Fighting is Magic

**Fighting is Magic** was an upcoming fan-made game based on the *My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* series, which was based on the *My Little Pony* line of toys from Hasbro. The fan project was cancelled after Hasbro sent a cease-and-desist letter for infringing on their intellectual property. Several of the original project members would go on to start producing their own IP with the help of Lauren Faust - *Them's Fightin' Herds*.

## Characters

The initial game release was planned to have 6 base characters in the roster - Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. The final goal would be 17 in the long run. It's not known which other 11 characters would make it into the original game.

## Gameplay

The game was built using the *Fighter Maker 2D engine*, and would feature a four-button fighting system: light, medium, heavy, and magic. The magic button would allow for performing specials attacks, helping to extend combos. All characters had universal launchers and throw commands, as well as super attacks which could be performed by filling up super bar.

The multiplayer would use *MTSP* (MT Special Edition) - a Japanese 3rd party netplay client for the *FM2K* engine, with integrated lobby and chat. It is built around a server system: a player hosts a room for other players to join and use as matchmaking. It uses delay-based netcode.

## Music

The soundtrack for *Fighting is Magic* included original compositions by RC88 (Stuart Ferguson) and WhitetailMusic. At that time, the main theme and six character themes were composed. The character themes were tied to their respective stages.

## Legacy

After the C&D, the team had to discard their project, but when starting new one, they transferred the character movesets from *Fighting is Magic* to the new roster, which was designed by Lauren Faust and adapted for each of the fighting archetypes:

* Applejack became Arizona (grounded rushdown)
* Rarity became Velvet (keepaway zoner)
* Twilight Sparkle became Oleander (all-rounder)
* Pinkie Pie became Paprika (tricky all-rounder)
* Fluttershy became Pom (summoning puppeteer)
* Rainbow Dash became Tianhuo (aerial rushdown)

Despite the new characters carrying the legacy of having similar fighting styles and personalities to their predecessors, they all stand out from each other enough to be considered their own characters.

The general gameplay transferred to *Them's Fightin' Herds*. The Z-Engine, provided to the team by Lab Zero, allowed for expansion of the game's system as well as supporting GGPO - a system which uses rollback netcode. Several universal systems, including juggle decay, anti-air attacks, pushblocking, and cross canters were added.

In *Them's Fightin' Herds*, both of the original composers would start working on the dynamic music system, producing colossal amounts of new music for the game.

## Trivia

* *Them's Fightin' Herds* contains small references to *Fighting is Magic*, including "po.ini = false", as well as Oleander AI sometimes being named "Fhtng is Magic" or "Fhtng & Magic".

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/Fyre\_flye/status/300098640150687744
2. ↑ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-most-unlikely-fighter-you-ve-never-heard-of/1100-6402004/
3. ↑ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/10/explaining-how-fighting-games-use-delay-based-and-rollback-netcode/