Syndicate Knuckle: a mod inspired by Glisp's Syndicate Story by NattyCat and WSE

I'm surprised this project mod hasn't been discussed here yet, so here I come.

As a parallel of Zan's Story (yes, Natty and I are back in retaking this old mod), which is a prequel of SOR3U/Adam's Story and part of the HUNTERverse, Natty got inspired by the classic mod Syndicate Story made by Glisp during the first years of modding development. We all knew it had potential after we knew we'd have the bad guys being playable. So, after all been said and done, the mod was fun but still we didn't have the knowledge we do have now to make the best of the SORmaker tool. So, after a looooooooooooooong while, we decided to get into it.

Basically, Knuckle includes a Remake of SS, plus, the three paths of the main villains from the Syndicate: Shiva, Elle and Ash that somehow will lead them into their new destiny (that *might* take them to join HUNTER... or find redemption, freedom or keep the Syndicate alive). The mod includes restyled and refurbished stages, retconning of the events into the HUNTERverse and lots of multiple game paths. Also will include some custom enemy swaps as well, finally able to face the main heroes as opponents... including Blaze, Axel, Adam, Zan and... Murphy himself!

So, here's some progress of what we've been doing, hope you guys like what's in development.



and the new Murphy showcase (made by me and mounted by Natty)



Mod is still WIP so expect more stage arrangements, changes and development. As always, STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TUNED!

Oh geez I remember playing that mod from years back! Im surprised it's coming back after all this time & it'll be apart of the H.U.N.T.E.R. storyline which is great,I hope this mod goes well & more surprises gets added to it.

I cant wait to play this revitalized version of this mod

That stage at 2mins in the first video looks beautiful! I'll have to check this out.

This is some update.

this stage is looking really good i cant wait to play this mod

Fantastic work,also question,will other stages receive updates etc?

SORDave wrote:Fantastic work,also question,will other stages receive updates etc?

That's the plan

Don Vecta wrote:

SORDave wrote:Fantastic work,also question,will other stages receive updates etc?

That's the plan

Awesome Also in the future I hope there will be more engines for v5.1 as I state before,that way we can add stuff to that version itself,heck maybe transfer some of the graphical stuff.

Hey there. Glisp here to check in. Gotta say I was flattered when Shivacat contacted me about this. It's nice to know that my old mod was so well received in the past despite its shortcomings. I will be absolutely honest with you: My old version sucked. Hopefully you all will consider this version of Syndicate story as well as Syndicate Knuckle as the superior iteration.

As for myself, I've been doing good over the years. Was a bit shocked when SOR4 finally came out as I'm sure a lot of us were considering the history of past attempts (fanmade and official).  After hearing about, SORR getting a new version. I have my own plans for a new SORmaker mod. However, I will not discuss that here for obvious reasons.

Back on topic: I am very happy with the work Shivacat has been doing and I look forward to playing it when it is finished!

Edit: Hey Don Vecta! Nice change to the cemetary stage! Part of the problem with some of my stages was I was working alone and had to use whatever was available to me. I'm no pixel artist I am afraid so I did the best with what I had. That's why some of the stages you see in the original version look so terrible. Others I made look bad on purpose (like that one dark forest area behind Mr.X's mansion.) because I thought it looked cool. In hindsight I was an idiot there. Something about that zoomed in tree I just liked even though I knew it was a blurry mess.

The cemetary was one of those I used what I felt would work. The reason it looked so bad was because it was a map from a mobile phone game which I had to resize. It's not the only one where I did this but it's probably the most obvious one.

Hey, Glisp. Nice trivia about SS. Kinda wondering if you have those assets from that mobile game for the cemetery in native res, I'm kinda curious myself.

But sure, we all started somehow, I also made a rather horrible HUNTER in the very first released version: lots of resized stages, very little custom pixel work (guess my very first try at pixel art were the sun lounges at the Moon Beach stage which weren't that bad, considering the circumstances), but yeah, arranged A LOT of stages for HUNTER MotY and still some need some work after all the experience I've got in pixel art, but don't think I'd go into them anymore, they're good as they are, just me being nitpicky.

Regardless, I'm glad you're liking our new remake of your mod. We don't want to alter the core of the mod but we also want to add some spice by adding them partially in the HUNTERverse/SOR4 storyline. Let's see how it works.

I might have it somewhere. Have to check the image folder on my other PC's. I know I originally got it off of spriters' resource. hmmmm let me check..... May take a while to find because I'm not very organized. (some things never change lol)

And yeah I gave the green light to alter the story I made mainly, regarding X's offspring. As you know this was 2011 and the idea of an SOR4 coming out was very grim. So I did the best I could to try and tie a possible fourth game into it.  The Y twins were a welcome surprise and the fact they're spoiled brats really plays into the ego problem you see in Mr.X's mansion that I portrayed X as having (statues and portraits of himself, etc. You get the idea.)

