Fortresses of Light



Fortresses of Light is a umbrella fighting game created by Toroko for the Infinite Content program. It is a platform fighter that has several different gimmicks that can be added or subtracted to the fight, all appearing from previous fighting games that Toroko has done such as the MXP Graph system, Antiblaze system, and the Kingdoms of Fighters team system. The game's characters are designed to be more simplistic in the vein of how Smash-style games usually work and feature a generally large roster, as opposed to Antiblaze which featured movesets that were more akin to character action games. It differs from Kingdoms of Fighters and it's sequel in that it is a platform fighter and lacks that game's MAX Mode system.

Reveal Trailer
Miles Morales looks over the city line, which pans up to reveal dozens of light beams across the New York skyline. Flinging off the glass window of a building as shards fall down to the floor, Miles heads towards the source of the light as the camera pans across the water to focus on Wii Fit Trainer and K', who touch down onto the ground. A beam of light slams into opposite side of the water to have Mario, Luigi, and Rosalina appear from the radiance. Miles swings onto a abandoned factory building that is blasting light beams as a roar can be heard, revealing Galeem hooked up to various machines manned by Dr. Olivia Octavius, who attacks the camera with her tentacles as the screen fades to black before flashing with a brilliant light that turns into the logo: Fortresses of Light.

Finisher Trailer
Miles Morales, Wii Fit Trainer, and K' stare off into the New York city skyline before seeing more beams of light slam into the New York city ground. Peach, Mirania, B. Jenet, Mai Shiranui all appear as Mario and Sonic are locked into a battle before Mario launches off a set of twin fireballs at Sonic, which Sonic barely dodges. Tails flies over the skyline to see more beams of light touching down, with Finn, Jake, DJ Candy, Bella Goth, and a confused Glover emerging from the light. A roar can be heard as Reptflux attacks Time Square, with Mario using a star to transform into Starman Mario, the trailer coming to a close just before Mario can touch Reptflux, who stares at him with his energy core buzzing.

Lapis Trailer
Pit, Palutena, Zelda, Link, Samus, Mordecai, Rigby, Homer, Kumatora, Quorra, Mabel and Dipper appear sporadically throughout New York. Miles watches as the light begins to finally dim, showing a couple last beams disappear into the sky. Miles, Wii Fit Trainer, and K' head over to meet with Palutena and Pit, but are suddenly attacked by a unseen force. The camera then cuts to reveal all the Fighters of Lapis characters that were part of the starting roster for that first game, who all wave as "(Nearly) Everyone is Here!" flashes onto the screen as some quick gameplay is shown with the fighters.

Galeem can be seen at the end of the trailer, attempting to break free of Oliva Octavius' control, as she points over to the skyline of New York as the shadows of Nemesis, Mileena, Beetleworx Abomination, and Babidi are seen.

Chao Trailer
TBA

Stages Trailer
TBA

Gameplay
Fortresses of Light is a standard Smash game at first glance with meters for health, which become drained through getting hit or punched. However, Fortresses of Light was designed to be modular as compatible with various past systems such as the Mysterious X Project's graph health system, the Antiblaze style-and-health is meter system, or the Kingdom of Fighters'  team building system, which balances power and health depending on how many fighters you have on your team. There is no real way to play Fortresses of Light and the way you fight will vary in the various singleplayer modes.

Chargeable Supers
In all gameplay modes, each character has access to a set of three Finishers that they can trigger using the trigger buttons. The meter charges up as a opponent gets hit or deals damage to another fighter. The meter shows the current level of Finisher that will be activated via the triggers and will rise each time the meter is fully filled out.

MXP Graph System
The MXP Graph System is based off the line graph system that was originally in The Mysterious Five Project and it's sequels. A line graph represents the player's health, with it escalating as the player takes damage and lowering over time at a rate of 1 point per second. Additionally blocking, parrying, and attacking other characters decreases the graph. The player loses a stock when they gain 100 points.

Antiblaze System
Returning from Antiblaze, the Antiblaze system utilizes an energy known as Antiblaze to power characters. It is both a meter and a health system and performing powerful combos with the style ranking system reignites Antiblaze. When a character loses all their Antiblaze, they become inanimate and lose the battle. Antiblaze is shown through a percentage of how much is left- unlike the MXP Graph System, the key to winning a battle is having more Antiblaze. Every character begins with 100% Antiblaze at the start of the round. When it reaches zero, that character loses the round.

KOF Team System
Based off the revamped system from Kingdoms of Fighters B: Fight for the Future, the KOF Team System allows you to pick up to three characters and create a team. Characters are weighted in both power and health under this system, with a single character against a team of fighters being more powerful but also having no teammates to back them up or having any additional stocks.

