Monster: Ancient Cline

Monster: Ancient Cline
Developer: 8105graphics Platform: Windows This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a prerelease article

This game was never completed and/or given a public release. As a result of this, keep in mind that the developers might have used or deleted some of the content featured here, had the game actually been released.

Monster: Ancient Cline was to be an arcade followup to the 2005 doujin fighting game Monster. Originally announced in February 2008, it was intended to be released by Examu for their Windows-based eX-BOARD arcade platform. It had an extended dev cycle and increased in scope from a simple port of the original game with new content to a complete revamp with new artwork and mechanics. It was location tested once, in February 2010, before quietly disappearing.

In November 2023, a Windows build leaked online. The file modification dates suggest it was built in December 2009, and it features very similar content to what was shown in the location test. It's known that the game had been tested online prior to the location test, and this build likely comes from those sessions.

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Prerelease Info

Debug Mode

A debug mode can be enabled by turning on the 「ダイレクトロード」 ("direct load") option in the 「アーケード」 ("arcade") tab of the config program. When enabled, the game bypasses the normal loading process and instead loads a file named "directload.txt" to determine what mode to boot in. It's possible to activate hidden/disabled modes and disabled characters who aren't otherwise selectable. This file is a single-row CSV file with six values. The order is:

1P character,2P character,system switch,stage,1P colour,2P colour

For example, to launch training mode with Katze vs Katze, you'd use: 1,1,64,32,0,0

Character values:

Index	Name
1	Katze
2	Siely
3	Rail
4	Ryougen
5	Delga
6	Maya
7	Othello
8	Aleksandr
9	Orju
10	Efleet
11	Origa
12	Jeel
13	Oomizuao
14	Enkaku
15	Ysengrin
16	Alto

Stage values:

Index	Name
32	majinden
33	test
34	town
35	townmoon
36	efleetruin
37	majinden_midnight
38	woods_run
39	skyruin
40	fall
41	efleetruin_fired
42	gatewoods
59	forest_fall
60	forest

System switches that can be enabled:

Index	Description
19	Character select screen
20	Here comes a new challenger screen
21	Game over screen
22	Unused attract mode (set first three fields to 22 and the fourth field to 0 to display properly)
30	Alternate unused attract mode/cutscene (set first four fields to 30)
64	Training mode
65	Training mode with number of wins counter enabled
68	Shmup minigame (set first four fields to 68 to make playable)

Unused Graphics

In addition to the unused characters, this build is a goldmine of unused graphics with some content going back to the very start of development.

Early Loading Sprites

While the final game's pre-match screens use the 2D portrait art, leftover data from earlier in development shows an earlier concept that would have used prerendered 3D art. Copies are present for six characters in the sprites_loading_ folders, including five returning characters (Delga, Katze, Maya, Orju, and Othello) and one new one (Origa). Origa's seem to have been the first to be finished and are dated December 18, 2008; the others are dated January 21, 2009. Since four of these characters (Katze, Maya, Othello, and Orju) had been playable at the Amusement Machine Show demo in September, and Origa was the first new character to be revealed, it's likely that these six characters were the first to be finished.

These sprites come in three sets:

• MainCut, a 512×256 still depicting the character looking to the right in a profile view
• SubCut, a 512×256 animation in three frames depicting the character striking towards the camera
• FinalCut, a 256×256 animation in five frames depicting the character striking towards the camera

Origa's sprites are still referenced by the loading files for Efleet and "reserved", an unused loading screen that takes up the otherwise-unoccupied 17th character slot. (Origa's sprites are often used as a default by characters who don't have their own yet.) They can't be encountered in-game, since Efleet can't be selected and never appears as an opponent. While they can be enabled by modifying the game to load either of those files instead of another character's, there's no longer any associated logic to play back the animations and it's not clear how they would have actually looked.

Origa

Origa is the only character to still have a FinalCut animation. It's located in a subfolder named old inside the sprites_loading_othello folder.

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

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  FinalCut

Delga

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

Katze

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

In addition to the other files, Katze has one extra animation no other character has. This 256×128 14-frame animation is found in Origa's sprites_loading_origa folder and is dated January 16, 2009. It depicts him punching towards the screen in more detail than the loading animations. Since it has its own background and no transparency, it may have been intended for something other than the pre-fight screens.