Edit: okay I found the games they're from. turns out it's not from spriters' resource but sprite database
https://spritedatabase.net/file/7212
the cemetary bg I used.
https://spritedatabase.net/file/7320
here's that one other bg I used for the entry way to Mr.X's garden/back yard.
hi res versions of the sprite sheet before this
https://spritedatabase.net/file/17601


Edit: also speaking of which I need to play HUNTER

This is very useful, Glisp. Thank you so much for sharing.

In case you guys were wondering what killed the original Syndicate Story basically it was a combination of Burnout from having to make balancing changes, and loss of interest. I made the mistake of not balancing the mod for multiple difficulties early on since it was designed with the playable villains' powerful movesets in mind. I never accounted for players using the rest of the cast and that was a huge setback for me in terms of developing the mod.

By that time I had started losing interest in SORmaker modding and some of the harsh feedback I recieved at the time for the stage design and music choices also took its toll on me and I ended up discouraged. I know they were just trying to help improve the mod but it's hard for me to deal with criticism sometimes. Especially if it's harsh. Even today I struggle with it even though I know the feedback will improve my project.

Another problem I've been encountering over the years is I just don't have the creative spark I used to anymore. Somewhere along the way I lost it. There is also the fact my creativity was limited because we couldn't swap out sprites back then either so I had to use what was available to me in the SORmaker as far as enemies go. That's why you got things like Zan controlling a conveyer belt waving his arm or Axel dead in the white house. You were intended to fight them but for technical reasons you couldn't so I had to make up some bullshit excuses to use them.  

Lastly, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was also pretty much working the project solo as SORmaker was still a new thing at the time and there weren't a lot of people that were giving it a try at the time. This was 2011, it had just came out and there wasn't much documentation available yet and many of us had to get assets for our mods ourselves from places like sprite database, spriters' resource, SORR V4, or even rip them ourselves in some cases!

So yeah that's what happened with Syndicate Story and why it never got the proper update from me it deserved. Thankfully, this project should  solve that issue and further polish the mod.

Well, it does happen, at the end of the day this is a hobby and doing this should be fun. Luckily there's people in the community who can help you to get the right concept and probably it just needed time. We appreciate you're letting us do this remake. Feel free to put your your insight as this is originally your baby.

Glisp wrote:In case you guys were wondering what killed the original Syndicate Story basically it was a combination of Burnout from having to make balancing changes, and loss of interest. I made the mistake of not balancing the mod for multiple difficulties early on since it was designed with the playable villains' powerful movesets in mind. I never accounted for players using the rest of the cast and that was a huge setback for me in terms of developing the mod.

By that time I had started losing interest in SORmaker modding and some of the harsh feedback I recieved at the time for the stage design and music choices also took its toll on me and I ended up discouraged. I know they were just trying to help improve the mod but it's hard for me to deal with criticism sometimes. Especially if it's harsh. Even today I struggle with it even though I know the feedback will improve my project.

Another problem I've been encountering over the years is I just don't have the creative spark I used to anymore. Somewhere along the way I lost it. There is also the fact my creativity was limited because we couldn't swap out sprites back then either so I had to use what was available to me in the SORmaker as far as enemies go. That's why you got things like Zan controlling a conveyer belt waving his arm or Axel dead in the white house. You were intended to fight them but for technical reasons you couldn't so I had to make up some bullshit excuses to use them.  

Lastly, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was also pretty much working the project solo as SORmaker was still a new thing at the time and there weren't a lot of people that were giving it a try at the time. This was 2011, it had just came out and there wasn't much documentation available yet and many of us had to get assets for our mods ourselves from places like sprite database, spriters' resource, SORR V4, or even rip them ourselves in some cases!

So yeah that's what happened with Syndicate Story and why it never got the proper update from me it deserved. Thankfully, this project should  solve that issue and further polish the mod.

Hey man! Your mod was always my favorite! Don’t let the haters get you down. Sometimes the audience is coming from a place of tough love. It means they care about your work!

Even if there are more polished, more technically-advanced mods, your mod really evokes an emotion and a mood. It has great disturbing moments, and feels like a David Cronenberg horror movie turned into a game.
If Don and Nat are still active, they are just the right folks to give this a good polish and upgrade.

I’m more into the story and ballet of physics and imagination that certain classic games in the 80s achieved— think golden age Capcom especially. Games like Final Fight, Double Dragon, Rolling Thunder, Strider, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, even Paperboy and certain Midway classics were sublime and hypnotic. That’s my aim with a modest mod I’ve been tinkering with over the years. If the team working on your opus ever need an extra hand, then I’d be honored to help them anyway I can in their preservation efforts.

In any case, you did great work! Don’t ever think otherwise. Happy to see the occasional activity here now and again. Ciao