darkSpyro

This is basically a spiritual successor to an old My Little Pony fangame, "Fighting is Magic", which got Ceast and Desisted by Hasbro. Lauren Faust (producer and developer for "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic"), reached out to the development team "Mane6" to help out with the project, eventually creating original characters (six main ones who are very similar to the Mane 6 in MLP) and the universe that is Foenum.

It is currently being funded on indiegogo.com and the process will end in 12 days. It is greenlit on Steam as well. Set for release in early 2017. I contributed about $55 for the project.

Indiegogo campaign - https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...ds/x/12369452#/


Quote: Them's Fightin' Herds

Fœnum is a world inhabited entirely by sentient four legged, hoofed mammals. Across the land, these creatures have thrived much as we humans have, building societies and creating cultures revolving around the natural environment their particular species is indigenous to.

Right now, Fœnum is dominated by these hoofed mammals, but this was not always the case. Long ago, the very lives of the Fœnicians were threatened daily by the presence of PREDATORS. Toothy, carnivorous beasts who were eventually BANISHED to a magical realm generations ago, ushering in a prosperous and peaceful era for the grateful grass eaters.

But the time of peace is almost over. Countless packs and prides of Predators have discovered a way to escape their supernatural prison and are on the verge of infiltrating Fœnum en masse, led by the greatest and most horrible of them all! And so each nation of Fœnum has sent their strongest, bravest, most skilled of their race to face the Predators’ Leader and close the portal of the prison realm with an enchanted key. But it is up to each of these “Key Seekers” to become the one and only “Key Keeper” by securing the key for themselves – even if it means to take it by force! Which it does.

Who will claim the key? Who will face the terrifying leader of the predators? And will she save Fœnum? You will have to play to find out!

Hailing from The Prairie, Arizona is an honest, honorable, hardworking and brave calf who also has a big heart and is idealistic to the point of naivety. When Cattlekind heard about the call for a Key Keeper, they decided to hold a lottery to see who should be their champion. Late in the night, a little calf, the youngest daughter of the herd leader, added her noseprint to the ballot. On the day of the choosing, Arizona's noseprint was chosen. Her father and herd leader, Texas was shocked at the revelation. He refused to let her be chosen for her safety, but the headstrong calf reasoned that "The future belongs to the young". To settle the argument, father and daughter fought each other. Using her speed, strength and signature shockwave stomp, the little calf managed to overcome and defeat her massive bull of a father. After his defeat, he knew that she would be the best representative of The Prairie.




In the nation of Rein, out on The Tundra, the deerfolk held a competition to see who would be best for the position of Key Keeper. The winner of the competition was a young doe named Velvet. What she lacks in brute strength, she makes up with agility, grace and finesse. She also has considerable talent in conjuring and controlling ice and snow. The source of this magic is in the form of magic oats, which is provided by the Ice Sprites, elf-like creatures that care and pamper the reindeer of Rein and have done so for generations.



For a long time, it was believed that the Alpake Clan of The High Plains knew nothing about what was beyond the remote Huacaya Mountains. At least until they received news of the tournament. After hearing about it, they were only enthusiastic about entering. One alpaca in particular is even more enthusiastic then most. Harboring a manic energy, Paprika is all but willing to give out as much love as possible... Even if that's bad news for the receiver.



The Sheepkin, residents of the small city-state known as The Meadow, are a democratic society that follows the will of the herd. They'll vote for the first suggestion that any sheep happens to make. When they heard about the Key Keeper call, they held an election to see what the best course of action should be. One tiny lamb suggested her opinion that they should enter. This astounded everyone else to the point that they assumed that she's easily the bravest of all. So it was that unfortunate tiny lamb, named Pom, who ended up being in charge of being a Key Seeker. With only her pack of sheep dog puppies to accompany her, she's trying her hardest to avoid the fights, but her puppies keep on winning them for her. But it is possible that the one with enough strength to voice her opinion may also have enough strength to save Fœnum.