Maya

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

Orju

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

Othello

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  MainCut

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  SubCut

Player Select

The player select folder has a surprising amount of unused graphics.

While two characters are disabled in this build, and their portraits in the list are greyed out, there's a copy of the graphic with all characters enabled.

CharacterSelect.psd

Alongside the in-game files is a PhotoShop document used to mock up the character select screen during dev. It looks like this file was iterated on over the course of development, as its various layers are a mixture of designs from the final game and elements that go back to the very start of development. It includes character art, a variety of UI elements (some from the first game, some that would be used in this game), and character portraits.

The first few layers are a sort of inspo folder, containing character selects from other games that were being used as visual reference for Monster's. It includes Touhou Hisouten: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, and The Last Blade 2.

Character Portraits

Among the UI layers used to mock up player select options are copies of the key art for every character except Efleet. These are higher-resolution and higher-quality than the versions used in-game. They extend past the 640×480 canvas size; when expanded to their full size, some layers include details that aren't normally visible in-game. Notably, Ysengrin's full uncropped art reveals that the scythe visible next to him on the character select screen is actually being held by an entire second character. A few of these portraits are present in a few sizes to experiment with different visual approaches - there's a mirrored copy of Katze and two zoom level variants of Delga and Siely. It appears the art was colour-corrected within the 640×480 canvas, so expanding to the full size exposes colouring errors on some characters.

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Mockup Player Selects

The layer labelled "Set 1" contains a very early character select that appears to come from near the start of development. The character icons are rendered from the original game's models; they have a similar look to the screenshots from the original announcement, at a point when it was still planned to use the original game's art. While there's space for 15 characters, Oomizuao is the only new character present and the rest are all silhouettes. Oomizuao is also using the same render from the game's original announcement; his model received a number of refinements over the course of development. Also notable is that a large space is devoted to Efleet, the boss, in the centre; he would be left off the final game's character select screen. There's also an earlier revision named "Set 1 copy", with characters in different positions and a simpler design for Efleet's space.

The "Set 2" layer is meant to be combined with this one and contains some decorative elements. These match the later "Set 1" layer better than the older one.

Set 1 layer with Set 2 layer underneath	Set 1 copy layer with Set 2 layer underneath

Set 1 layer alone	Set 1 copy layer alone	Set 2 layer alone

Unused Stages

There are three unused stages in the game's files. Two are accessible via the debug mode, while one can only be enabled by editing the game data.

The most interesting is what appears to be a test for 3D stages instead of the 2D backgrounds used by the final game. At this point it's using only extremely simple geometry, with a tiling image of one of the existing stages as a texture. This stage isn't referenced anywhere in the game data, but can be enabled by replacing one of the other stage files with stage_3D.cdf.

The stage_forest.cdf and stage_forest_fall.cdf stages are taken directly from the original Monster without changes. Like in the original game, it's a forest stage with two palette variations. While it's not in the arcade mode stage rotation, it can be enabled by setting the stage ID in direct load mode to 60 (forest) or 59 (forest_fall). They were most likely disabled since Ancient Cline has a new, much more graphically involved forest stage. The green variation of the stage appeared in early press screenshots from July, 2008.

Unused Characters

The character select screen shows 15 characters (the original game's nine, and six new characters). Two of them are disabled in both this release and the location test footage, but they exist in the game data and can be enabled via the debug mode. The non-playable boss can also be enabled.

Efleet

Efleet was the boss for the original game's (unfinished) single-player mode, and was also playable in its 1.0 release. It appears he was planned as the boss for this game as well. Although he's not present on the character select screen, there are unused portrait and name tile sprites for him. The character select art reveals that, like in the original game, he would have been a possessed version of playable character Rail who fought with the flames that were engulfing him.

Efleet has no sprites of his own and no moveset. It appears that no work had been done on him other than his key art. He does have a lifebar portrait and name sprite, which are intended to be displayed at the top of the screen during gameplay, but they aren't used when he's selected in debug mode. Instead, he uses Origa's portrait and no name sprite.

