. Besides that, I’d love to see a part 2 to this elaborating on the dlc line up
Edit: If I could modify the roster, I’d put Reimu in place of Crow. Then just make Crow the arcade final boss like what Indie Pogo did. Hell, if there was a story mode to this game, Crow could be the main reason all the universes in this game crossed over, like how its implied that in Playstation all stars, Polygon man brought all the characters together because he was salty that they were better playstation mascots than he was

[Dipwad_Omega]

I cried when I saw Miriam get mentioned, Bloodstained is so underappreciated 😭

[SoloWing]

No touhou? It was a touchstone of internet culture for several decades, and even showed up on the news. It was shown wrong but still. Touhou even has several fighting games

[winterdragon]

When you were describing the Limbo stage I for a split second thought you were talking about the Art museum from IB, which made me realize the lack of RPGmaker horror games in this video. I realize that they are an even more niche subgenre of indie games, but their still indie games at the end of the day with a very passionate community, so it would have nice to see some representation in the form of a few stages, like the Mansion from Mad Father, or the trippy Dreamscape in Yume Nikki. They could play a similar role as the Pictochat or Endoplankton stages in Smash: incredibly niche thing that have no business having fighters, but still manages to be represented for the few passionate and in the know about it.

[seanmiller]

Hasbro: We don't want our characters fighting each other. That's why every season finale has DBZ style fights

[scotthyland]

I can just imagine the potential story mode. Crow looks across the Multiverse, and decides to up the anty of his villainy by taking over multiple universes at once, and to do so seeks out the mcguffin. But when he finds it, it turns out to be alive and takes his body over. From there it starts to mess with reality, causing worlds to either get linked or collide, and even bring back dead villains like The Radiance and Enchantress, continuing the chaos. From there we get multiple scenes in the story like Ori and Knight making their way out of Hallownest, Zagreus being led by Beheaded out of a dungeon, Miriam meeting Shovel Knight and commenting on how he looks familiar, Fillia getting attacked by Risky Boots and teaming up with Shantae and much more. At the end, when the being has been purged from Crow, in one last act of desperation, starts drawing the previous bosses and itself into Tartarus, and uses the energy there to create a new form with elements of the bosses, such as Radiance's wings and Pirate King's skull head.