Rarity

Gameplay

Fighting is Magic was a traditional one-on-one fighter that takes place in a 2-Dimensional plane. The gameplay borrowed the dial-a-combo system made popular by renowned fighters such as Capcom’s Versus crossover series. Standard fighting game fare was incorporated in the game, from character lifebars to a ‘super’ gauge to a round timer to special and super attacks. Characters engage in a ‘best-of’ battle, where one must fully deplete the other’s lifebar or have more health remaining once the timer reaches zero for a set number of rounds. The character who wins the most number of rounds is declared the winner of the match.

The button scheme of Fighting is Magic is a four-button layout: Light, Medium, Heavy and Magic. According to Mane6, the latter button is an original mechanic that differs with each character, much like the Drive system from BlazBlue. This function was yet to be showcased, however.

Gameplay and features

Like the original Fighting Is Magic, it also consists of the first initial six main characters from the official show (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash), a simple main menu, story and versus mode. The plan was to try to not only closely imitate where they have stopped, with video footage they had shown in past live streams and unofficial tournaments, but also with some balance changes for the 4 characters (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie) in the unfinished build.

One of the most notable features added was the options menu, which was initially not possible to be added due to technical constraints and limitations in Fighter Maker. It consists of what most popular fighting games have, such as training options and an in-game move-list (which were previously implemented in the Tribute Edition base). There were plans for an in-game art gallery cum music player called Spotlight, and a tournament mode where the player will be returned to the character selection screen after a round, but these have been shelved.

As the game develops, new characters will also be introduced and added. As of Beta 6.1, 2 new characters (Scooter and Sweetie Bot) were added to the game while 2 others (Trixie, which was taken from Tribute Edition’s repository and Lovestruck) have been announced at are in development. In addition, DLC characters from Tribute Edition will also be added.

Plans for an OS X release of the game has long been considered, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Gameplay

Fighting is Magic was a traditional one-on-one fighter that took place in a two-dimensional plane. The gameplay borrowed the dial-a-combo system made popular by renowned fighters such as Capcom’s Versus crossover series. Standard fighting game fare was incorporated in the game, from character lifebars to a ‘super’ gauge to a round timer to special and super attacks. Characters engaged in a ‘best-of’ battle, where one must fully deplete the other’s lifebar or have more health remaining once the timer reaches zero for a set number of rounds. The character who won the most number of rounds was declared the winner of the match.

Fighting is Magic had a four-button layout sceme: light, medium, heavy, and magic. The latter button was an original mechanic that differed with each character, and originally began as a work-around for difficulties with inputting two different attack types at the same time. The system was like the Drive system from BlazBlue.

Move list (only applies to TE build)

Concept and Development

Mock-up art that begun the discussion of a Pony Fighting Game.

The intentions of the original game were to feature the entire Mane 6 cast, along with what appears to be 11 more players. All moves from the alpha builds had unique character moves by pony. Initially developed as a multiplayer game only, the development eventually expanded to include single player modes, alongside a story mode. The stages themselves were to represent places in Equestria, such as Sweet Apple Acres, Cloudsdale, and Twilight’s Library.

SCOOTABUSE DENIED!

It is very common for one of the brony fandom to parody other commercial works using characters and sequences from the show, and this game was to lightly follow that vision. One member of the team, Anukan, prior to the development of the game itself, designed images of a hypothetical «Marevel vs. Clopcom» game, which later became the origin of the idea. However, the concept became very popular in the game, enough to actually get a thread on 4chan’s /v/ board surrounding the discussion of it archived. Anukan eventually teamed up wih Nappy, discussing the potential of such a hypothetical game. Soon enough, members such as Lucas, Prominence, James Workman, all found themselves involved in a development team known as Mane6.

«Fighter Maker» Engine

Despite their admitted lack of experience of designing a two-dimensional fighting game, the team worked around the fighting engine to include features of their own, including the «bounce effect» when moves are effective. The team initially aimed for a simple three button fighting game due to the large-scale effort that would be performed on simply the animation tweens themselves. Further considerations on the game led to the expansion of a six button fighter — three normal moves, three special moves, and a group of unique combo moves that could be executed when the EX meter was full.

Fluttershy’s title card. Note that she is the only pony in the game tagged with a secondary character.

