MPQ Rocket and Groot

I'd been going to illustrate this with GIFs I'd been going to make, but Adobe AfterEffects does not seem to be working anywhere, even on the school's computers and certainly not mine, so all I can do is throw my hands up and go, [makes hands-throw-up-in-air-motion.]

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 is out, and I have seen it and there aren't any Spider-Man: Homecoming spoilers which is good, but what I really want to focus on is the new Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 tie-in Rocket and Groot character in Marvel Puzzle Quest, how awesome that is. I guess I could dedicate a little time to the film, if only to say that now that Marvel Studios know that they're going to hit it out of the park with every film they make and can afford to be a little bolder in their filmmaking choices, the choice that they choose to make recently is to make their films, just, super wise, for some reason, and that just bends my mind. But MPQ anyway.


(I've already shown that video, but it serves as an excellent refresher.)

Each character in Marvel Puzzle Quest has its own set of moves they can make- each character has three special abilities, powered by AP of a certain color: my most powerful character, 5-Star Jean Grey (Phoenix,) for example, has a Psychic Flames ability which costs 9 red AP to use, a From the Ashes ability that's passive (costing 0 green AP to use) but which can become a Phoenix Force that costs 9 green AP to use, and a Psychic Rapport ability that would cost 7 purple AP to use were I actually in possession of that power (you need comic book covers to upgrade your powers, and I only have 2 Jean Grey covers, one for her green power and one for her red.) These powers can be of any of the existing colors, like how 3-Star Black Panther (T'Challa) has yellow, blue, and black powers; I'm just using Jean Grey as an example.

Now, each power in the game is unique, there may be others like them, other powers similar, but only that version of that character has that exactly particular ability. So it's got to be pretty tough coming up with a unique powerset, right, and then balancing the powers out so that the game doesn't break. There's probably a dude, or a whole team of dudes, in charge of just coming up with those.

When a power is activated, there's usually a little animation that swoops in, that illustrates the character putting their power into play so that it makes as much sense as it can, thematically, representing this superhero battle with match-3 gems- sorry, power orbs, thanks, Blake Anderson. Little bits of motion design, anyway. There's probably, they probs need just one person to do that for them, but they do a good job.

Which brings me back to the new 4-star legendary character, Rocket & Groot (Awesome Mix Volume 2,) as showcased in the current run of the recurring Meet Rocket & Groot story arc (long story short, Mystique steals a sprig of Groot's to build a Groot army, so you have to travel to Latveria to steal it back/destroy it.) This time, they're using the art from the new 4-star version of the character (usually they use the art from the 3-star version, Rocket & Groot (Most Wanted), is basically what makes this one special. (This time, Groot's riding Rocket's shoulder, instead of vice-versa!)) Rocket & Groot (Awesome Mix Volume 2) is great. The art's great, as per frickin' usual, but what I wanted to focus on was the power set and the motion design on the character.

Would be a lot better if AfterEffects were available, so you could actually see what I'm talking about; I mean, I've got the footage, just no way to edit it really...

EDIT: ha, I just said "edit." But this is real; I've got it, anyway.

There's also sound design to accompany the motion, nice "boom boom boom"s with each footstep Baby Groot makes during "I Aaaaaam Groooooot!" that kind of thing, but still you can really see the school of thought and some of the techniques behind the motion design they use in MPQ- probably took the art, took it into Adobe AfterEffects, set some keyframes for the position and the scale- it's ridiculously easy and it looks great, especially if you're practiced in some of the principles of animation and the easy ease tool. They also apparently use drag frames, I think they're called, quite a bit- it's the little fadey lag of motion blur after movement here.

Let's talk about the power set for a bit. They managed to get pretty clever and thematic with this set- there's a 12-cost blue power called Rocket's Pack, ostensibly based off of the Aero Rig concept seen in the new movie- it creates a blue countdown tile that deals damage and creates a black attack tile (pummeling the enemy at the end of your turn,) as though Rocket's zipping around the battlefield. Pretty clever, I suppose, and incredibly powerful if you have it advanced enough. There's a passive yellow power, Welcome to the Team, which at the beginning of the battle creates strike tiles (increasing the damage you deal with each match,) but makes the strike tile more powerful if there's another character on your team with the affiliation of Guardians of the Galaxy- that's pretty clever here; you don't see team affiliations used very much outside of the odd Team Cap/Team Iron Man based power, and even then I can't think of more than one or two powers that use those. This power also ties into the movie with the whole "welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy" bit.

The power that I really find especially clever and thematic, though, is this two-fer I've added GIFs of here: "Don't Push This Button," a 10-cost green power, which when activated places down a special "Atomic Bomb" 3-turn countdown tile and becomes "I Aaaaaam Groooooot!"

What's clever about the Atomic Bomb tile is that if it is allowed to count all the way down to the end it deals damage to the enemy team- but if it's matched before then, it deals damage to the enemy team but also deals some to your team. Meanwhile, as long as the atomic bomb tile is on the board, the passive I Aaaaaam Groooooot! power makes a match for you using the same AI that the game uses for the enemy team's turns- so it could be really good for you, but there's also a chance that Baby Groot there's gunna match your Atomic Bomb tile and everyone's gonna get sprayed. It's fun and clever and perfectly fits the climax of Volume 2. That's just way good.

So yeah. Rocket & Groot (Awesome Mix Volume 2) is just an all-around well-done character, y'all.