Fighting is Magic - Faustality!

[QuantaThe heroine of fabulosity is here!]

So this means no playable Spike then? That's a bummer.

It was stated from Day 1 that the initial release is going to be the Mane 6. That doesn't exclude Spike from future releases though.

It'd be neat if having Spike fight on that stage removed him from the background though.

[Pocketis she just gonna go booty booty]

I could see every stage having small crowds of onlookers culled randomly from the noncombatants. It's not something I've seen before in a fighting game, and it would add another layer of immersion to the game.

EDIT: And by "noncombatants" I meant playable characters who aren't fighting in that particular round as well as non-playable ones.

[fensterawethome~!]

Super Smash Brothers Brawl had it with Smashville!

[DarkMatter]

I guess that rules out Spike as one of their "at least one non-pony" characters. I have a feeling that was referring to Zecora and maybe Gilda.

[Aurora]

It doesn't necessarily rule him out, I'd say.

[Lazy]

and maybe Gilda.

I still want Gilda and Trixie so I can play as jerks.

[fensterawethome~!]

I still want Gilda and Trixie so I can play as jerks.

But you can already play as Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

[Willsun]

I guess that rules out Spike as one of their "at least one non-pony" characters.

Nothing's ruled out. The King of Fighters series has by far the earliest examples I could remember where they would put selectable fighters in the background of stages and simply remove their background sprite if they happened to be picked while on that stage. That said, we see have yet to see any of the main 6 included as part of the background in those sketches so...who knows. If Spike is in this, I could see a super where he turns into his big (or at least "teen") form for some bashing good times.

[Lazy]

There was a Q/A on /mlp/ a bit ago. Someone asked about Fluttershy, specifically "Will she be like Arakune but with animals?" and they said that she's early enough in development that it could really go a lot of places right now. After that, they said that RD will be the next one released.
This was on 4chan, though, and I don't remember much of any proof so feel free to consider it all a fabrication.

[DarkMatter]

Nothing's ruled out. The King of Fighters series has by far the earliest examples I could remember where they would put selectable fighters in the background of stages and simply remove their background sprite if they happened to be picked while on that stage.

That's true. I remember when Tron Bonne was appearing in the background of the Mega Man stage for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and wound up being a playable character anyway.

[fensterawethome~!]

: If you could just step over here for a second, see I'm trying to win this match for Angel and I...

Also, fluttershark. That rules.

[Colton, M.D.You'll read everything I post,In this man's voice.]

There's a new post at Mane6 with concept art of Applejack. It's pretty cool.

[UnintelGen]

Update #4

Not entirely sure I agree with the serious and rough look (Even though we've known that for awhile) but I do think it looks pretty. And awesome. And pretty.
We also get to see some menus... And they look kind of empty. Again, not bad, per se, but I guess I was hoping for heaps and heaps of options and menus and sub-menus.
And my word am I glad they've revealed the splash art for Twilight- the old one was ugly (and weird human pose).

[NLTMONE....TWO....BOOKS.]

Applejack's "Secret" costume...

Is that Yellowstar?

[Scuderia FerrarityThe Corndogs Of Today are the Tacos of Tomorrow]

Q: What is the game’s resolution/aspect ratio?
A: 640*480px; A 4:3 aspect ratio.

Huh- wonder why? They're building all their assets in Flash.

[PerrydottoHow is a pegasus like a writing desk?]

I think the menu style is really neat. It's like Mario Strikers meets Street Fighter IV meets ponies. It has lots of edge and character to it, awesome!

[DavyinatogaEw, will you please just stop posting already so I can stop having to look at it?]

A - Applejack
B - Grannyjack
C - Melonjack
D - Beats me with a narfin' stick
E - Big Macy?
SECRET - Beats me with another stick!

Awesome.

AJ Secret color looks more to me like Derpy, which makes sense to me. Fur looks more gray than creamy offwhite, AJ has the closest hairstyle outside of Rainbow (but doesn't have to worry about multicolors) and her dark fur/light hair arrangement likely fits (assuming Derpy's also dark fur/light hair).

[fensterawethome~!]