At the planning of the Mane6 beta release, it was planned the inclusion of all six of the main characters from the show, thus giving time for the aforementioned inclusion of secondary and background characters that would later fill up the 17 spaces in the roster. The mane 6 characters would also hold special items that would often be seen with them in the show. Twilight, for example, would be carrying a book, while Rarity would be seen with a silk cloth, and Pinkie pie, in the hammerspace would launch her party cannon as an external weapon, and Fluttershy, the timid one, would assist in attacks with her and companions and fight indirectly instead. Overall, the team has promised to keep the nature of the character’s fighting moves within similar nature of the show.

Non-bipedal Postures

The animation tweens themselves, while not direct exports of flash files, were designed in adobe flash as animated vectors where they were exported as individual bitmap frames to be compatible for the game’s engine. The team has mentioned previously that the non-bipedal posture had proven to be yet another difficult workaround to the development of the game due to the fact that the infliction of attacks had to be emphasized with the use of sparks and other cosmetic features to undergo trial-and-error. The other obstacle the team had to work about in the engine was the placement of hitboxes, which were more horizontal than vertical as would be the case in human or humanlike characters to model attacks correctly.

New Direction

Lauren Faust’s public offer.

Silhouette sneak previews leaked by the Mane6.

Mane6 later endorsed a campaign to switch their game’s engine to fund for the game engine, titled «Z-Engine» of Lab Zero, the same developers of Skullgirls. The team set their goal initially to $150,000 to fund the license on March 21st with the deadline at March 27th. Within four days of the campaign, the game had already received over $650,000 in funds, and the Mane6 challenged the bronies to crowdfund it to $725,000. On the final day of the deadline, the goal was reached a total of $829,049. It must be highlited, however, that these funds are for the goal to «Keep Skullgirls Growing», and the Mane6 were not associated with the campaign. It only raises their chances of receiving the engine for free. On March 30th, the team received the new «Z-Engine» offered by Skullgirls.

On April 23rd, it was announced that while the team is not actively looking into team expansion, they likely will in the future.