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  Character select screen portrait

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  Character select screen nameplate

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  In-game portrait

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  In-game nameplate

Jeel

Jeel is the less complete of the two disabled playable characters. His gameplay definition files are dated January 17, 2009, suggesting he had only had some preliminary work done before being set aside while other characters were worked on. He has no sprites of his own, and uses Origa's sprites when selected, but does have a moveset at this point. That moveset is fairly rough and feels more like an early sketch/experiment than a complete design. While his character select screen and in-game portrait/name graphics are present, they're not used. He uses Origa's portrait (misaligned on the screen) and no name graphic. He also has a full set of unused voices, dated July 2009.

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  Character select screen portrait

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  Character select screen nameplate

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  In-game portrait

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  In-game nameplate

Moves

Jeel has a complete set of normals, a single special move, and a partial set of supers. He has voices for three specials, so it's possible there was more planned for him that hadn't yet made it in-game. At this point, his gameplay is based entirely around projectiles - he has no melee attacks, and all of his normals launch projectiles. His one special move allows him to slow down projectiles that travel through it, giving him some interesting trap possibilities.

Normals:

• Stand A: launches two knives forward, one angled slightly up and one angled slightly down
• Stand B: moves slightly forward; launches three evenly-spaced knives, two angled up and one angled down
• Stand C: moves forward; launches five evenly-spaced knives, four angled up and one angled down
• Crouch A: launches three knives in a row, angled down
• Crouch B: moves slightly forward; launches four closely-spaced knives forward
• Crouch C: moves forward; launches a large number of closely-spaced knives forward
• Jump A: launches three evenly-spaced knives
• Jump B: launches five evenly-spaced knives
• Jump C: launches a large number of knives
• No running normals

Special move:

• qcf+A: places a black field in front of him; any of his projectiles travelling through that field slow down

Supers:

• Bash combo: dashes forward and performs three identical physical attacks. Seems to be a placeholder based on Katze's; Ysengrin has the same placeholder move.
• Monster combo: seems to be a placeholder; suspends a large number of daggers in place at his position

Ysengrin Loupgarou

Ysengrin is more complete than the other two disabled characters. He actually has sprites of his own, and his moves are hooked up to the correct animations. He doesn't seem to have a full set of sprites yet - a number of his attacks involve striking the opponent with invisible hitboxes. Judging from his many gesturing/pointing animations, and his concept art that features a second character standing behind him, he may have been a summon/pet-type character and the invisible hitboxes correspond to a second character whose sprites hadn't been created yet. His sprites and move definition files are mostly dated between April and October 2009, with one file edited only four days before the build was created, so he was likely under active development at the time. Since he wasn't playable in the game's location test two months later, it's unclear how much more work he got before the game was cancelled.

Unlike Efleet and Jeel, his in-game lifebar portrait and nameplate graphics are used when he's selected.

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  Character select screen portrait

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  Character select screen nameplate

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  In-game portrait

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  In-game nameplate

Moves

As mentioned above, Ysengrin seems to be a summon-based character. While he attacks the enemy directly with his normals, his special moves all revolve around gestures calling a second character to attack at a distance. Despite the invisible hitboxes, he's largely playable at this point and has a mostly-complete moveset.

Normals:

• Stand A: points forward; range is shorter than the sprite suggests
• Stand B: kicks upward
• Stand C: crouches while yelling; attacks a distance from him. The awkwardness of the sprite and motion suggests this was a placeholder.
• Crouch A: same animation as stand C; attacks low, like a low kick
• Crouch B: same animation as stand C; moves forward, attacks low
• Crouch C: same animation as stand C; moves forward, attacks low + knocks down
• Jump A: somewhat glitchy animation, possibly intended for an airthrow
• Jump B: kicks outward
• Jump C: flops onto his back to attack below him

Unlike Jeel, he has a set of running normals. These all use the animations from his non-running versions.

Special moves:

• qcf+A: points forward; several invisible strikes at a distance from him
• qcf+B: points forward twice; one strong strike at a distance from him, knocks opponent upward
• qcb+A: crouches and holds his arms out backward; no apparent effect (can be used jumping)
• qbc+B: same as qcb+A, but stays in position longer (can be used jumping)
• down, down+A/B: same animation as qcb+A/B (can be used jumping)

Supers:

• Bash combo: same placeholder as Jeel's
• Monster combo: steps forward and performs a grab animation (not a grapple); summons large number of glitchy versions of his sprite

エクサム、AC「MONSTER Ancient Cline」