I really like the update here, and maybe I'll make another post further down about some things I notice, but one odd thing that bugged me was the light in Twilight's New Background Arena/Area. That is put there according to the original concept of the stage I believe, and we haven't seen it in practice, but for some reason it sticks out to me and I'm not sure I like it, does anyone else feel this way or am I too paranoid?

We also get to see some menus... And they look kind of empty. Again, not bad, per se, but I guess I was hoping for heaps and heaps of options and menus and sub-menus.

On one hand, I had thought that fighting games always strove for the Arcade style in terms of feel, meaning the straightforward minimilist approach to jump straight into the action to bog down the experience as little as possible. In this case the simplistic interface makes sense.

On the other hand, it seems that the Fighter Maker engine they are using doesn't allow for that many options in the first place so I doubt there'd be much to play with.

Q: What is the game’s resolution/aspect ratio?
A: 640*480px; A 4:3 aspect ratio.

Huh- wonder why? They're building all their assets in Flash.

Apparently this is a limitation of the output of Fighter Maker and they didn't seem to indicate that they'd be able to change it due to only, as they put it, taming the engine.

[Chaos Sonic]

I'm assuming those move inputs aren't final, given they're all the same? and the konami code

[UnintelGen]

I think the menu style is really neat. It's like Mario Strikers meets Street Fighter IV meets ponies. It has lots of edge and character to it, awesome!

Oh, don't get me wrong- I love this style and it oozes personality. Just thinkin' that maybe it's a bit too "hardcore" for My Little Pony. (Though I am being a bit of a hypocrite, as I really liked Mario Strikers and Charged and that certainly didn't fit with Mario.) Really, I completely love it.

Q: What is the game’s resolution/aspect ratio?
A: 640*480px; A 4:3 aspect ratio.

Huh- wonder why? They're building all their assets in Flash.

This should explain everything.

See, the game's assets are being produced and rigged and animated in Flash, but they are being exported in to an application called "Fighter Maker", a Japanese video game engine released back in 2001-2002 which explains the low resolution. (It was also released for the PS2, I believe.) This takes a lot of planning, as from what I've heard- Fighter Maker is rather limited but does its job, and does it well. I am really hoping that I can force 2D anti-aliasing on my graphics card to make up for the low resolution. (The jagged edges are present on all assets as they use 1-bit alpha)

I really like the update here, and maybe I'll make another post further down about some things I notice, but one odd thing that bugged me was the light in Twilight's New Background Arena/Area. That is put there according to the original concept of the stage I believe, and we haven't seen it in practice, but for some reason it sticks out to me and I'm not sure I like it, does anyone else feel this way or am I too paranoid?

From the looks of it they are trying to simulate dynamic high contrast lighting, which definitely gives the library and the outside area much more depth. I personally loved it when I first saw, but I know what you are getting at. One problem at the moment is that it looks as if causes small artifacts and it blends... rather weirdly. It may also be a bit over-saturated. But this could just be an instance of "looks bad in stills, looks FANTASTIC in motion" sorta thing. What I'm wondering is whether or not this a real-time effect in the engine, or just background art.

[Scuderia FerrarityThe Corndogs Of Today are the Tacos of Tomorrow]

ok they'd made a whole article. and I didn't know they were building upon an existing base engine.
Well, it's a fan project - better to have things up and running quickly so people see progress and don't get discouraged.

I hope they keep their flash assets around because they're all very nice - some day they could make a "Mane 6 HD" and use some sort of BlazBlue type of engine that'll let them zoom in and out of characters and all the while maintaining their sharpness. But there are no awards for half completed projects, only finishing.

See, the game's assets are being produced and rigged and animated in Flash, but they are being exported in to an application called "Fighter Maker", a Japanese video game engine released back in 2001-2002 which explains the low resolution. (It was also released for the PS2, I believe.) This takes a lot of planning, as from what I've heard- Fighter Maker is rather limited but does its job, and does it well. I am really hoping that I can force 2D anti-aliasing on my graphics card to make up for the low resolution. (The jagged edges are present on all assets as they use 1-bit alpha)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is being rendered purely in software. This is what I'm talking about when I say 'limitations of the engine'.
Though if hacked up warez'd copies of ten year old japanese engines are the best we have without resorting to actual programming, eh.
I suppose the tooling (character and move editors) is pretty good given that this was a commercial product at one time.


