Striker Man (franchise)

''[note: "Striker Man" redirects here. For the character, see Striker Man (character).]''

Striker Man is a multimedia franchise created by Ryan Nurse and Animatron Studios. The franchise revolves around the eponymous stick figure, and his adventures with his friends Stuporwoman and The Genius. Nurse's first-ever project, Striker Man began in November 2004 with a series of short slideshow comics, all of which are now lost. A PowerPoint game based on the series was created in 2008 but never released; its sequel, Striker Man 2: Deception, has been in development hell since 2008.

To date, the only Striker Man-related media ever released is a single artwork uploaded to Nurse's Newgrounds account in 2009. Despite this, the franchise was showcased as part of Project 20:15, and is considered by Nurse to be one of Animatron's flagship franchises.

Original
Nurse created the first Striker Man short in November 2004, using MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker. Striker Man was not initially depicted as a stick figure, rather as a crudely-drawn human, but he was soon redesigned into a simple stick figure to make him easier for Nurse to draw. The first six Striker Man shorts depicted the character getting into various mischiefs while playing football for an unnamed non-league team. After those initial shorts, the footballing aspect of the series was dropped almost entirely and was not revived for several years.

In mid-2005, influenced by Flash stick cartoons such as Xiao Xiao, the shorts became more violent, often focusing almost solely on Striker Man killing large numbers of stick figures. However, Stuporwoman was also introduced at around this time, created by Nurse's younger sister Kira; Stuporwoman was thus the first third-party character to appear in Nurse's works. Nurse's other sister, Katy, created a contrasting character named The Genius; however, The Genius did not appear in any of the original shorts.

The Game and limbo
In 2008, Nurse created Striker Man: The Game, a five-level video game made entirely in Microsoft PowerPoint. The game also introduced Faruk, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh with supernatural powers, who became Striker Man's nemesis; The Genius was also introduced in a short cameo. Nurse started development on the sequel in October that year, but as of July 2015, it remains in development hell.

After 2008, no new shorts were produced, and despite several plans (including an RPG Maker VX game and a new series of shorts made in PowerPoint), the series fell stagnant. An artwork of Striker Man, drawn by Nurse in Adobe Flash, was uploaded to Newgrounds on 20 June 2009, but for years this was the only public artwork