By @Nappy_Rat

Well, you all asked for it.  Mane6 recently put out a statement on their receiving the Z Engine (used in Skullgirls) and their future plans, as well as introducing their new and reintroducing their older team members.

First on the list is their “shopping list”:

[…]GGPO license [GGPO is a middleware allowing for minimized lag during online play, it’s not part of the Z Engine directly], for starters… Software, hardware, website hosting and maintenance, technical expertise from people we can’t ask to “volunteer” time for free, a gorillion other things if we ever wanted to port to consoles (not in the current plans, but technically doable with the Z-Engine)… Plus as before mentioned, the fact that apparently, game developers need to eat and have a roof over their heads (and somewhere to plug the computers into) to live and continue developing.

They discuss Kickstarter/Indiegogo fundraising, but also mention some of the challenges involved with that.

Next up are their lead team members:

Omari Smith (Nappy) – Lead Technical Designer
Jay Wright (MonkeyJay) – “Developer in charge of Awesome (and some snark) [Read – a little bit of everything]”
Lucas Ellinghaus (Leedin) – Character Developer/Animator
Francisco Copado (Anukan) – Interface Designer
Lauren Faust – Character Designer

Then in the Programming Department are Kenneth Leung (Pineapple) and Chris Robinson (Beta Cartotene); in the music/SFX department are Music Direct Stuart Ferguson (RC88), Music Composer Whitetail, and Ken Mcgill, Sound Designer.  Oreo, Klisk Midori and Cam McFarlane are Lead QAs.

Finally, they discuss hiring new people.  Currently they’re not doing it, but they will announce any new openings on their site and Twitter.

Click for Mane6 Page

As we’ve reported earlier (although apparently I’m going to have to eat my words), there has been a fundraiser for Skullgirls, the goal of which was to get more characters in the game.  It’s now over, but one of the stretch goals for the campaign at $725,000 was that Mane6, developers of the now non-pony Fighting is Magic would receive the Z Engine, used in Skullgirls, for free.  They ended up blowing past that goal by more than $100K by the end of things, enough to fund five new characters, along with two more stages and themes, on top of the stage and story mode for each one.  Hats off to Lab Zero for raising that much money,  although I’m somewhat curious how much of that was contributed by the pony fandom expressly to get Mane6 the Skullgirls engine.  It’s doubtful it was that much, though.  Mane6 will evidently put out a statement regarding the matter in the near future.

On a related note, are our readers interested in further Fighting is Magic coverage?

Peacock Pie by ~sncunleashed

From Mane6’s website:

Hello everybody.

Small bit of news:

We’re still in game pre-production. Progress is being done. Lauren is still freakin’ awesome.

Also!

Some of you guys have been mailing or tweeting us in relation to Mike Z and the Labzero team’s offer to let us use the Skullgirls engine. For those of you not yet in the know, Mike Z mentioned in a previous stream of theirs a few days ago that he’d let us use Labzero’s engine for our game if their indiegogo campaign reached a certain amount. [Author’s Note: This fundraiser was for the purposes of funding development of a new Skullgirls character, Squiggly, at $175K; as of writing, the fundraiser has already reached $400K, enough to fund another new character, Big Band.]

We’ve talked directly to them, and we can now confirm that yes, it is a serious offer, and one we in the devteam are excited about.

Putting things short, it goes like this.

If the Skullgirls indiegogo campaign reaches 725k USD, we (that’s our devteam) are given a license to use their engine in our game for free, and to distribute the end product (The game, made in the Skullgirls engine).

That is, needless to say, a very exciting option now open to us. You can donate at this link to increase our chances! Not to mention support Labzero who more than certainly deserve all the support they can get and more to make Skullgirls bigger, better and awesomer than the great amount it already is.

If they don’t reach the 725k USD, we wouldn’t be getting the license for free, but you would still be supporting them and their game. Which you should. They’re awesome.

So there you go!

As a small note: The Indiegogo campaign is made primarily to support the expansion of Skullgirls, and is entirely organized by the Labzero team. We don’t have a hand in the pot, nor are we receiving any money from it. Our only claim in this would be the aforementioned license if they reach 725k.

A couple caveats. $725,000 is a lot. While the campaign has already reached the $400,000 mark, there still remains another $325,000 or so to raise before Mane6 gets the free engine license. It almost reeks of Mike trying to play the pony fandom to eke out a few thousand more dollars (Stretch goals yet to be reached include the Salty Parasoul voice pack at $450K, yet another new character at $600K, and that character’s story mode and stage at $625K). That said, discounting the $625K to be used for the new characters, the de facto license fee comes out to $100K. Actually fairly reasonable, as far as things like that go. Either way, if you feel like donating, either for the characters themselves (although whatever DLC to come out from this campaign will be free for at least a few months after release), or to get Mane6 an engine that isn’t completely ancient by programming standards, the link for the fundraising campaign can be found above.

I BELIEVE FIGHTING is MAGIC by =Fundz64

From Mane6’s website:

Hey everyone!

We have good news and bad news.

First, the bad news: We’ve tried a few different ways of talking to Hasbro about getting special permission to continue the game, but it seems that is officially a dead end, and it’s time for us to move on.

The good news is that the game is not dead! Some even gooder news is that we have a new member in the Mane6 family…

We’d like you all to warmly welcome Lauren Faust to the team:

Hey folks! I’m so super psyched to be a part of this! I hope I can do my little part to help Mane6 finish up this game in a way that stays true to the spirit of the original—but in a way that can freely be shared! I hope you like what we come up with. -LF

She’ll be working with us (or is that the other way around?) to create all new characters for Fighting is Magic. Yes, we know what you’re thinking, and yes, she is pretty kickass.

So what does this all mean? It means that with Lauren’s help, we are going to finish this game, but it will no longer be based on the MLP franchise. It will be all new characters in a new setting, while keeping the moves, mechanics, and style of the game we wanted to make from the start. This means a lot of work for us, and a bunch of new challenges, but we’re excited about the possibilities that come along with them.

We are still in the early concept stage and can’t wait to update everyone on what we come up with together. We will provide plenty of opportunities for you guys to get to know the characters and their world.

We know you guys will have a lot of questions, we’ll do our best to answer them, but at this early stage some might be a bit hard to tackle.

Thanks for sticking around for the ride. <3

—Mane6 team.

On the one hand, it’s a bit sad they weren’t able to continue with the pony version, but I’m looking forward to what Lauren Faust can bring to the project just as much; considering their release says they’re keeping the movesets, I don’t think it’s the Galaxy Girls, but we’ll see.

Click for Mane6 Page

One last word (for now, at least) on the Fighting is Magic cease and desist order from Mane6.  Click the above image for the full post. The summary can be found below:

A quick summary:

• Yes, development on MLP:Fighting is Magic has stopped for now, per Hasbro’s request.

• Yes, we have tried contacting people about the possibility of squirming out from under the C&D, or triumphantly throwing it off as it smashes into a thousand pieces, we ARE still waiting on a couple of replies, but we are not getting our hopes up.

• This post will go over a bunch of questions and opinions we’ve seen floating around since the announcement.

• We aren’t done yet regardless of how this turns out, so please stay tuned :)

We here at DHN wish Mane6 the best of luck in their future endeavors, pony-related or otherwise.