Yeah - like for instance - they're trading speed of development for customizability. The engine (probably) doesn't support having a 'pet' character that operates independently of a main character, so the 'pet' is baked into the main sprite. Ingenuous.

But after watching the QA demo reel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMEHsyImf0U
They have their hands full of Game level bugs - building on top of an existing engine eliminates a whole separate class of headaches.

Still, a fighting game requires buttloads of testing - and a public beta is kinda useless as far as collecting bugs and providing consistent feedback.

[republic]

Applejack's "Secret" costume...

Is that Yellowstar?

I'm loving the name of AJ's second super already.

ARE YOU OK?!

[Pocketis she just gonna go booty booty]

"Yellowjack" seems like an obvious name for D. Float like a butterfly...

(I would also accept "Pepperjack".)

[MetalSonicHello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?]

I wonder if there is a Fullscreen capability - so far I have only seen a windowed mode.

[PerrydottoHow is a pegasus like a writing desk?]

I wonder if there is a Fullscreen capability - so far I have only seen a windowed mode.

Most likely not, since the engine they use for this is limited. Don't hold your breath.
(It's still gonna be fun!)

[Opposing FarceDon't you smile at my faceSpit on my backDo you kiss your mother with a mouth like that?]

Presumably you'll be able to run it in fullscreen but it'll just be the default 800x600 or whatever the engine's output is blown up to fit your screen.

[fensterawethome~!]

Oh, don't get me wrong- I love this style and it oozes personality. Just thinkin' that maybe it's a bit too "hardcore" for My Little Pony.

While this is certainly true, I think it's always worth keeping in mind that the idea of "My Little Pony Fighting game" is slightly hardcore for these ponies (only slightly though).

From the looks of it they are trying to simulate dynamic high contrast lighting, which definitely gives the library and the outside area much more depth. I personally loved it when I first saw, but I know what you are getting at. One problem at the moment is that it looks as if causes small artifacts and it blends... rather weirdly. It may also be a bit over-saturated. But this could just be an instance of "looks bad in stills, looks FANTASTIC in motion" sorta thing. What I'm wondering is whether or not this a real-time effect in the engine, or just background art.

I think part of it might also be the fact I have grown used to the library without the light, where as the developers probably always pictured a light being there. Seeing it in motion would probably help a lot as well. I saw the background before in their previous update and it was fine to me then.

I suppose the tooling (character and move editors) is pretty good given that this was a commercial product at one time.

Going by what they have been saying and the Joy of Palletes update, it seems like they haven't had much trouble with move editing, but there have been some problems with the character editing in terms of getting the levels of customization they want.

Still, a fighting game requires buttloads of testing - and a public beta is kinda useless as far as collecting bugs and providing consistent feedback.

As far as I have heard, public beta testing for FPS's were very very useful and successful, and I can't really imagine any situation where it wouldn't be useful. Perhaps some inconsistencies, but most of the cases I've seen have always benefited from a public beta.

Presumably you'll be able to run it in fullscreen but it'll just be the default 800x600 or whatever the engine's output is blown up to fit your screen.

This is what I believe they said before in the second livestream, that even though you can change the window size, the aspect ratio will remain at their stated size.
-------------------------------------------

This latest update was interesting to me in several ways. The First thing is AJ, by looking at her WIP instruction booklet page, she has a second super listed. This is still a WIP thing, so for all we know it could be a joke like the Konami code inputs, but you can't rule out the possibility of it also being a real development since you'd think by now they would have at least the level 3 super for AJ working out, and supposedly there is a newer WIP build around so there has to be at least some progress made since the livestream in february.

The second thing is just the changes in Twilight's stage and the main interface being integrated in what looks to be that newer WIP build. Here's a side by side comparison shot of the old and newer builds, and excuse the horrible Youtube quality look of the old build.



We've already seen the changes in twilight's stage, but I think putting the ponies inside the frame with the GUI helps solidfy the change of its new look. I had seen the updated look in the first Bite Sized update, but it wasn't until I saw it here with the ponies did I really have any problems with it, and it's probably just the new lighting being very apparent, but I should wait until seeing it in motion before saying much.