References

1. Zivalich, Nikole (21 July 2011). My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic — Nugget From The Net. G4. G4 Media. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
2. Kuang, Jason (28 July 2011). My Little Pony gets a 2D fighter: Bronies, time to knuckle up. 2d-x.com. Second Dimension Entertainment. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
3. ↑ Funk, John (21 July 2010). My Little Ponies Throw Down in Fan-Made Fighter. The Escapist Magazine. Themis Group, Inc. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
4. Ченцов, Илья (28 July 2011). «Большие Безобразия маленьких пони » (in Russian) (PDF). Страна Игр (Russia: Gameland) (324): 62–70. EAN-13 4607157100056. http://mane6.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/gameland-mlp-fighting-is-magic.pdf. Retrieved 8 August 2011., translation available
5. ↑ My Little Pony creator to help resurrect Fighting is Magic game. VG247 (2013-03-03). Retrieved on 2013 March 3.
6. Mane6 DevTeam (2015-08-28). The Big One. Mane6. Retrieved on 2015 September 2.
7. ↑ Frequently Axed Questions. Mane6. Blogger.com. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
8. ↑ Noble, McKinley (23 June 2011). My Little Pony Gets a Street Fighter Style Fighting Game. GamePro. GamePro Media. Archived from the original on 2011-12-01. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
9. Strawberry Spice (31 May 2011). My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic. Equestria Gaming. Blogger.com. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
10. Bite-Size Update 11- Palettes Edition (2012-08-25). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
11. The Joy of Palettes! (2012-01-18). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
12. ↑ Maxwell McGee (2012-01-04). The Most Unlikely Fighter You’ve Never Heard Of. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2012 January 5.
13. Conduit, Jessica (5 November 2011). Twilight Sparkle is a My Little Pony to be reckoned with in Fighting is Magic. Joystiq. Retrieved on 2011 August 8.
14. (2012-12-09). Retrieved on 2012 December 19.
15. Glasner, Eli (2011-10-12), My Little Pony — Fighting is Magic?, CBC, http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/things-that-go-pop-blog/2011/10/my-little-pony—fighting-is-magic.html, retrieved 2011-10-12
16. Griffiths, Daniel Nye (2011-08-15), «Colt Success», Wired UK, http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/09/play/colt-success, retrieved 2011-10-10
17. Wallenstein, Andrew (2011-07-26). Brands frown on fair use. Variety. Retrieved on 2011 July 26.
18. Marsden, Rhodri (2011-08-09), «Cyberclinic: Copyright sharks don’t need to bite the parodies», The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/cyberclinic-copyright-sharks-dont-need-to-bite-the-parodies-2334849.html, retrieved 2011-08-09
19. House, Kelly (2011-09-17), «Meet ‘bronies’ — grown men who are fans of My Little Pony», The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2011/09/seriously_my_little_pony_grown.html, retrieved 2011-09-17
20. Mane6 announcing Prominence’s departure (2012-01-30). Retrieved on 2012 April 10.
21. Open Letter (2012-08-02). Retrieved on 2012 August 2.
22. LEAKWATCH: DAY TWO: The Calming (2012-08-03). Retrieved on 2012 August 6.
23. ManeSix DevTeam (2013-02-08). Not all wonder is endless. Retrieved on 2013 February 8.
24. Petition to «Allow the Continuation of the Development of Mane6’s MLP: Fighting is Magic» (2013-02-08). Retrieved on 2013 February 8.
25. ↑ Griffith, Daniel Nye (2013-02-11). First World Problems: YouTube At The Vatican, Justin Timberlake, Apple Dividends And My Little Pony. Forbes. Retrieved on 2013 February 14.
26. Error on call to Template:cite web: Parameters url and title must be specified (2014-02-28). Retrieved on 2017 June 11.
27. Frequently Axed Questions v2.0 — Will there be characters introduced in S2 on the roster?. Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
28. Twilight Sparkle’s VA Found (2011-09-07). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
29. Announcer — Mayor Mare VA (2011-10-13). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
30. Applejack Voice Actress is a go. (2011-10-02). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
31. [http://www.mane6.com/p/devteam.html MLP: Fighting is Magic
    Credits] (2012-12-15). Retrieved on 2012 December 15.
32. Pinkie Pie Va- Part 3: The Selection (2011-12-11). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
33. Rarity VA Chosen (2011-02-12). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
34. Hnilmik’s resume (2013-01-08). Retrieved on 2013 January 8.
35. Fluttershy VA: Chosen (2012-05-27). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.
36. Rainbow Dash VA Chosen (2012-09-18). Retrieved on 2012 September 21.

Telepone

Telepone is the preferred netplay client for Premium, developed by a fan named Anniie and includes many improvements, both aesthetic and technical, over the old netplay client, MTSP. It was built around a server system, a player hosts a room for other players to join and use as a matchmaking. Some features like emoticons, replays, stats manager and more command shortcuts to certain functions were also added. It also features an item drop system, where players online would have a small chance to get an item or steal an existing item from another player. These items, however, cannot be traded and does not have any effect at the moment.

Development

The game originally began when a Mane6 team member, Anukan made mock-up screens under the title of «Marevel vs Clopcom» and posted them to a Ponychan board discussing fighting ponies. When another, Nappy, saw those images, he became determined to make them a reality, and in summer of 2011, the team, which at the time, consisted not only of Nappy and Anukan, but also of Jay Wright, Lucas Ellinghaus, James Workman, and Prominence, met on Skype for the first time.

The game used the Fighter Maker game engine. The team released early pre-alpha gameplay footage that displays basic game mechanics such as launches, juggles and hyper combos as seen in existing fighting game franchises such as Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear. They have released footage showing how Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack played. The last main character, Rainbow Dash, was still under development.

Though an unlicensed work from Hasbro, the holders of the My Little Pony franchise intellectual property, the Mane 6 team had not received any cease and desist notices from the company as of October 12, 2011. Like much of the rest of the Internet phenomenon surrounding Friendship is Magic, Hasbro has sometimes allowed episodes of the show along with parodies and mash-ups of the works to be redistributed freely across the Internet, helping to create a participator culture that has drawn a broader audience to the show.

On January 30, 2012, Prominence left the development team for personal reasons.

A test build was leaked by a member of the Quality Assurance team on August 2, 2012. As a result, Mane6 announced it was cancelling all plans of external testing and suspending video updates about the game’s features for the foreseeable future. However, they released a clarification and FAQ the next day, saying that they overreacted some, and that while they were still replacing their entire QA team (to ensure no further leaks), they don’t hate the fans for downloading and playing the leak. Also, they stated that the Canterlot Gardens con «is still go».

