Them's Fightin' Herds
| My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic | |
|---|---|
| File:Fightingismagiclogo.png The current title/logo of the game. | |
| Developer(s) | Mane6 |
| Designer(s) | Nappy Prominence Jay[1] |
| Artist(s) | Nappy Leedin Jay Anukan[1] |
| Composer(s) | DJ Derpy Hooves RainbowCrash88 Ken McGill[1] |
| Engine | Fighter Maker |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Genre(s) | 2D fighting game[2] |
| Mode(s) | single-player multiplayer |
My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic was an upcoming fan-made fighting game inspired by the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.[3][4] It was under development by a team of nine volunteers who call themselves Mane6.[2][1] The game was neither licensed nor endorsed by Hasbro. On February 8, 2013, the team received a cease and desist letter from lawyers representing the corporation. Mane6 responded by halting all development and removing all My Little Pony assets from their website while attempting to enter into legal negotiations with Hasbro, while one of the team members resigned.[5]
On March 2, 2013, Mane6 announced that their efforts to negotiate with Hasbro for use of the My Little Pony intellectual property were unsuccessful, and that Lauren Faust would be joining the team to assist them in creating a new setting and characters, while still retaining the existing gameplay mechanics.[6]
Features
The final version of the game was to feature seventeen playable characters in all with the six major characters from the show playable from launch.[2] The game was to be downloadable and free to play. Both local and online multiplayer modes were to be included as well as a story mode.[7] Character specific moves were to be present in-game.[7] My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic was to feature various stages that represent places from Equestria, the setting of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
Development
The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series, while aimed for young girls and their parents, has drawn a large number of adult fans from 16-35, typically male, who go by the name bronies; these fans were drawn in by the creativity of Lauren Faust and her team, who wrote the show to appeal to cross-generations. The show's characters, Flash animations, adventure-themed stories, and occassional pop cultural references are considered other draws for the older audience.[8]
Many of the brony fandom are technology-savvy,[8] and one activity in the fandom would be to create images of the show's ponies, parodying other commercial works including video games. Fighting Is Magic grew out of a set of images for a hypothetical "Marevel vs. Clopcom" game, parodying the Marvel vs. Capcom fighting game series, created by Anukan, who would later become one of the Mane6 developers.[9] Anukan didn't expect anything out these images, but found that at discussion boards, fans were postulating how the various pony characters would translate into fighting games, such as what sorts of moves that they would use. One of these users, Nappy, recognized the potential in realizing a complete game, and began the formation of Mane6, including Anukan, Jay Wright, Lucas Ellinghaus, James Workman, and Prominence.[9]
The team decided on using the Fighter Maker 2D game engine, despite having no knowledge of working with it before.[9] After getting in the basics of having characters hit one another, they discovered that they could get the engine to include wall bounces - the rebounding of a character from walls at the edges of the screen - which according to Ellinghaus, show "the potential for both the game and the team".[9] Much of the development work was spent in trying to achieve certain effects within the Fighter Maker engine, said by the team to be "taming" the engine.[9] The Mane6 focused on a three button-based fighter, allowing to remain simple to be picked up by players but still offering a variety of combinations of movies, while also considering the amount of effort needed to animate the various moves for all characters. The three buttons were designed to mimic the light, medium, and heavy attacks of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.[9] However, they also wanted to include an EX system, as seen in Street Fighter IV where by pressing two attack buttons at the same time would execute a special move. Within Fighter Maker, the game would only register two simultaneous button presses if they were within the same processing time frame, an impractical solution for players. To work around this, the team designed a fourth button, a "magic" button as described by Mane6, used to have the character remain still while doing a specific activity that would build up an EX meter, such as Twilight Sparkle reading a book. With a full EX meter, the player would then be able to execute special moves with any of the other three buttons.[9]
Mane6 focused initial efforts to build up the six main characters from the show as the initial fighters, but have stated that an expanded roster of up to seventeen characters will be in their planned final version.[9] The individual move sets for each character are based not only on how they are represented in the show, but also considering other characters in fighting games to fill out their fighting style.[9] Twilight Sparkle, in the show, is a unicorn with powerful magic abilities, which the Mane6 matched with Akuma from the Street Fighter series, while Rainbow Dash, an aggressive pegasus, was compared with Magneto's playstay in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.[9] Fluttershy, a timid character within the show, does not fight directly, but instead her animal companions fight for her, creating a playstyle similar to Eddie from Guilty Gear XX or Phoenix Wright in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.[9] In another case, Pinkie Pie, a hyperactive pony who is shown to have some fourth wall reality-warping powers in the show, allowed the team to experiment with a wide range of haphazard moves. They had designed one move where Pinkie would use her "party cannon" to launch a present at the opponent, and then she would then pop out of the present at close range. As they were developing the game, Persona 4 Arena was released, in which the character of Teddy had a similar move. They realized they were thinking along the same lines as the professional developers and continues to work more of Pinkie's moves based on Teddy's set.[9] While these other characters helped to inspire additional moves, the Mane6 team made sure to stay true to the characterization on the show and not introduce moves that would be outside of this, such as Fluttershy herself making an aggressive attack.[9]
