Tucked away inside of the densely-packed Tokyo Game Show Indie Game Area was Project EF-12, which at first glance appeared to be a prototype 3D fighter along the lines of SoulCalibur or Tekken. After being introduced to designer/Quad Arrow CEO Masahiro Onoguchi, however, I learned that the game is in fact a free, totally customizable 3D fighting game engine.

Through modifying what essentially amounts to a collection of spreadsheets, users can change virtually everything about Project EF-12, from its characters, to their abilities and stages, all the way down to the appearance of the UI. The version I played had a selection of characters that had been modified into familiar archetypes: Virtua Fighter-esque, Tekken-like – there was even a character that played with 2D-style controls, despite this being a 3D engine.

Players can also insert new character models they've built from scratch, assuming the models were constructed in either Soft Image or Maya. Trading/sharing new characters is as simple as downloading a zip and extracting the spreadsheet and models into the correct folder.

Project EF-12 is currently available with a mountain of Japanese-language tutorial material through Playism's Japanese website, with an English release expected on Playism's English site before the end of the year. In related news, expect Style Guide: Journalism Hyper Fighting from Joystiq Publishing almost immediately afterwards.

Seems Awesome

We're gonna need a link, or a video, or literally anything, because this just looks like gibberish.

http://playism-games.com/games/ef12/

+ a video on the site

It's basically Mugen but in 3D.

I played it and I gotta say, this feels really, REALLY clunky and awkward.
Your attacks don't really feel like they hit the opponent. Think of the overworld in Persona 4, or kind of like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (except MvC3 isn't as bad as this).
However, the game can be somewhat fun, and they've managed to mimic fighting styles of other characters. The only one I can recognize is Ryu, but I think the Soul Calibur-esque girl is based on Aeon due to her flame breath and dual weapons.
The game looks really, really great though and it's shocking to think it's just an engine! I'm really looking forward to seeing if this gets any better, because I'd outright love to see this get good.