Kingdom Cards System
The Kingdom Cards System is entirely unique to Fortresses of Light, and is a very different way to play. You can play as any character with a deck of up to 42 cards, although each card has a cost associated with it's number. Lower ranking cards play later while high ranking cards play quicker. Cards that have a equal value and are placed in the same slot in the same hand during a turn enter a "card break", where card numbers are thrown at each other at a rapid pace to determine which card plays first. The first to successfully have a higher number a total of two times in a row will play first.

There are currently two types of cards: Attack Cards and Effect Cards. Attack Cards are primarily damaging cards that may carry an effect or have a unique property to them. Effect Cards are primarily effect cards that may carry damage boosts, protect against elements, or alter the battlefield of the cards. There exist special cards that drain Antiblaze known as Antiblaze Cards, which can have the properties of both Attack and Effect cards.

Each opponent has a set amount of health to deplete. Each card chips away at that damage total.

Stacking Systems
Fortresses of Light allows for the stacking of multiple gameplay systems, combining traits to create new gameplay types that takes traits from both.
 * Stacking the MXP Graph System and Antiblaze System creates a system where you gain back Antiblaze and can extend it to drain it, but losing too much and resulting in 0 points on the graph will end you as opposed to 100 points. You lose points by being hit instead of gaining them.
 * The KOF Team System modifies the health values of the MXP Graph System and the Antiblaze System to balance them against your opponent, who may have a different weight of power and health to work with. As such, these systems become more important in terms of how they rank health, as you will gain and lose values much faster.
 * Stacking the Antiblaze and the Kingdom Cards system together allows you to play special Antiblaze cards, which effect your health for powerful attacks or effects. Your health pool is also Antiblaze and playing stylish hands allows you to restore Antiblaze back.
 * Stacking the MXP Graph System and the Kingdom Cards system together allows you to slowly restore health over time, but also gives you an audience to play to. The better you perform, the riskier your hands must become as certain advantages will be added to cards while raising your health graph to dangerous levels.
 * Stacking the KOF Team System with the Kingdom Cards system allows you to set up three 42 card decks for three seperate characters, who come after each other after each battle.

Versus
Versus Mode is your standard match-making mode, where you decide on the rules, then the stage, and then your characters. You can set what systems you want to utilize, time sets, stocks, or various other values to add to the fights.

Collider
Collider is the single-player mode which follows your character or characters through a route. Certain story paths can be obtained by playing as certain characters, although not all characters have an story route in Collider Mode.

Collider Mode acts very much like a standard arcade route with a overview map of New York, where "mirages" appear on the map. Sometimes you are offered a choice to either go into a "mirage" that you can see clearly on the map or a mysterious mirage that hosts a harder challenge and has the ability to raise your difficulty and thus give you greater rewards. You can select 9 different tiers of difficulty, which fluctuate. Go into Mysterious Mirages to raise your difficulty level or lose a battle to lower it. Collecting Gold Orbs will allow you to keep your current difficulty and leave you where you last left off in the fight with full health.

Each Collider Route has a total of seven stages. Each story route generally has seven as well, with three of them being known: Stage 1, Stage 5, and Stage 7. Stage 7 is always the longest, featuring two boss fights back to back. Stage 5 is the middle stage and features a story-changing fight for story routes. Stage 1 is the beginning stage and sets up the story for that character. Along the way, you will encounter a random boss in Stage 6 and a Reel Stage in Stage 3.

Completing Collider once will unlock.

Black Hole
Black Hole is the second single-player adventure mode and follows directly after one of the versions of the events in Collider- Miles' story. When Galeem overflowed the Collider, it created a black hole under New York that sucked and disassembled it across Dharkon's Realm. The Collider is still active in the center of this dark and twisted universe, thus bringing the dimensions of those who appeared out from the Collider into this reality. As such, the map for this mode isn't as straight forward as Collider- nor entirely linear. Characters have certain paths where you must play as a character or the team they have assembled as part of the storyline for that path.

More information to come soon.

Innsrealm
Innsrealm is another single-player mode that is essentially a life simulator with the playable characters. It takes place in an apartment building known as the Fortress rented out for the "Travelers of the Light". As you unlock characters, their rooms will be added to the building. You can have a total of eight active Travelers of the Light and can switch them out at any time. You can do the following in this mode:
 * Build up relationships with your fellow fighters to achieve Friendship or Romantic Links. Most fighters can form relationships with other fighters.
 * Take care of Chao pets in the Chao Garden. You will get Chao materials as you play through the game in either Versus or Collider Mode and you can use them here to grow strong, powerful Chao that you can even make into custom fighters for this game.
 * Organize living spaces and take care of fighters off the clock through a Sims-like management system. This has pretty no impact on the actual gameplay, although some fighters will develop rivalries or friendships that can lead to battles or gifts for this mode.