Maxwell McGee, of GameSpot, featured this game as «The Most Unlikely Fighter You’ve Never Heard Of», covering the game’s information and revealing a picture of Pinkie Pie fighting Rainbow Dash, along with some other non in-game pictures. He also included an in-depth look at the designing of the game, and working with the 2D Fighter Maker 2002 engine.

On February 8, 2013, the team announced that they had received a cease-and-desist order from Hasbro, and while they were trying to contact Hasbro to negotiate, they would follow the directives of the C&D letter, and suspend production indefinitely. They also announced the resignation of James Workman (aka Elosande) from the development team as of February 6, 2013. There was a petition to convince Hasbro to let Mane6 continue development on Fighting is Magic.

Mane6 were unable to come to agreements with Hasbro and began to redo the game using new artwork assets. Lauren Faust offered to provide original character designs for Mane6 for any future endeavors, and her official involvement with the project was announced at the end of February. The cease and desist is believed, by those in the fandom, to be a result of the visibility of the project through the .

After Mane6 was forced to abandon the original project, another group of fans decided to take the leaked build and quietly continue work on it. This version, called Fighting is Magic — Tribute Edition, was released in February 2014.

Combos (only applies to EVO Build)

Standard Midscreen BnB

5A 5B 5C 3C j.B j.B 5B 5C 236A 236C 214A 5A 5B 5C 22A 236A 236D 214C 2C 3C j.B j.B jA jB jB 5A 5B 5C 236A 236C 2141236C 

— Can end combo with LVL2 extension ( 2141236C + 214C 5A 5B 5C 236A 236C) Kills Everyone but Applejack

Standard Corner BnB

5A 5B 5C 3C j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C 214A 5A 5B 5C 22A 236A 236D j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C 3C j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C 236A 236C 2141236C

— Hold forward during j.B j.B in order for 5A to hit

— Can end combo with LVL2 extension ( 2141236C + 214C 5A 5B 5C 236A 236C) Kills Everyone but Applejack

Rejump BnB

5A 5B 5C 3C j.B j.A j.B (rejump) j.A j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C Lasso A 5A 5B 5C 3C j.B j.A j.B (rejump) j.A j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C 236A 236D j.B j.B 5A 5B 5C 3C 236A 236C 2141236C

— Can end combo with LVL2 extension ( 2141236C + 214C 5A 5B 5C 236A 236C) Kills Everyone but Applejack

Movelist (only applies to EVO build)

Basic moves

Command Moves

Super moves

History and development

There were plans by various groups in the fandom for an attempt to finish the highly anticipated fan-game after Mane6 officially announced on February 2013 that they are cancelling the original My Little Pony fan-game due to a cease and desist letter by Hasbro, albeit had since restarted development using an original IP. Development on the revival of the original fan-game started in earnest by several groups of fans. Many builds based off of Mane6’s unfinished product started appearing such as Ponychan’s Build and Iwanabrawl Build (which was the created by the same development team as Tribute Edition). One such build started in April 2013, by an individual known online under the alias «Rainbow Crash PP», with the initial codename «Chocolate». Not having much experience in Fighter Maker , it was supposed to be a test version and was never intended to be released to the public. However, on May 2013, Rainbow Crash PP said that it will «still be released anyway,» just to get a glimpse of what they were doing. Just weeks after «Chocolate» was released, Rainbow Crash PP announced a remake of the build in order to address some of the problematic issues in the first attempt, under the new codename «KitKat». Development for «KitKat» started in July and introduced a new character unofficially named Shadow Pie (present-day Scooter) but was halted and scrapped in late August as Rainbow Crash PP «didn’t like the remake». It was rumored to be related to game issues.

In early December, internal test builds were released to some selected candidates, under a new codename «Yogurt». Subsequently, Rainbow Crash PP uploaded a video update to her YouTube channel, with the description stating that the final name for Yogurt is Premium Edition. The first beta preview was released in April 6, 2014.

Since January 23, 2015, Premium Edition was renamed to just simply «Premium».

On March 30, 2015, Premium exited the beta stage and the final version, also known as V1, was released the following day.

