Trivia / Super Charisma Bros

• All-Star Cast: The characters of the first two trilogies (as well as a few other guests) were actually relatively notable on MFGG proper. Vitiman himself was a Wiki SysOp on the site, and it is implied throughout that Dudim is supposed to be an Author Avatar for Vitiman along with some deranged characteristics of his own.
• Creator Backlash: Although he was game for Charisma 4's attempt at breaking the joke game barrier and becoming something better, Vitiman would grow to resent what happened and how it wrecked his friendships. Things didn't exactly cool down when history seemed to repeat itself when he began work on the sixth game.
  • Not too long after Charisma 6, Vitiman felt this way about every joke game he had ever made (yes, there are a few obscure ones prior to Charisma out there somewhere...), mainly because people stopped taking his fangaming efforts seriously. Quite a few projects were cancelled around this time (in particular, SCB7, which was resurrected the very next year, but unfortunately whatever "Starfleet Project" was didn't have the same fate).
  • Vitiman has come to feel this way about the seventh game, mostly due to the fact that it's extremely far removed from the rest of the series. Vitiman has also said that the intro screen taking a stab at the ex-Charismites was "a really huge mistake" and even asks that it not be taken too seriously in the credits.
• Creator Breakdown: During production of the fourth game, Vitiman was suffering through a severe bout of depression and the game's development (along with his friendships with the others; temporarily, at least) suffered as a result.
  • This happened again for unrelated reasons near the end of Charisma 6's development (see below). Unfortunately, this time it seems Vitiman's friendships with the others were permanently jaded.
• Creator's Favorite: Vitiman thinks that Charisma Bros. 5 was the best game in the series, reasoning that he felt he struck a fine balance between the polish of the later games with the whimsical nature of the early ones. To his credit, the fifth Charisma is indeed almost an actual game, but is still far and removed from what a sane person would call a proper game.
• Enforced Method Acting: Perhaps learning from Miles' (admittedly charming in some ways) stiff performance in Charisma 5, Vitiman recorded S's dialogue for 6 without him knowing, leading to an amusingly enraged non-sequitur about a dog that wound up shaping S's stage.
• Running the Asylum: It should come as no surprise to anyone that Vitiman being a main site administrator on MFGG has indirectly (and probably directly) resulted in more surreal/joke games being accepted on the site. Games like the "Mr. Pence" series call back to the sort of older fangames that Charisma has poked fun at and paid homage to, while others such as "Mario Drinks A Glass of Milk" were stated by the creator to draw direct influence from the works of Vitiman.
• Troubled Production: Charisma 4 couldn't have gone wronger if they all tried. To keep things short and simple... things didn't go as planned. There's a reason the game only exists as a single level prototype that's labeled as the final game.
  • On a much lesser note, Charisma 6 - at least near the end. Most of the early-to-mid development went relatively swimmingly, but by the halfway mark Vitiman had started to lose interest in making the game any longer and considered ending it shortly after entering the "Negative Zone". You can tell this was ultimately the decision he went with because the final battle happens immediately after you enter and Miles' brief return feels very tacked on, especially since from this point onward the game stops using original music entirely.
• What Could Have Been: For a bunch of joke games, Charisma sure has a lot of this. It helps that Vitiman is a very experimental guy who doesn't like sticking to any particular formulas, and probably enjoys branching out with his work and doing bizarre things with it all the same. Some examples include:
  • Charisma 4 was planned as a full-length platformer but ended up being only one level due to... well, see above.
  • Charisma 6 was going to be a direct followup to 5 in relation to the plot: Dudim would be kidnapped by 3 more of his past friends, each one paralleling their counterpart from Charisma 5. However, as time passed, Dudim didn't want to make another "true-to-form" Charisma, so we ended up getting a parody of the series for the sixth and final entry. A very halfhearted parody at that, seeing as Vitiman came to this conclusion in the middle of development. Ultimately, the game is a mishmash of Camtendo and Geno's influence to try and make the games more epic (Vitiman himself dubbed it an attempt to turn Charisma into a "weird indie thing"), Vitiman's own efforts to make a new Charisma, and finally his displeasure with what everything turned into and trying to make fun of itself.
  • Speaking of 6, the game wasn't going to use almost-completely original music initially. Geno stepped in shortly after Vitiman sent early builds to him and Cam and requested if he could compose the game to give it a more "epic" feel. Figuring not much was on the line, Vitiman agreed and the first soundtrack was scrapped. On a somewhat related note, the soundtrack was originally going to be released for download, but the game's Troubled Production (see above) near the end put a damper on those plans.
  • The third game started development as a 3D joke game... sorta. It was a rather cheap pseudo-3D engine, presumably to mock anyone who actually thought that Vitiman would make a big elaborate 3D game for Charisma of all things. Around the time between 3 and 4, he released a tech demo of this game titled "New Super Charisma Bros." as a taste of where things might've gone.
  • Elecky was going to have a voice sample during her boss battle (much like how both Jay and Madox say things as soon as the fight begins) but the recording ultimately went unused. In its place, Miles mumbles something about a light switch instead (with the lights amusingly coming on right after)
  • Finally, Super Charisma Bros. 5 was actually going to be the first Charisma with the original gang absent. Vitiman hyped up the game under the title "Project Made in Heaven" and even made a now-private trailer for the game. However, because the rest of the Charisma gang wasn't too pleased with him going onward and continuing the series anyways, he disappointingly cancelled it. It's unknown why this wasn't an issue with 7 considering that also lacked the original gang, but for all we know it probably was and Vitiman either ignored them or tried negotiating something with them.
• Write Who You Know: Aside from those already mentioned on the Author Avatar bit on the main article, everyone in Charisma is someone in real life.
  • Valued Customer Bibby is an admin on the forums the games originated on. He goes by VinnyVideo on there, though. Likewise, Heavy Fire was a member of the forums who arrived at the time of the first game's conception and was notorious for his Engrish.
  • Yes, those 3 people who kidnapped Dudim in Charisma 5 were actually real people. Their connections to Vitiman in real life are arguably very close (or at least, were) and, seeing opportunity for a goofy plot, Vitiman worked them into the game's story acting out revenge for neglecting them throughout the series.