As far as the GUI goes, it has gone through some design modifications, but the only change in the layout would be the super bar at the bottom losing the circle indicators and the altered text indicators. The new style works a lot better in my eyes for being much bigger (and actually readable) compared to the last version. Also the number is much more prominent in size making it stand out more compared to the "level" next to it and the location being in a much tighter and integrated spot makes it easier for the bar, as a whole, to be read. Don't forget the new portraits, which use the same updated portraits on the site slightly tooled so that their eyes are facing each other.

However, I also found it interesting that the 2 screencaps were slightly different, see here as I try to point them out via crude MSPaint arrows.



The black line on the top highlights the different portraits, suggesting that upon loss that characters portrait changes to the beaten up one, a feature that I am not aware was ever in a fighting game but probably has existed for a long time.

The yellow line on the top shows the different colored health bars between the two screenshots. This could be very several reasons, like it being integrated with a mechanic or some such thing. But the most likely possibility is that they haven't finalized the decision on the color of the health bars yet on the new GUI.

The red arrow at the bottom of the right image shows the different color super bars. The older builds had super bars of the same color for each character, so it's unclear if this is a test of colors, if players have different color super bars, or if characters have color specific super bars, but it is an interesting oddity nonetheless.
---------------------------------

The only other bit of info that I think went missed by most people, but they said in their second livestream that they had their testers at around Christmas. Just to give the development some perspective, they must have had some working build of Pinkie around November when they released the Twilight Sparkle trailer, probably some working version of Rarity seeing as how she had an idle animation in the build and got worked into the Bronycon January build. This means that within 2-3 months, the testers/developers managed to find and fix some/most/all of these problems within that timespan. Assuming they have been working on this consistently since the livestream (though they probably haven't worked quite as hard as they did before the february stream where they changed Rarity and finished the walking of PP/Rarity, since they admitted that they work real hard for the livestream), the latest build should hopefully have some good progress. I predict that they'd show off a rough working Fluttershy ala Pinkie Pie/Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rarity getting tweaks along with their magic system, and maybe a level 3 AJ super but with no other work on AJ/Twi.

I also think it's interesting that the updates have been getting slightly bigger as each week progresses. It makes me wonder, are they going to keep building off of this momentum and show off a new trailer next week, or return to base level Bite Sized updates like the first week? At least, it certainly seems like they are building things up, I can only hope they don't show off a new trailer during the time of Bronycon. (then again, Mane 6 has played me before, see when I asked for the bite sized updates 6 hours before they launched)

[Lazy]

They have been working impressively fast, given the nature of the product.
Fingers crossed for more gameplay footage! Hopefully a new character, but I'd honestly settle for new moves/supers/mechanics.

[MetalSonicHello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?]

It makes me wonder, are they going to keep building off of this momentum and show off a new trailer next week, or return to base level Bite Sized updates like the first week? At least, it certainly seems like they are building things up, I can only hope they don't show off a new trailer during the time of Bronycon. (then again, Mane 6 has played me before, see when I asked for the bite sized updates 6 hours before they launched)

Confess, you are secretly in their super secret marketing division, fenster. You make trailers and updates for the site.

[Willsun]

The black line on the top highlights the different portraits, suggesting that upon loss that characters portrait changes to the beaten up one, a feature that I am not aware was ever in a fighting game but probably has existed for a long time.

I can't recall specific examples since this hasn't happened in the most recent popular fighters, but I've seen plenty of games with portraits that change every time the character is getting hurt. There's usually a combination of normal/hurt/lose/win portraits being used. I do love this detail.

I also think it's interesting that the updates have been getting slightly bigger as each week progresses. It makes me wonder, are they going to keep building off of this momentum and show off a new trailer next week, or return to base level Bite Sized updates like the first week? At least, it certainly seems like they are building things up, I can only hope they don't show off a new trailer during the time of Bronycon. (then again, Mane 6 has played me before, see when I asked for the bite sized updates 6 hours before they launched)

My guess is that these first few updates are big because they haven't released much info since their second livestream. At least, well, they SEEM bigger right now because we're hungry for info and screenshots and all these are delicious. I think updates will get smaller until they make the bigger announcements for a more complete Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash.