Development

The game uses the Fighter Maker game engine. The team has released early pre-alpha gameplay footage that displays basic game mechanics such as launches, juggles and hyper combos as seen in existing fighting game franchises such as Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear. So far, they have only released footage showing how Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack play. The last main character, Rainbow Dash, was still under development.[citation needed]

On Feburary 8, 2013, Mane 6 received a cease and desist notice. They have suspended development and two members of the team have resigned. James Workman (Elosande), effective February 6, 2013, and Prominence, effective January 30, 2012. It is still unknown what progression of action they will follow, but they have stated that they wish to avoid taking the case to court. Strong reaction was shown by the steadily growing fanbase, however Hasbro as of Feburary 15, 2013 has not made any public statements about Mane 6, nor Mane 6 made any statements about Hasbro.

A test build was leaked by a member of the Quality Assurance team on August 2, 2012. As a result, Mane6 announced it was cancelling all plans of external testing and suspending video updates about the game’s features for the foreseeable future. However, they released a clarification and FAQ the next day, saying that they overreacted some, and that while they were still replacing their entire QA team (to ensure no further leaks), they don’t hate the fans for downloading and playing the leak. Also, they stated that the Canterlot Gardens con «is still go».

Rise of Popularity

Anukan’s 13th /collab/ thread — the final one before the cease and desist letter.

The project itself had spread attention to major news outlets of the MLP fan community, including Equestria Daily, Equestria Forums, Equestria Gaming, 4chan’s /co/ and /v/, Ponychan, Reddit’s /r/MyLittlePony, and and later, a dedicated subreddit on the game called, /r/FightingIsMagic. The spreading of this attention had mainly begun with a pre-alpha release showing off a two player battle with two Applejack players. The team also opened a wiki here on wikia giving detail on the game’s progress.

One of the most peculiar contributions, specifically, was the soundtrack. RainbowCrash88, known for his 8-bit remixes of the show, had composed the vast majority of the game’s soundtrack, using instruments ranging from the vibraphone to the banjo, to the electric guitar, both lead and rhythm. The soundtrack of the game, notably the Twilight Sparkle Theme, has been voted in the top ten brony music soundtracks of 2011.

все песни: MLP Fighting is Magic

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:53

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Rainbow Dash Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:58

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Fluttershy Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:20

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Pinkie Pie Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:56

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Vinyl Scratch Battle Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:17

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Fighting theme of Big McIntosh

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:43

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Octavia Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:00

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Pinkamina Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:07

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Change pony

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:22

  MLP: Fighting is Magic
  Applejack Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:51

  MLP: Fighting is magic
  Zalgojack (?) Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:20

  MLP:Fighting is Magic
  Time Flux

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:06

  MLP: Fighting is Magic
  v. Nightmare Night

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:06

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Princess Luna Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  13:53

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Rainbow Dash

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:17

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Applejack Stage

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:58

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Derpy Stage Theme (1)

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  05:01

  MLP Fighting is magic
  Pinkamena

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:45

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Evil Rarity Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:40

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Nightmare Moon vs Celestia

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:47

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Main Menu

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  06:30

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Final Boss Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:54

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Super Rainbow Dash’s Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:46

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Twillight Sparkle Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:06

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Flutterbat Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:53

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  MLP Fighting is Magic — Black Out Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:53

  MLP FIGHTING IS MAGIC
  RD FIGHT

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  02:47

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Fluttershy Stage Theme.Доброта.

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:17

  MLP_Fighting_is_Magic_
  _Fighting_theme_of_Big_McIntosh_(iPlayer.fm)

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  03:22

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Applejack Stage Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  04:11

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Mecha Pony Theme

• Прослушать
  скачать

  добавить в избранное
  05:23

  MLP Fighting is Magic
  Dreamy Rainbow Stage Theme

1

Legal Consequences

While this game was entirely an unlicensed work of Hasbro’s intellectual property, the Dev Team had hoped that Hasbro would let the game slide away from legal troubles, just like they did with the majority of the «brony» phenonmenon that branched from the internet remix culture. As stated through many interviews with Hasbro Representatives back in 2011, they had no intentions of filing takedown notices as they sought this as «Free Advertising and Spreading». On top of these statements, Mane6 has always remained non-profit, and has not taken any monetary donations for their free release of a game. The game features light cartoon violence, however, doesn’t show any gore or blood, seeing as they wanted to keep it in the vision of the show.