Beast’s Fury, a visually stunning 2D fighter by indie game developer Evil Dog Games, hit its crowdfunding goal on Kickstarter in June this year and is scheduled for release in 2015. iWeb will partially host the online multiplayer support for the game, and we caught up with designer Ryhan Stevens, and Marco Arsenault from Evil Dog Games, to talk about about their journey from concept to funding, and their plans to bring Beast’s Fury to gamers next year.
iWeb: Where did the original concept of Beast’s Fury come from?
BF: I drew inspiration from Beast’s Fury both from old martial arts movies as well as both modern and older fighting games, things like Street Fighter had the most impact on my design choices and Mike Z’s Skull Girls is what set me in motion for making the game happen.
BF: I drew inspiration from Beast’s Fury both from old martial arts movies as well as both modern and older fighting games, things like Street Fighter had the most impact on my design choices and Mike Z’s Skull Girls is what set me in motion for making the game happen.
iWeb: What sets Beast’s Fury apart from other 2D fighting games?
BF: Probably our ambitious desires to incorporate all of the conflict on screen in every possible facet. Our finished designs for the game involve not only using concepts such as Ground Bounces and Wall Bounces as found in most fighting games these days, but also to use dynamic elements such as stages with ceilings to change trajectories of certain attacks. We also have our ‘Fury’ mode, which is a late game comeback mechanic built to make characters stronger in unique ways, but comeback mechanics are nothing new in fighting games. We just hope players find our mechanic in particular exciting. As more work is done and things progress, we hope to reveal these mechanics in fully once they’ve been finished in programming.
BF: Probably our ambitious desires to incorporate all of the conflict on screen in every possible facet. Our finished designs for the game involve not only using concepts such as Ground Bounces and Wall Bounces as found in most fighting games these days, but also to use dynamic elements such as stages with ceilings to change trajectories of certain attacks. We also have our ‘Fury’ mode, which is a late game comeback mechanic built to make characters stronger in unique ways, but comeback mechanics are nothing new in fighting games. We just hope players find our mechanic in particular exciting. As more work is done and things progress, we hope to reveal these mechanics in fully once they’ve been finished in programming.
iWeb: What did it take to get from the concept to the crowdfunding stage?
BF: Heartache and Tears. Mostly Tears. Kidding of course. Honestly it was all about meeting with people almost at random, asking them if they wanted to help on the project, and then going at it with everything we have. It’s been an arduous task keeping fans happy while still producing content, but we hope in the next few months, we have a full demonstration of the game ready for people to play with. Lots of hard work and focus and ambition to keep this going.
BF: Heartache and Tears. Mostly Tears. Kidding of course. Honestly it was all about meeting with people almost at random, asking them if they wanted to help on the project, and then going at it with everything we have. It’s been an arduous task keeping fans happy while still producing content, but we hope in the next few months, we have a full demonstration of the game ready for people to play with. Lots of hard work and focus and ambition to keep this going.
iWeb: What kinds of skills are needed to realize this type of project?
BF: Animation, programming, and fundamental understanding of fighting games as a whole. Without these, the game wouldn’t be anything, and we’re very thankful to have talented people working on bringing the games to life.
BF: Animation, programming, and fundamental understanding of fighting games as a whole. Without these, the game wouldn’t be anything, and we’re very thankful to have talented people working on bringing the games to life.
iWeb: The game is crowdfunded, has the community contributed to the game design too?
BF: In some ways they have. Little suggestions here and there and people showing their support and design ideas. We even had people very heavily sharing their influences for our design for a character named Matilda. Otherwise the fans have been very happy with the designs we’ve had so far. Granted, anything could change from now til final product, so who knows?
BF: In some ways they have. Little suggestions here and there and people showing their support and design ideas. We even had people very heavily sharing their influences for our design for a character named Matilda. Otherwise the fans have been very happy with the designs we’ve had so far. Granted, anything could change from now til final product, so who knows?
iWeb: In what formats will the finished game be available?
BF: Do you mean which systems will we be able to play the game on? So far we’re just shooting for a steam release, so people can play it on PC, Mac, and Linux. However we also hope that we can one day get it on a console release as well.
BF: Do you mean which systems will we be able to play the game on? So far we’re just shooting for a steam release, so people can play it on PC, Mac, and Linux. However we also hope that we can one day get it on a console release as well.
iWeb: What kind of development and hosting infrastructure will you use?
BF: So far we’re building the game in the game engine called Unity3D which greatly handles (so far) our need to make the game multiplatform. It’s also a versatile development tool and hopefully it will stand to the test for this ambitious project. As far as hosting goes, what I forsee is that for our online multiplayer support, we’ll use the GGPO library for the fighting netcode and SmartFoxServer for match making, user management, lobbies, etc. GGPO works in a peer to peer fashion but SmartFoxServer is a service that will be running on our iWeb server.
BF: So far we’re building the game in the game engine called Unity3D which greatly handles (so far) our need to make the game multiplatform. It’s also a versatile development tool and hopefully it will stand to the test for this ambitious project. As far as hosting goes, what I forsee is that for our online multiplayer support, we’ll use the GGPO library for the fighting netcode and SmartFoxServer for match making, user management, lobbies, etc. GGPO works in a peer to peer fashion but SmartFoxServer is a service that will be running on our iWeb server.
iWeb: When can we expect the game to be available?
BF: The Demo we’re certain will be ready by the end of the year 2014, as for the Final Product, that’s to be decided as more development is done.
BF: The Demo we’re certain will be ready by the end of the year 2014, as for the Final Product, that’s to be decided as more development is done.
Introducing iWeb Game Servers
iWeb is proud and excited to support Beast’s Fury with dedicated hosting infrastructure. If you’re a gamer, you too can host on a ‘No Lag’ Cloud or Dedicated iWeb Game Server, both of which offer lightning-fast 100Mbps connections and free bandwidth.
Otherwise follow Beast’s Fury on Facebook for more videos, fan art and development updates. Or head to Evil Dog Games’ website for a bunch of other cool apps and games.
