Saturday Morning Adventures: Classic 80s/90s Cartoon Mod for Freedom Force vs The Third Reich

Howdy folks! Welcome to the first developer's diary for my new project, Saturday Morning Adventures, a massive sandbox mod featuring the characters and settings of my favorite classic cartoons, like TMNT, Transformers, G.I. JOE, Thundercats, Silverhawks, and He-Man. I'll be posting dev diaries to share my progress from time to time and give folks a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how the characters are designed and what goes into creating the mod. My plan is to do one setting and set of characters at a time, building in the major players, then moving on to the next one. After that, I'll start on the campaigns. I'm building this mod on top of my old TMNT mod, so that campaign will still be playable (and hopefully nicely expanded) here. Thus, I'm beginning with the TMNT characters, and this first batch features some of my absolute favorite characters from the old cartoon, the Punk Frogs and the Cajun Gator, Leatherhead!

One of the amazing things I’ve discovered as I sat down to plan this new mod is that a huge amount of the art assets I needed and thought impossible have been made in the last few years by our awesome community.

At the top of the list were some of my favorite TMNT characters of all time, fan favorites from the original cartoon, The Punk Frogs, who were created for me by our dear, departed friend, Daglob. How fitting that I start with them, some of his last creations for the community. And even better, I can pair them with another of his gifts, a magnificent Leatherhead skin and skope. I’ve had missions outlined for all of these guys for ages, and they’ve been at the top of my TMNT wishlist since before I started working on the original mod. In fact, I did a series of posts about the TMNT universe characters I’d love to see in FF years and years ago, and coming in at the top of that list were…you guessed it, everybody’s favorite amphibians, the Punk Frogs! I still can’t believe that I actually have the resources to bring all of these characters to life (and so much more than I can’t wait to show y’all)!

But doing so, as always, takes a lot of thought and research, especially because the Punk Frogs, despite being fan-favorites, only appeared a few times in the classic cartoon, and until very recently, never appeared anywhere else in their classic incarnation. The Frogs were really cool characters with a ton of potential, but they have really never been fleshed out. As is often the case for me, it was the promise of the concept more than the actual stories that fascinated me as a kid and inspired me as an adult. (I guess I just have a thing for underdogs.) So, my first step was to build on the sketch we got of these characters in the cartoon. We never really see that much of the Frogs’ individual personalities, so I imagined them as rough analogs for the Turtles, filling similar archetypes, as they were clearly meant to be a parallel team for the original Green Machine.

Attila is the leader, so I imagined him similar to Leonardo, with a balanced build and some team-buffing abilities. Genghis is the Raphael of the group, filling the “Lancer” role, though much more laid back, so I built him as the heavy-hitter, with lots of options for dealing damage. Napoleon Bonafrog, my favorite for name alone, is the Donatello of the group, so I gave him more tactical options to control the flow of battle, which makes sense for a guy with a whip. And last, but not least, Rasputin the Mad Frog, who has the most entertaining name of the bunch, is modeled on Mikey. I went back and forth on whether to steer into or against his name, and in my initial build, he was the Raphael analog. However, the Frogs are just a very chill group overall, and it didn’t make sense for him to really be all that “mad,” in whatever sense. So, I settled on his name being an ironic coincidence, and his being the most chill and happy-go-lucky of the bunch. Then I built him as an amphibious Green Arrow of sorts, with various arrows that make him a useful utility player and damage dealer.

With their personalities settled upon, I have a handle on them when it comes to writing their missions, and I was able to add some individuality to their builds, even beyond their weapons. Together, they make a pretty interesting and fun team, and they should give both the Turtles and their foes a good run for their money in the game.

Leatherhead was both easier and more difficult. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to incorporate elements of the toy, especially his shotgun, because that old action figure is so iconic. I also had a good idea of his personality from the classic Archie TMNT comics and the Mighty Mutanimals. However, I was torn between his cartoon representation, as a straight villain, and his sympathetic, heroic portrayal in the comics. I ended up going my usual route and creating a version that combined what I saw as the best of all worlds. He’s a massive mutant powerhouse, but he’s got a variety of abilities drawn from his various incarnations. My plans for him in the mod will feature what I hope will be an interesting arc that will appeal to fans of both those classic incarnations.

Alright folks, that’s it for tonight! Stay tuned for more developer’s diaries and more teasers. Next up? Well, I’ll give y’all a hint: the next characters are also from my Dream Team wishlist!