High above in the clouds of The Volcano there's diminutive empire of Houshan. It is home to the Longma, a creature that's half-horse, half-dragon. These very proud half-breeds are all members of their military and not only sworn to protect their empress, but all of Fœnum itself. The Empress's choice for who should be the Key Seeker is none other then Tianhuo: Captain of the Imperial Guard and greatest that these half-breeds have to offer.



When news of the Key Keeper tournament reached the unicorns of The Woodland, they ignored it, as the reclusive and reverent Order Of The Horn does not participate in violence of any kind and believe that light magic will prevail, even if they didn't know how. This however didn't stop one unicorn from taking a stand. Oleander is the resident rebel who is frustrated by her people's close-minded philosophies and wishes for progress. She found it in the form of a book. A book on Dark Magic. However, this came at a price as this turned her coat black. Now an outcast among her people, she's decided to set out to save Fœnum and to prove that Darkness is just as good as Light.

Looks really colorful and has a great fighting mechanic. ^.^ Might buy if released!

i am so excited for this holy crud

been following this project since it began as fighting is magic

Looks fun and interesting.

There's only 12 days left and the funding goal is only at 61%. I'm worried it's not gonna get the money needed.

I really like the designs and the story(Lauren should do a book or comic on this,just Arizona's backstory was amazing!) but the fact they don't have a playable demo is going to seriously kill their efforts with Indivisible going around,also with the Z-Engine and MUCH more familarity since it's from Lab Zero. They were also seriously behind on streams and whatnot as well; it's a month's effort of marketing,not just choose once a week to ask people to donate.

Looks like it runs on the engine of Skullgirls. This is promising.

Quote: Spyro7850

Looks like it runs on the engine of Skullgirls. This is promising.

It's the same engine. During the Skullgirls crowdfunding,giving Mane6 the rights to use the Z-Engine was a stretch goal made on the spot during a stream iirc, and since every single streach goal was destroyed during that...

Problem is, Indivisible is around, made by Labzero(same guys as Skullgirls), and doing MUCH better one week in despite the huge goal(long story short,their stability as a dev team depends on the IGG,so they need to prove to the publisher the game can be half funded by fans). So people who have to choose will probably go for that since they have a prototype, VERY WELL DONE at that, while Mane6 just shows footage in streams every now and then.

Also, I'm sorry but: only 6 characters? If Skullgirls quickly burnt out for me because of how few characters it has (which frankly I found none of them really fun to play as), why should I be interested in a game with even LESS characters?

Skullgirls had a cast of 8 on release plus 6 free-if-downloaded-at-the-time DLC, it got a pretty good cast by the end. But even with the dynamic music, it'd take some really complex mechanics to make the ungulates stand out enough to justify 6 - or 7 if by some miracle we get to Goat Character. And if there are,Velvet and Arizona are definately not the best ones to show it off.

Quote: Bifrost

Skullgirls had a cast of 8 on release plus 6 free-if-downloaded-at-the-time DLC, it got a pretty good cast by the end. But even with the dynamic music, it'd take some really complex mechanics to make the ungulates stand out enough to justify 6 - or 7 if by some miracle we get to Goat Character. And if there are,Velvet and Arizona are definately not the best ones to show it off.

Meh, even some of the newer characters didn't really appeal to me. What I'd REALLY like to see is a Dagonian playable that looks like a giant shark or an octopus, but honestly I'd be interested in a Dagonian character as long as it doesn't look like a human.

Speaking of ungulates, I would almost be tempted to buy this if the game had a tapir character. ...What? I like tapirs.

Tapirs are awesome,yes. Indivisble has a small tapir instead of this game. Man, both chose the most unfortunate time to run their crowdfundings,didn't they - if it was a month or two apart both would probably not have this hard of a time.