[fensterawethome~!]

Confess, you are secretly in their super secret marketing division, fenster. You make trailers and updates for the site.

I am secretly my own worst enemy. The only way to truly disappoint everyone is to be on both sides!

I can't recall specific examples since this hasn't happened in the most recent popular fighters, but I've seen plenty of games with portraits that change every time the character is getting hurt. There's usually a combination of normal/hurt/lose/win portraits being used. I do love this detail.

Honestly, the only games I think I have seen it used is in action JRPGs like the Tales Of Series or recent Xenoblade Chronicles, where it shifts between Normal, Attack, Hurt, and KO, and often in those games they switch between Attack and normal so much it becomes annoying to me. I can only hope that it sticks to Normal and KO here as to not be a distraction. Otherwise, I like the idea of character portraits that change upon victory/loss, and I'm sure Street Fighter 2 at the very least had that in terms of fighting games. (though those were pre/post battle)

My guess is that these first few updates are big because they haven't released much info since their second livestream. At least, well, they SEEM bigger right now because we're hungry for info and screenshots and all these are delicious. I think updates will get smaller until they make the bigger announcements for a more complete Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash.

Relative to things like character reveals and straight up footage, they aren't very big, but I'd still say the general look of the game is still a big thing overall for the project since it too will go into defining the image the game has. The only things bigger I'd say would be character reveals, in-depth mechanics (which, aside from character specific magic systems, is probably a well that has dried out for this game since we all have a strong idea of how it generally plays), straight up footage, or just an actual release, and none of these are likely to be shown off any time soon.

What I'd really want is another livestream to give a good helping of footage and content. Ideally, a July livestream would be choice to fit within the time frame of previous streams being 5 months apart, but in my heart I know that Willsun was right in saying we won't get any normal gameplay footage or big reveals until Canterlot Gardens. It's okay to livestream Mane 6, you showed off Twilight Sparkle first in a stream before!

[fensterawethome~!]

Double Posting for Important news.

Mane Six have recently announced these plans:

- 4 character demo demonstration at EVO 2012 on July 6th-8th

- livestream of EVO build at Pon-E3, a stream dedicated to showing off the latest builds of several pony fan games, on July 14th

- Fighting is Magic advance demonstration (whatever this means? probably means a better build than the EVO one) as well as hands-on demo and special Tournament to demo the game and let developers see some feedback.

This probably indicates that Twilight, AJ, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity might be pretty close to being finalized, but I'd certainly expect them to at least have their supers and magic systems down by now if they are going to be planning a Tournament. there isn't any indication of the length of time of the Pon-E3 stream, so I'd consider it unlikely we get to see Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash since supposedly this newer build has quite some content to roll through, but there is always the possibilty Mane 6 will sneak in Rainbow Dash in somewhere.

I'm fiddling around with the idea of attending Canterlot Gardens, so if anyone else here was thinking about we should talk sometime.




I wanted to do a big post talking about the latest weekly update, but I'll save that for later and just throw out some random tidbits I found that aren't obvious if you aren't following this project obsessively like I am.

- The font used by Mane 6 on this project is "Yukarimobile" by Vic Fieger. The funny story here is that, through an odd set of circumstances, this font was encountered by one of the people on the project Anu and they were told this wasn't actually a font, so when this font was used they believed it was self made. The kicker here is that it was a revelation made through the comments on one of their lately released weekly updates!

- Funny twitter pics. They very rarely post pics on twitter, but the onyl stuff I haven't seen elsewhere is this pic of Mane 6 running on an arcade machine, some Rainbow Dash palletes they are likely playing with (also showing that they are at least working on RD), and a recolor of Rarity's artwork in the developer favorite pallete Celerarity.

- Slightly extended Rainbow Dash theme? This shows off what is likely the proper intro and I haven't seen it posted elsewhere really.

