McLeodGaming

McLeodGaming Inc., often-abbreviated MG, is an independent entertainment company dedicated to video games and music, located in Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by and is named after Gregory McLeod, who is mainly known by his alias Cleod9. The company is known for the creation and showcasing of the ' series, fighting games based on the ' series, as well as the co-development of the  series of puzzle-platforming games. It is currently in the production of Super Smash Flash 2, as well as an original fighting game called Fraymakers.

History
McLeodGaming was first created in early 2003 as a website for showcasing games and applications made by Gregory McLeod for the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. The very first game created by Gregory McLeod was a text-based role-playing game, appropriately titled RPG. From 2003 to 2007, several games and applications for the TI-83 Plus were made available for download and were released under the McLeodGaming brand.

Some time after creating the website, Gregory McLeod developed an admiration to Macromedia Flash and he eventually learned how to make animations in Flash. Starting in 2005, he created and uploaded the animations to both the McLeodGaming website and Newgrounds in place of the games; among the Flash cartoons include the sprite-based parody series A Super Mario World and the series Animus. He also uploaded musical compositions he personally made with instruments and computer sounds. The McLeodGaming website itself was redesigned that year to include Flash animations, artwork, music, fan works, and website affiliates, and McLeod also created the McLeodGaming Forums as a way to build a community for the website, including support for future projects.

Soon, as he improved his capabilities with Flash, Gregory McLeod started creating small interactive Flash projects mainly during (and sometimes for) his high school years, such as the infographic game The Cell, the Spanish-based guess game Adivina La Película and even competitive games based on 's Pong. In April 2006, Gregory McLeod started development of what he considered to be his first "major project": a combat-oriented platform game which eventually became the original Super Smash Flash, a Flash fighting game loosely based on Super Smash Bros. Melee with several differences in content. Development took roughly four months (with Gregory McLeod handling all development by himself) and was released to Newgrounds on August 21, 2006, with a downloadable version getting released seven days later on August 28, 2006.

Super Smash Flash received a mixed to positive reception from media and fans alike, it was considered a success and a breakthrough for Flash gaming and Super Smash Bros. fan games in general at the time of its original release and became a cult classic game, starting the modern McLeodGaming era. This prompted Gregory McLeod to immediately start development on a sequel to improve upon the original game. The game, appropriately titled Super Smash Flash 2, now has support from a multitude of developers, formerly fellow users from the McLeodGaming Forums. Progress of the game is shown through a playable demo released to the public, which is still currently in active development. The first iteration (v0.1a) was released on December 25, 2007, just in time for Christmas Day as a "present" from Gregory McLeod.

The main McLeodGaming website received a new and elegant gray and blue design created by Jamal Ransaw on September 2, 2008. This redesign was to have under control the development of Super Smash Flash 2, the McLeodGaming Forums, and other updates. However, it would no longer include as much content available on the website's previous iteration, discarding all TI-83 Plus games and artwork created by Gregory McLeod.

After six years of no complete games being released (as SSF2 is still released as a demo version), McLeodGaming released Yeah Jam Fury on June 30, 2012, a puzzle-platforming game made as a senior college project by Gregory McLeod in collaboration with three other classmates, notably William "Willy" Abeel, who designed the game to explore game mechanics. The game was published by both McLeodGaming and Willy's own independent company WillyWorld Entertainment (now World Entertainment Studios). The game features three playable characters – Yeah, Jam, and Fury – each with different abilities that all must be used in order to overcome the game's levels and obstacles.

With the release of v0.9b of the SSF2 demo, McLeodGaming also launched McLeodGaming Network on July 24, 2014, an infrastructure allowing for online multiplayer play in games such as Super Smash Flash 2. Days after the release of v0.9b, more than 30,000 accounts had been created. The service was initially launched in a beta state and would improve over time.