Quote: Bifrost

Tapirs are awesome,yes. Indivisble has a small tapir instead of this game. Man, both chose the most unfortunate time to run their crowdfundings,didn't they - if it was a month or two apart both would probably not have this hard of a time.

Yeah, but I want a tapir as a goodguy. I can only assume that the tapir in Indivisible is going to be an enemy of some sort, as are what looks to be pretty much anything non-human. Frankly, I feel like it's sort of a cancer for any form of media that only humans or humanoids are allowed to be goodguys.

Frankly, even if I could, I probably wouldn't contribute to either project. TFHs, even without the MLP reference, is still more or less a brony game, and I'm just not a brony. Plus, only six characters?

Nope,the tapir in Indivisible is Roti, Ajna's pal (but considering the prototype he seems to be more mischievous than helpful). The enemies there are inspired by mythology from various places,like ghosts of gluttonous people,corrupted statues, that kind of stuff.

I should probably open a thread for Invisible as well but there doesn't seem to be too much interest on the forum for an RPG-metroidvania from what I can see, I'm derailing this instead of talking about how nice and pretty Oleander's design is or how Tianhuo's fire wings are kinda underwhelming.

This music is amazing.

Quote:

a spiritual successor to an old My Little Pony fangame, "Fighting is Magic"

And none of my friends told me about this.

Anyone contributed to the project?

Not me :I Saving up for some Extra Life stuff coming up(like every youtuber I like is doing it,almost) and even then I wouldn't be able to spare anything for the smaller tiers with the dollar to reais conversion.

Livestream is on~

http://www.twitch.tv/manesix

i really want to donate but i don't know if i'll be able to

I'm not into MLP at all, but this is adorable! Talk about fun and varying character designs. :) I'm sure it'll get funded. This might be the first fighting game I check out since Street Fighter II came out for the SNES. :D

I too am not really into fighting games. I might make Them's Fightin' Herds an exception.

I'm into fighting games.
I'm into MLP.
But the fact that it's already taken years for the game to have a mere proof of concept of this idea sorta concerns me and it wouldn't surprise me if the game continually gets delayed. It sounds to me like they're still working on this for free only on their free time (which is odd since Fighting is Magic was the same yet was being completed faster). I'm probably not gonna back it but in the event it comes out I'd definitely look into it.

Quote: MugoUrth

Also, I'm sorry but: only 6 characters? If Skullgirls quickly burnt out for me because of how few characters it has (which frankly I found none of them really fun to play as), why should I be interested in a game with even LESS characters?

I'm the resident Skullgirls fanboy so...

I'm not gonna rag on you for getting bored with the game. It's not for everyone (nor is it very accessible for those not really into fighting games). Though at the same time I feel like the characters in the game (especially the DLC characters who came after) have quite a bit of depth to them. And the smaller roster along with previously constant updates led to the game having one of the most balanced rosters out there, with very little difference between the "top tier" and "bottom tier" characters.
I imagine the case would be the same here. There's a smaller pool of characters yeah and that could be seen as boring, but if you find one character that you really work with then you'll probably have a good time. If not, then that's ok. Nobody is going to seriously sit down and blame you for it.

If it helps though, creator Mike Z has said that Skullgirls as a game is officially complete (Vita version is all that's left to do) and that after finishing Indivisible, Skullgirls 2 is not an impossibility. I imagine by then the game would be bigger and have a larger variety of characters.

SG2 isn't an impossibility but it'll also depend on having money, which as the Indivisible budget shows, they're DEPENDING on a publisher to not disband currently.

Back to Fighin' Herds(seriously this title is so complicated to type entirely), I also find it pretty weird they took about 2 years to get a 2-character prototype that can't even be played outside of their machines. Nowadays having a demo for the fans to tear apart and analyze would be amazing, and watching the streams only gives you so much experimentation.

Is it just me, or do you think they could've had most of the stuff ready to show and stories written in time for the campaign instead of doing it at the last minute?