Online
Online Mode is where you can go up against opponents, with you being able to play for fun or for a rank. The more opponents you defeat, the higher your rank becomes, with losses negatively effecting your rank. A number appears to show how many fights you need to win to get to the next rank.

Stages
There are two types of stages in Fortresses of Light:
 * Versus Stage - A versus stage is used for battles against other opponents. They are selectable through Versus mode and are used for all fights in the game. All Versus Stages are unlocked from the start.
 * Reel Stages - Reel Stages are platforming levels that act as bonus levels in Collider. They are used to transport across New York and into stages that appear as mirages over New York. They must be unlocked to play through freely and which stages you go through are completely random for the most part. To unlock them, you must find the hidden Reels found in these stages.

In all stages, Animals appear as collectibles. Simply making contact with them will add them to the Chaos Chest. The icons that appear as part of stage descriptions are the ones that have a chance of showing up on those stages.

Kingdom Cards
Kingdom Cards are part of the battle system in the Kingdom Cards System. All cards are locked by default, although you slowly earn them as you play and do various activities. You can unlock them all either through a cheat code or by completing all routes on Black Hole mode. For more information on how this system works, check the Kingdoms Cards System in the gameplay section of the page.

There are 51 Attack Cards, and 48 Effect Cards, combining for a total of 99 cards in Kingdom Cards.

General

 * Astral/Out of Body - This status effect is a extended knock-down effect that has the opponent's astral projection, appearing as a semi-transparent, blue-tinted character, poke out from their knocked down body, appearing dizzy. That actually prevents further attacks except low sweeping attacks, which can be used to jablock. The opponent cannot be launched in this state.
 * Bleed - Opponents under the Bleed infliction are dealt 3.2% damage per second, and the duration of this differs on the weight of the fighter, with heavier opponents able to stop Bleed faster while lightweight opponents suffer from Bleed longer. While Bleed is active, blood effects appear from the fighter for aesthetic purposes, although no actual wounds are seen on them.
 * Break - When an attack lands with this status infliction put onto it, it will cause the opponent to have white lines appear on top of them. The next attack to land while this is active will cause them to be knocked down. Stays active for 3 seconds before the opponent shakes their head and makes the lines disappear. During this head shake animation, the next attack will actually bury the opponent instead.
 * Buried - Buried is a status infliction which characters enter when they are hit by various attacks, trapping them in the ground. They cannot move, although they can get themselves out by mashing the button. They cannot be launched when they are in this grounded state, taking no knockback. The amount of time a character remains buried is dependent on that character's damage percentage; the higher the number, the longer they will be stuck to the ground.
 * Burn - When opponents enter the burning effect, they are set aflame and are dealt 0.5 damage each 30 frames. The effect is also is able to thaw frozen characters as well activate bombs quicker. Burning opponents also take twice as much knockback. The duration in which a opponent will burn depends on their size, with larger foes being alit for about 4-6 seconds while smaller characters can be ablaze for 2-3 seconds.
 * Dizzy - Opponents have their controls randomly reversed at times while under this effect and their walk animations are very different, usually being slower. Counters also come out later and knock downs last longer, but also get rid of the dizzy effect.
 * Frozen - Frozen is a status infliction which characters enter when they are hit by a freezing attack of enough knockback. When characters are frozen, their in-game appearance is being trapped in a block of ice. In this state, characters are unable to do anything. Characters thaw out naturally over time, although button mashing helps to break out faster. They can be instantly thawed out by fire attacks. When frozen, opponents drop when launched. Frozen opponents take half as much knockback as they normally would.
 * Petrification - A status effect that sees the victim turned into stone, unable to move as their knockback is knocked back to zero and they drop like a stone when in the air. Damage is halved when petrified. A petrified fighter can be grabbed like a item and thrown at a short range to deal damage depending on how much they weigh, dealing 3-12 damage depending on how heavy the fighter is. The duration of the petrification depends on how much damage a fighter has taken, with higher percentages taking longer. Mashing the control stick to the left and right will shorten the petrification period.
 * Poison - A status effect that is shown by purple bubbles coming off the victim character. It deals 2% damage per 30 frames and causes the opponent to flinch each time they take damage, having the potential to disrupt attacks. The effect lasts longer with heavy weights than light weights, being 6 seconds for heavy weights and 3 seconds for light weights.
 * Shocked - Shocked opponents are stuck in a stun state and can be moved around with attacks, although they take less knockback and deal 3 unflinching damage upon being damaged to nearby things. It lasts 1-3 seconds depending on how much Finisher meter a opponent has, with it lasting longer with the more Finisher meter they have.
 * Wet - Wet is a new status infliction which characters enter when they are hit by a incredibly powerful water attack. While wet, movement speed is decreased and knockback is lessened by 1.5x. Wet character also become more susceptible to being Frozen by ice attacks regardless of their percentage number. Wet characters also slip every 50 steps. The time in which a character is wet depends on their Antiblaze. Characters with no or little Antiblaze are wet for longer, while characters with higher Rage dry faster. In non-Antiblaze matches, they stay wet for 4.5 seconds.