- The latest weekly update was Rarity focused, so it seems so far they have been keeping the latest updates relating to characters in the order of their reveals kind of (the real order I think is RD -> AJ -> Twilight -> Rarity -> PP -> FS). Given this recent pattern, I think there is a slight possibility that the next update, or at least next character update, might follow suite and go with Pinkie Pie.

[Chaos Sonic]

Canterlot Gardens is the one in Ohio, right? I've been thinking about possibly going, since I'm only a couple of hours away by car.

[Herr Generalfabulous]

Canterlot Gardens is the one in Ohio, right? I've been thinking about possibly going, since I'm only a couple of hours away by car.

Yeah. Maybe a midwestern ponygoon meetup there is possible?

[Lazy]

aaaaaa literally everything they post makes me want it more

[Chaos Sonic]

Yeah. Maybe a midwestern ponygoon meetup there is possible?

Sounds like a good idea to me. We should get a thread set up in the Meetup forum. Preferably by someone more organized and sure to go than me.

[Anu AikanMane6 Dev]

Hello there.

I've been stalking following this thread for a while, and I finally decided to join in. Mostly to make a couple clarifications, but also because it happens to be one of the best Fighting is Magic threads around... So I'll probably keep on lurking here for a while.

In any case, the clarifications I wanted to make

- Fighting is Magic advance demonstration (whatever this means? probably means a better build than the EVO one) as well as hands-on demo and special Tournament to demo the game and let developers see some feedback.

It just means we get to show people how the game works before they actually get their hands on it. Also; Yeah, we'd expect to get at least -some- progress done in three months, no?

- The font used by Mane 6 on this project is "Yukarimobile" by Vic Fieger. The funny story here is that, through an odd set of circumstances, this font was encountered by one of the people on the project Anu and they were told this wasn't actually a font, so when this font was used they believed it was self made. The kicker here is that it was a revelation made through the comments on one of their lately released weekly updates!

Bit of confusion here. I actually vectored my own version of the font (which I later found was based on Yukarimobile, have no problem admitting that); I never got to use Yukarimobile's font file (Would have liked to know. It'd have saved quite a bit of time). The one we use is slightly different to Yukarimobile (Slightly different width/height proportions, different design for a few characters, etc.), but for general fan art purposes (We're still surprised we get a bit of fanart), I'd recomment using Yukarimobile.

- Funny twitter pics. They very rarely post pics on twitter, but the onyl stuff I haven't seen elsewhere is this pic of Mane 6 running on an arcade machine, some Rainbow Dash palletes they are likely playing with (also showing that they are at least working on RD), and a recolor of Rarity's artwork in the developer favorite pallete Celerarity.

Fun-fact time!
The BSUs were originally intended to appear on Twitter. We decided to bump 'em up to website updates because a big share of our follower base doesn't use twitter, and we didn't want to generate confusion. Twitter does get the occasional goodie, when we have something small or silly that we want shown. A little bit of Twi in one of our latest meetings, for example. Also not for tooting my own horn, but I might occasionally tease some stuff on my own twitter from now on.

- Slightly extended Rainbow Dash theme? This shows off what is likely the proper intro and I haven't seen it posted elsewhere really.

Confirmed. It's RC's take on RD theme. An early version, though. It's changed by now. RC showed it as part of his interview for "The Brony Show".

And that'd be all for now.

Back to lurker mode it is!

[kefkafloyd]

Hey Anu,

Interested in talking to us folks on the front page?

[Willsun]

Oh wow, good of you to clarify for us! And yeah, I was aware you Mane6 guys had a Twitter going on since the first Livestream but I forgot about it since I personally don't use Twitter much and the hype of new footage and news from the site itself overshadows it. Very glad BSUs were made into website updates because I was dying for news even if they were very small things to show off. The BSUs fills my need perfectly.

Don't want to break you out of lurking if you don't want to, but I don't suppose there'll be much coverage of the EVO demos aside from people's personal recordings, will there? Not a big deal since the next big stream is coming up like a week and a half after EVO anyway, but I just don't want to miss stuff. I'll probably just comb YouTube the days following EVO or something if that's the case.

[AramekYour MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue."So you're saying..."Your brain is about 20% tumor.]

Because of your awesome Spanish pony avatar, I read all of that in Antonio Banderas' voice.