^Absolutely. I know the game is largely being done by hand and by a small team but even with that in mind, the fact that they have this little to show two and a half years after the original project got C&D'd is a little concerning. Especially if they were actually working on this the whole time to some extent (and didn't take any hiatus outside of the two or so month stopgap between the end of the MLP project and the announcement of this).

It's about $700 left until the game gets crowdfunded! It's growing by the second~

Edit: It got funded!!

Hopefully they learned from cutting it too close and will be a little better with existing content in the future. Now if Indivisible could catch that Z Engine donation wave and get to 30% anytime soon... </3

Here's hoping that,if it doesn't slow down,at least enough will be made for goat character.

I don't mean to nerd out, but considering that I've been following this bloody thing since it was just a concept for a fighting game with My Little Pony characters... GUYS, THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!!

Although I'm not an MLP fan, this looks like a fun game.

It's not MLP related, but it is developed by bronies.

Edit -

Campaign has ended. All stretch goals have been met, including the Goat character and the game being on consoles.

Sorry for double post, but quick game update.

All the backstories of the main six characters have been posted with the exception of the Goat.

Arizona - http://www.mane6.com/2015/10/b...s-to-the-young/
Velvet - http://www.mane6.com/2015/10/b...dra-tournament/
Oleander - http://www.mane6.com/2015/10/b...ter-3-the-pact/
Pom - http://www.mane6.com/2015/11/b...hs-sheep-state/
Paprika - http://www.mane6.com/2015/10/b...he-strange-one/
Tianhuo - http://www.mane6.com/2015/11/b...rs-not-on-fire/

A few months ago,actually :U

Though really hoping the book of lore isn't just the main characters, there are the supporting characters around but it's still lacking in the worldbuilding regard.

I know, just thought I post the backstories on the topic since I neglected to update the topic when they were still being posted.

Honestly I have a hard time picking my favorite character. Usually I go for best design and personality.

Design wise I'd say Velvet, I like that she is a reindeer, has a german accent, and has a nice little gameplay gimmick.

Though if I had to pick a character based off of lore. I'll go ahead and put them in order. (1 being the one I liked most 5 being the least)

1. Pom
   
2. Arizona
   
3. Oleander
   
4. Tianhuo/Velvet (Yeah...They tied)
   
5. Paprika
   

There's a few reasons why they're in that particular order.

I prefer Oleander and Velvet and meh on everyone else really. There's still too much of their MLP counterparts in the others, Faust can change the designs but kinda hard to not roll my eyes when Tianhuo's a hotheaded flier or Paprika does weird things because weird - it's not bad on its own, but feels like they still think the fandom hasn't turned their back on them for not having pones in it(yes,we know what happened,but most people in some places I visit just lose their heads when TFH posts appear and rage about how they obeyed Hasbro(let's pretend they wouldn't get their butts sued otherwise)).

As Faust said in some streams,they can pander to new audiences now because of the darker and deeper lore, so why still trying to hold onto that one?

From one of the livestreams, Faust said that Velvet is more vain than Rarity.

Paprika doesn't know her own strength and is completely oblivious to how her actions are affecting those around her.

Faust mentioned in a livestream that the Predators have be locked away in The Hold for so long, to them it's an awful place they want to escape from. In their prison, they are even forced to eat each other (including their babies).

Yeah, I remember those. It's exctly why Velvet is so distinct, there's no generosity,she's there to show off. Pinkie Pie is still kinda oblivious and not too aware of how not everyone can do what she does, so it's still very similar if lacking the rality warping.

Mane6 has a job opening for 2D/3D background artist for the production of TFH -

http://www.mane6.com/2015/12/m...kground-artist/

Arise!

More work streams. Basically, if you guys haven't been watching, they have at least the basics skecthed out on every character now. Pretty coincidental that Tianhuo has quite a bit of startup, stances and firebreathing just like Squigly from Skullgirls,also one of the last to arrive from the original group since she was crowdfunded DLC.