Makai Spell
The Makai Spell is a unique status effect that causes victims to hop around as a creature that cannot attack in any shape, way or form. A timer appears over them that indicates that they have a certain amount of frames (300 frames or 5 seconds) before they transform back. While stuck in this form, any hits the character takes will double the normal Finisher Meter growth but halt the timer for 20 frames, causing them to be in the form for longer. Each character has a unique transformation while under this spell, which is listed below:

Heaven Spell
The Heaven Spell is similar to the Makai Spell, but differs in that opponents cannot move while in the form, but are able to buffer attacks while in it and it lasts for less time. The timer that appears while a opponent is under the effects of the Heaven Spell is 150 frames or 2.5 seconds. Attacking the opponent while they're under the effects of the Heaven Spell will halt the timer for 15 frames, causing them to be in the form for longer, but will double normal Finisher Meter growth. Each character has a unique transformation while under this spell, which is listed below:

Midnight Bliss
Some characters are able to utilize something known as the Midnight Bliss effect into some of their moves. This rare status effect is usually utilized by a command grab and the target will transform into a female (if they are male) with a more arousing (or in some cases comedic) appearance. This status effect is often utilized with a draining effect, which will take health from the target and heal back the user of the move.

Unlike previous uses of the move, Midnight Bliss can now be broken out of. This method is a bit tricky, but during the sucking animation, tilt the control stick to the left and right rapidly while tapping the attack buttons. A yellow exclamation mark will appear over the target and allow them to break free while dealing 3 damage. The user of the attack inflicting Midnight Bliss can fight back by tapping on the attack button, although the game tends to favor the target more often than not. When broken out of, the user will still be in their Midnight Bliss form, but will retain their full moveset and stats, being merely a visual change.

In non-command grab moves, Midnight Bliss doesn't need to be broken out of.

Incubus Delight
The mirror to Midnight Bliss, this status effect instead either changes female characters to male characters or transforms them into more emasculating outfits. Like Midnight Bliss, this is usually part of a command grab, that also like Midnight Bliss, allows the opponent to struggle and break out of it in a similar manner. If they break out, they will be stuck within the form for the rest of the match unless either:
 * They get hit by Midnight Bliss, which will change them back to their normal model instead of the Midnight Bliss model.
 * Or they get attacked again by the Incubus Delight effect and let the draining animation play out again.

In non-command grab moves, Incubus Delight doesn't need to be broken out of.

Trivia

 * This game has the same acronym as Fighters of Lapis (FOL), the first umbrella fighting game that made. 🤔
 * The background objects in the logo, as well as the character select icon on the left are jellyfish that have been made completely white. This sea animal theming is probably a nod to Vaporwave Z, a Lapis-only umbrella game which featured a dolphin.
 * Homer's moveset is based primarily off his movesets seen in MUGEN, which began with Warner's version of him, which was a Iori clone. Later versions of Homer utilize a complete seven button moveset and made him more into his own original fighter, which this game takes inspiration from.
 * Jill Valentine's ammo chances tripling when using charged smash attacks was suggested by.
 * Genie's moveset is based off both the original Aladdin movie and his appearance as a summon in Kingdom Hearts 2. The end of his Genie Tornado Finisher has a reference to Flashdance, a 1983 movie where one of the characters, outstretched on a chair, yanks a cord to have water fall on top of them. This is continuing Genie's tradition to reference pop culture.
 * Fortresses of Light can almost be seen as the polar opposite of Antiblaze. Where as Antiblaze relishes in the forgotten and obscure, Fortresses of Light instead relies heavily on legacy. Antiblaze is 3D, Fortresses of Light is 2D. Fortresses of Light has a light and water motif, while Antiblaze has a darkness and fire motif.
 * Credits:
 * for coding help.
 * Qingyun, Soledad, and Darren (as well as their respective god forms) appear as Kingdom Cards in the game. They come from Heirs to the Wrath, a game created by.
 * Bowie and Cresent Kicker come from the games BowieQuest and Crescent Kicker, which were created by.