Developing Mortal Kombat

Johnny Cage real name John Carlton was the first character created by the original Mortal Kombat creator's. And was based on Jean Claude Van-Damme, from his movie in Blood Sport.

In his debut, his clothing was modeled directly after Jean-Claude Van Damme's character in Bloodsport, consisting of black shorts with a red sash and black shoes.

Johnny Cage physical portrayal with brown hair, with brown eyes, physically fit due all his martial arts training. In the original games Johnny Cage was tricked into joining the first Mortal Kombat tournament. However, Alex decided to drastically change Johnny Cage character bio.

Character Bio: Johnny Cage

Johnny Cage is a martial artist turn movie star sensation. He was raised by his grandfather after the death of his parents to become the ultimate warrior. He had been trained since the age of four in various hand to hand combat and unlocked his hidden powers.

At the age of 13 he left his grandfather to improve martial skills, traveling the world training with great masters and fighting with various opponents.

Before gaining the attention of a Hollywood movie agent, with whose help he became a Hollywood box-office star. However, after hearing about a secret tournament, hailed every 50 years, he left to join the tournament in the pursuit of achieving greater martial peaks.

In the original bio Johnny Cage was a struggling Hollywood action movie star, who sought to revitalize his career and reputation. He entered the Mortal Kombat tournament for the sole purpose of displaying his fighting skills.

Proving himself to his skeptical film critics, as they believed Cage was nothing more than an actor. Who relied too much on stunt man and camera work, and was not really a proficient fighter.

Alex didn't think Johnny Cage character was well presented in the original Mortal Kombat franchise. As he was often represented as an actor first and foremost. Rather than a passionate martial artist who just got into acting. If that were was really the case he wouldn't be such a great fighter.

Alex thought of Johnny Cage as a martial artist first and a actor second, with this change Johnny Cage character would be a little different in his personality. He also just changed Johnny Cage in game cannon real name, to official Johnny Cage instead of John Carlton.

Alex made the decision not to change much else about the other six character. As he didn't see the need to and with the limits on the current hardware their was little he could do.

Character bio: Sonya blade

Sonya blade is a member of a top U.S. Special army forces unit. That have all been given a newly created super soldier serum to fight against. The Black Dragon that organization that have been using, special cybernetic to hence their members.

Her team was hot on the trail of Kano's Black Dragon organization. They followed them to an uncharted island where they were ambushed by Shang Tsung's personal army.

Leading Sonya to forcibly participate in this deadly tournament. Not only to save her unit but, prevent Shang Tsung from wining this competition.

Character bio: Kano

A Mercenary, Thug, Extortionist Thief - Kano lives a life of crime and injustice. He is a devoted member of the Black Dragon, a dangerous group of Cut-Throat Madmen feared and respected throughout all of crime's Inner Circles.

He finds himself joining Shang Tsung's side, hoping not only to use Shang Tsung's army. To take over the Black Dragon for himself, after the competition ends.

Character bio: Raiden

The name Raiden is actually that of a deity known as The Thunder God. It is rumored he received a personal invitation by Shang Tsung himself, and took the form of a human to compete in the Tournament.

To try to private Shang Tsung's from wining this competition. Which represented more than just a simple Battle to the Death.

Character bio: Liu Kang

Once a member of the super secret White Lotus Society, Liu Kang left the organization in order to represent Shaolin temples in the Tournament. Kang is strong in his beliefs and despises Shang Tsung.

Character bio: Sub-Zero

The actual name or identity of this warrior is unknown. However, based on the markings of his uniform, it is believed he belongs to the Lin Kuei, a legendary secret clan of Chinese ninja.

Character bio: Scorpion

Like Sub-Zero, Scorpion's true name and origin are not known. He has shown from time to time distrust and hatred towards Sub-Zero. Between Ninjas, this is usually a sign of opposing clans.

Character bio: Jax

His real name is Major Jackson Briggs, leader of a top US Special Forces unit. After receiving a distress signal from lutenant Sonya Blade, Jax embarks on a rescue mission. Leading him to discover the hidden island where a tournament to decide the fate of their world was being held.

This were all the characters bio's of all the seven playable characters in the game, except for Jax Briggs. Who Alex decided to added to the roster. Now making a total of eight playable character however, Jax would not appear with his robotic arms in the game.

Instead he'd would be firing similar projectiles, while using the military technology that Sony used in the original game.

Just like the original Mortal Kombat 1 there would also be more storyline elements explaining, what happens to each character, after you beat the game using them.

Alex, right was now currently in one of the set rooms, at Fire Foxx production studios. Thanks to Harry they were able to put out a cast calling for martial artist and gymnast for Mortal Kombat.

