McLeodGaming (universe)

The McLeodGaming universe refers to the Super Smash Flash series' collection of characters, stages, and properties that comes from the website McLeodGaming founded by Gregory McLeod (who goes by the alias Cleod9). The site is dedicated to showcase flash games, cartoons, and music for entertainment but it is well known for the creation and showcasing of the Super Smash Flash series; Flash fighting games based off on the Super Smash Bros. series. As its suggest, all the fan and original characters come from this universe.

Franchise description
The site appeared in early 2003 as a calculator game site for the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. During that time, Cleod9 developed an admiration to the Macromedia Flash and eventually he got his own. He learned how to make Flash cartoons so he started to upload the animations in place of the games. He also uploaded musical compositions he personal made with instruments and computer sounds. Soon, watching his abilities with Flash Cleod9 started creating small interactive projects, led to the creation of Super Smash Flash, a flash game loosely based on Super Smash Bros. Melee with the difference that this has third party entries. Due to the success of this game Cleod9 decided to make a sequel entitled Super Smash Flash 2 (loosely based on Melee's sequel Super Smash Bros. Brawl). He shows each process of it in a playable demo. In September 2008, the website received a new and elegant gray with blue design created by Zero Insanity, this remodelation was to have under control the development of Super Smash Flash 2, the forums and other updates.

McLeodGaming has different sections with variable content, among them, the McLeodGaming Forums. These are considered a total separated website more than a section, they are phpBB boards where anyone can maturely give an idea, commentary, or suggestion for Super Smash Flash 2. The McLeodGaming Games section that includes all the 7 games showcased in McLeodGaming. The McLeodGaming Cartoons section that includes all the 11 Flash movies made by Cleod9. The McLeodGaming Music section, the largest section in the website after the forums, this includes 42 musical compositions to hear made by Cleod9 too. There are other less important sections in the website such as a shop section to purchase misc. stuff like mug or jackets with the MG logo, the affiliates section which shows other websites affiliated to McLeodGaming, a search section to search for information in the forums, a contact section which only provides Cleod9 ' s email, and the about section which provides information about the site.

There exists many other official sites related to McLeodGaming and they are not administrated by Cleod9. Among them, the McLeodGaming Wiki is a wiki founded by the SSF2 Dev James [TSON] Hadden to provide info of the actual events of McLeodGaming and the Super Smash Flash series as well. The official YouTube McLeodGamingOfficial, usually used by the SSF2 Devs to showcase Super Smash Flash 2-related videos. The Smash Flash DOJO!!! is the official website of Super Smash Flash 2 used to post information of the game semi-weekly about characters, stages, items, news, etc.

The official Newgrounds account, Cleod-9, of McLeodGaming, as its name suggests, it is the only related site administrated by Cleod9 himself. In that account, he uploads some of the games, movies and music of McLeodGaming. He has received two awards for his works: a Daily 3rd Place award for A Super Mario World Episode 2 and a Daily Weekly award for the first Super Smash Flash.

One of McLeodGaming's most recent notable works, other than the Super Smash Flash games, was with the co-development of the puzzle-platform game Yeah Jam Fury alongside Willy World Entertainment (now called World Entertainment Studios). The game was released in 2012, exactly six years after the original SSF. The two companies eventually released a follow-up in 2017 titled Yeah Jam Fury: U, Me, Everybody!, which was the first game released onto a digital storefront and the first to be full-paid game in the history of both companies.

In Super Smash Flash
The McLeodGaming franchise was treated as the fan characters universe. It is represented only by two  fan characters, Blade and Blue, in Super Smash Flash, both whom are based on characters created by Newgrounds user, Equinox_Twilight. However, the final designs were made by MG Forums user, topcat13.

Characters

 * : Unofficially referred as Blade the Swordsman Hedgehog, Blade is a fan character based on a similar character, Flare the Hedgehog, created by the Newgrounds user Equinox-Twilight, but has a design completely made by other user known as topcat13. He was redesigned from orange to red to make it a new character. He resembles Sonic in many aspects as both are hedgehogs and can perform the Spin Dash as a move and during a jump. Blades does, however, own a sword which he uses in all his attacks and of his attacks are possibly electrically infused. Blade is one of the fastest characters in Super Smash Flash but possibly the weakest character in SSF due to his weak moveset.


 * : Unofficially refereed as the Blue the Swordsman Hedgehog too, Blue is a unlockable character derived from the Equinox_Twilight creations and redesigned by topcat13. The relation between him and Blade is totally a mystery, is not known if they are siblings, friends or rivals. He resembles, but in few aspects, Sonic as both are hedgehogs too but have no similar designs which is similar to Knuckles'. Like Blade, he wields a sword which makes him a semi-clone of him. The difference between them is that Blue has more powerful, fire infused attacks, although he is not faster than Blade.

Enemy team

 * Fighting Silhouette Team: A team comprised of gray-shaded versions of the playable roster, which are battled on the . Each Shadow member is able to use every attack of its playable brethren, thereby increasing the challenge while facing numerous members at once. However, they are still very weak and prone to get launched with ease by a single attack, if they, at first, do not attempt to recover.

Stage
There is no multiplayer stage based on MG to properly represent the universe. There is, however, a single-player stage known as the Floating Islands. While the tiles and enemies suggest it to be Wario-themed level, the lack of actual representation for Wario in the game (other than the aforementioned enemies) makes it to not belong to that particular series, fitting only on MG by default.

In Super Smash Flash 2
The McLeodGaming franchise was treated as the fan characters and stages universe. It has been cut from the game (with several fan characters meant to be playable), but before its cut, it was "represented" only by two stages in Super Smash Flash 2.


 * Test Stage 1: Test Stage 1 was a stage only playable in the early SSF2 Demo. It consists of a large green rectangle and a white background. It was one of the first playable stages in the demo. In version 0.5a of the demo, this stage and Test Stage 2 were replaced by the Online Practice Stage.


 * Test Stage 2: Test Stage 2 was a stage only playable in the early SSF2 Demo. It consists of a large green rectangle with two hills and a white background. It was one of the first playable stages in the demo. In version 0.5a of the demo, this stage and Test Stage 1 were replaced by the Online Practice Stage.