In anticipation of the next major release of the SSF2 demo, referred to as Beta, the McLeodGaming website was once again revamped on March 3, 2016, this time by Jake Siegers. The site now employs a simpler, more stylized look, with a dark gray theme accented by a tinge of more vibrant colors. At the same time, the site was also updated to mesh better with search engines, giving it greater accessibility and visibility than before. Super Smash Flash 2 officially reached its Beta status on May 29, 2017, the first major release after 34 months (2 years and 10 months) since the release of v0.9b

A follow-up to Yeah Jam Fury under the name, Yeah Jam Fury: U, Me, Everybody!, was announced on October 25, 2017. Released exclusively for Steam on December 15, 2017 and once again developed in conjunction with World Entertainment Studios, it is the first full-paid game to be released in McLeodGaming's history. The game is very similar its predecessor, featuring the same trio of protagonists and refined gameplay with many more levels and features.

Gregory McLeod announced on March 16, 2020, that the McLeodGaming Forums would be permanently closed after over fourteen years of operation, due to lack of activity and the software not being properly maintained. The website would eventually close on April 30, 2020, with the section leading to it on the website instead leading to the official McLeodGaming Discord server.

McLeodGaming announced that a new fighting game on September 10, 2020, later named Fraymakers, was in development by the company. The game was fully revealed on November 18, 2020, and its Kickstarter campaign was launched on the same day. The crowdfunding campaign had an initual goal of $46,000 and was expected to last a month, ending on December 17, 2020, but the game was successfully funded in just over two hours and later reached $364,922. The game is expected to be released in early access in August 2022.

Website
The McLeodGaming website serves as the main site to access information regarding the company. It contains has different sections with variable content. These are the main sections of the site as of the March 2016 revamp:

News
This section includes all the news posted in the McLeodGaming Forums and pertains all the announcements done about the site, SSF2 updates, site maintenance, etc.

Music
The largest section in the website that includes many musical compositions made by Cleod9 himself, it includes 42 compositions to listen to.

Games
This section includes all the current games developed and published in McLeodGaming. There are only four main games in this section, including the platformer-puzzle game Yeah Jam Fury: U, Me, Everybody!, the current version of the Super Smash Flash 2 demo, the original Yeah Jam Fury, and the original Super Smash Flash. Older games and animations were moved to the archive subsection, which can be accessed from here.

Discord
This directly links to the McLeodGaming Discord server, which is actually a separate website rather than a section. The server allows users to discuss McLeodGaming media, most notably Super Smash Flash 2, along with other general topics. Several administrators, including Gregory McLeod, run the server and are usually responsible for announcements.

Store
This section links to a separate website, namely Zazzle.com, where users can select and purchase merchandise bearing the complete logo of the site or just the "M Fist Symbol". Merchandise includes jackets, T-shirts, mugs, key chains, stickers, mousepads, etc.

MGN
This directly links to the registration page for McLeodGaming Network, where visitors can create an account or, if they already have an account, login to manage their account settings or friends list or register compatible games.

Related sites
There exist many other official sites related to McLeodGaming. Contrary to popular belief, Cleod9 does not administrate any of these sites, with the exception of the official Newgrounds account.

McLeodGaming Wiki
The McLeodGaming Wiki is a Wiki founded by former SSF2 developer James Hadden to provide info of the actual events of McLeodGaming and the Super Smash Flash series as well. As the site updates, the wiki does too. During its first times, the McLeodGaming Wiki was considered a poor site to obtain info about McLeodGaming due to the big amount of fake articles and unconfirmed features for Super Smash Flash 2 that, usually, confused new users of McLeodGaming. With the passage of time, these problems were eventually fixed and were taken under control to regulate the vandalism and spam so the Wiki could be more accurate.

McLeodGaming’s YouTube
The official YouTube account of McLeodGaming is known as McLeodGaming. It is used by the SSF2 Devs to showcase videos such as previews and gameplay videos pertaining to McLeodGaming media, mainly Super Smash Flash 2.

Cleod-9
Not to be confused with the person Cleod9, Cleod-9 is the official Newgrounds account of McLeodGaming. In that account, Cleod9 uploads some of the games, movies and music of McLeodGaming. As stated above, it is the only related site administrated by Cleod9 himself.

Trivia

 * On December 31, 2010, on the eve for the release of v0.7 of the SSF2 Demo, Jamal Ransaw announced another reskin for the main website, even showcasing the new buttons the site would have carried. This never came into fruition and no other word of this announcement was spoken ever again, not even after the site actually got reskinned on March 3, 2016.