Many of the moves in the original game weren't too complicated to recreat by, someone who was physically fit and agile.

Currently four members of his team were in the audition room with him, "Alright, Wan you've read the character bio of Liu Kang." Asked Alex, as he looked at James Wan.

James Wan was of Japanese descent and had a lightly tend skin color. He had black eyes with jet black hair and stood around 5 foot 7. " Yes, I'm happy to be here." Answered James with a smile on his face.

"Alright, then I'm mainly going to explain the basics of what, where looking for in this video game. We want to see how well your able to prefrom and follow to mine or any of our directions while on camera." Explained Alex, slowly to James Wan.

And like that they officially began recording James as he preformed, some basic combat moves Alex instructed him to do.

" Alright, that good. " Said Alex as he looked at James Wan who stood in a small square. He slowly moved his body capturing Liu Kang standing motion. Which basically meant James had to move just enough to properly capture his image.

They than transition into all of the moves set for Liu Kang. Which were exactly similar to the original game. These was due to the limitations of the current hardware, which was inferior to what was used by the original team in 1992.

The only thing that he, could say is that they used far better filming equipment for the filming of the actor's.

" Alright, that good enough. " Said Alex as he watched, James Wan footage through the camera. After which they transition to a treadmill, to capture the walking animation for the character.

After that, they finally transition to perhaps the most difficult part. The combat cartography, which would really test Alex ability and knowledge. As well as the actor ability to to follow directions.

Which however, went particularly well especially with Alex, personally deciding to show the actor how he, himself invision the attack. Then allowing James Wan to improve on it, as he was a martial artist who understood things more than Alex who only had the knowledge.

They did go through several takes to just get things right, all the land based moves set completed within the first hour. For the aerial based attack they use a staircase, to capture the pause Alex wanted.

Alex and James Wan discuss about how base to go about, certain move sets and action. James Wan was especially excited about the whole experience, Alex also gave James the advanced to take acting classes if he really wanted to become an actor in the future as well as voice acting just to be safe.

Like that the filming for Mortal Kombat with James Wan, which started in early in the afternoon till three-thirty in the afternoon ended for the day.

After which Alex, and the others had a short rest, before leaving to continue working. With the other's on programming aspects of game, with the rest of the team.

Alex would personally gone through, the pain tasking aspects of having to load the short material. In the TARGA board, inside the work deck to capture the pause frames to digital files.

The images would then be boosted in contrast and saturated for a more vibrant look and the backgrounds would be painstakingly removed frame by frame.

Alex paid particular attention to the edges that required a lot of care. Arcade hardware doesn't fully support transparency values per pixel, meaning pixels were either fully opaque or transparent.

Alex had to make the edges of characters work against both bright and dark backgrounds. However, right now he was just going through polishing the footage, as he waited for his team.

To complete working on all the back grounds, which would be completed by the next day. They would than digitize most of their, graphical elements to fit into their real world look.

The team is currently split into three groups, there was Alex group doing the filming. Eric's group who would go around the city, to take more pictures of the images, that would be used to create the realistic backgrounds in the game.

And the third group were busy with programming parts, of the game. They would be using a digitisation tool called Tips developed by AT&T EPICenter a Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter better known as TARGA.

And as for the TARGA high color graphic boards for the PC market, could directly digitize images from analog feeds coming from a video camera or tape deck.

This boards came with a SDK, which had allowed Alex to write his on image capturing software catered towards their needs, which he called AWTARG.

Thanks to them actually using a production stage camera, it give much higher luminance resolution, this made it suitable to capture images for big sprites.

Using the AWTARG software, Alex could pause frames to digital files. The software would then reduce the color, using their latest color reduction algorithm.

This would be particularly the case for the Arcade and some consoles version. While the PC version would likely have far better resolution than everything else.

While he used his spare time to look at the sets, that would be used for shooting the scene according to the original.

After a long day, of work Alex left with Robert who drove him to the The Art Deco Hotel. It was a little strange especially since Helena and Vanessa weren't there. Vanessa would spent most of her time at the hospital with her mother and little brother Benjamin.

Along with his mother, who spent most of the day there. Harry seemed a little stressed out about, the whole Fire Foxx UK situation for now, while trying to make sure all Fire Foxx US projects were in preparation.

Alex decided to start making dinner for everyone, Helena would be returning today from the hospital. Alex wasn't a stranger to cooking especially, with his current knowledge on basically all kinds of dishes.

Alex became on preparing a healthy and nutritional meal for everyone, especially keeping his aunt Helena in mind.