After each character's move set was tested and refined based on testing feedback, the team then began to animate each character, first by creating Flash-based animations and then transforming this to sprites needed for Fighter Maker.[9] The team noted that the pony shape of the characters proved an additional challenge both visually and for the engine. With most fighting game, players can easily identify heads, arms, and legs, and know where to watch for attacks, but the same was not true for the ponies. They proceeded to add effects like sparks on the attacking character and opponent responses to help players to recognize attacks.[9] In terms of the engine, the hitboxes for the ponies were more horizontal than vertical as would be the case with humanoid fighter characters, and they had to work around this in the engine to accurately model attacks.[9]
The team had released early pre-alpha gameplay footage as they added the main six characters to the game.[10][2] Though the team had expected the game to be popular within the brony community, through these videos, the game has been noticed by other fighting game players, and the team was invited to demonstrate their game at the July 2012 Evolution Championship Series by one of its founders, Joey "MrWizard" Cuellar, as part of other indie fighting games.[9] For the 2013 Evolution series, the game was one of seventeen nominees for the "Player's Choice" slot in the main competition.[11]
Though an unlicensed work from Hasbro, the holders of the My Little Pony franchise intellectual property, the Mane6 team did not received any cease and desist notices from the company until February 8th, 2013. Like much of the rest of the Internet phenomenon surrounding Friendship is Magic, Hasbro had allowed episodes of the show along with parodies and mashups of the works to be redistributed freely across the Internet, helping to create a participatory culture that has drawn a broader audience to the show, even going as far as to say they have no intentions of ever filing takedown notices as they see this as "Free Advertising and spreading".[12][13] The Mane6 had taken no monetary donations for their work and planned to keep the game as a free release.[9] Further, while a fighting game, they did not show any characters getting wounded or cut, or show any signs of blood, as to keep with the theme of the show.[9] Even if the project is shut down, the Mane6 have stated that they have learned much from the effort to apply towards their next project with original characters, which they are already planning.[9]
An unfinished version of the game was leaked to 4chan's /mlp/ board on August 2, 2012. Mane6 responded by terminating their QA program and pushing the project into a closed development cycle.[14]
In February 2013, shortly after the 2013 EVO voting selection, Hasbro's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the Mane6 team, resulting in production being halted and all assets taken off their website, while Mane6 attempted to enter legal negotiations with Hasbro. Artist Elosande resigned from the team. [5] Faust has offered to provide original character designs for Mane6 for any future endeavors.[15] The cease and desist is believed, by those in the fandom, to be a result of the visibility of the project through the 2013 EVO tournament.[15]
References
- ^ a b c d Ченцов, Илья (28 July 2011). "Большие Безобразия маленьких пони" (PDF). Страна Игр (in Russian) (324). Russia: Gameland: 62–70. EAN-13 4607157100056. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|trans_title=ignored (|trans-title=suggested) (help), translation available - ^ a b c d Funk, John (21 July 2010). "My Little Ponies Throw Down in Fan-Made Fighter". The Escapist Magazine. Themis Group, Inc. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ Zivalich, Nikole (21 July 2011). "My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic -- Nugget From The Net". G4. G4 Media. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ Kuang, Jason (28 July 2011). "My Little Pony gets a 2D fighter: Bronies, time to knuckle up". 2d-x.com. Second Dimension Entertainment. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ a b "Mane6 - MLP: Fighting is Magic: Not All Wonder are Endless". Retrieved February 8, 2013.
- ^ http://www.mane6.com/2013/03/m6v2.html
- ^ a b Noble, McKinley (23 June 2011). "My Little Pony Gets a Street Fighter Style Fighting Game". GamePro. USA: GamePro Media. Archived from the original on 2011-12-01. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ a b Wattercutter, Angela (2011-06-09). "My Little Pony Corrals Unlikely Fanboys Known as 'Bronies'". Wired. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t McGee, Maxwell (4 January 2013). "The Most Unlikely Fighter You've Never Heard Of". Gamespot. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
- ^ Conduit, Jessica (5 November 2011). "Twilight Sparkle is a My Little Pony to be reckoned with in Fighting is Magic". Joystiq. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (2013-01-09). "Fan-made My Little Pony fighting game in with a chance of making it to Evo 2013". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2013-01-09.
- ^ Griffiths, Daniel Nye (2011-08-15). "Colt Success". Wired UK. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ Wallenstein, Andrew (2011-07-26). "Brands frown on fair use". Variety. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
- ^ Corriea, Alexa Ray (2012-08-03). "'My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic' fan game suffers unfinished code leak". The Verge. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
- ^ a b Griffith, Daniel Nye (2013-02-11). "First World Problems: YouTube At The Vatican, Justin Timberlake, Apple Dividends And My Little Pony". Forbes. Retrieved 2013-02-14.
