The Citizen, 2019-01-17, Page 9THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2019. PAGE 9.
After the successful launch of Way
of the Passive Fist last year, Blyth
native Orie Falconer has shifted his
attention to Mighty Fight
Federation, a different video game
he’s co-creating with long-time
friend Julian Spillane.
Falconer, the son of Kevin and
Lorie Falconer of Blyth, has been
developing the game for several
months now, creating it from the
ground up, including character
development, design and gameplay.
Earlier this month, Falconer and
members of his team took the game
to MAGFest (Music and Gaming
Festival) in National Harbor,
Maryland, which is along the
Potomac River where Maryland
borders both Virginia and the
District of Columbia. There,
Falconer hosted a tournament for
the game that saw about 20
participants find their way to their
set-up in the independent game
section while dozens watched the
action.
The game was also part of the
convention’s famed Versus Panel,
which included celebrity guests and
the Mighty Fight Federation game
was one of the spaces on the panel’s
board, meaning that the guests could
play the game as part of the panel.
While Mighty Fight Federation is
far from fully developed (Falconer
estimates the game will be released
in the first quarter of 2020), he said
that seeing people universally enjoy
the game in its early stages was very
encouraging, especially among such
discerning gamers.
Mighty Fight Federation began
with Spillane, who wanted to
develop a 3-D, king of the hill-style
fighting game and he wanted
Falconer to be involved. The
concept, however, has evolved
greatly since those early days.
He said that while the game
started with influences from well-
known game Bomberman and the
Sega Dreamcast game Power Stone,
when Falconer came on board they
started injecting well-known
elements of popular fighting games
like Street Fighter to make the game
more accessible to casual players.
Now, it sits as a four-player fight
game in an enclosed stage, featuring
special moves for each character and
the ability to be bounced off of the
stage’s walls. Falconer, Spillane and
their team have fully created five
characters for the game thus far.
However, they hope to have a roster
of 11 when the game is fully
developed, as well as 11 individual
stages for gameplay.
Having individual stages, each
with its own intricacies, will make
for new and different interactions
between characters, Falconer says,
and it will create a depth in the game
that isn’t often seen in the genre.
While Way of the Passive Fist was
made for a very specific audience,
which Falconer says has found its
way to the game, Mighty Fight
Federation is designed to be more
accessible to the average gamer or
even for those who don’t regularly
play video games.
Falconer says there will be ways to
find new depths of gameplay for
those who want to, but the game will
also be playable for those who
simply pick up a controller in a party
or individual setting and want a fun
game to try.
“The goal was to keep moves
simple, but still expansive,” Falconer
said.
Falconer said it has been good to
get back to his game development
roots with this project. In recent
years his day job has been stage
development for the California-
based PlayQ Inc., but his side
projects have been largely centred
around music and sound design,
similar to the work he did for Way of
the Passive Fist.
His connection to Spillane,
however, goes back several years
and greatly involves music.
Spillane was one of Falconer’s
professors when he attended the
University of Ontario Institute of
Technology in Oshawa for its Video
Game Development and
Entrepreneurship program. He knew
him from the school, however, the
two met all over again when
Falconer began working in gaming
in Toronto and he and Spillane
worked together at DHX Media.
The two then played in a band
together for a number of years. The
band, called The Blast Processors, a
tribute band to the 1990s gaming
console Sega Genesis, would go on
to play many of the most storied
small concert halls in Toronto.
While they had worked together
on a handful of projects over the
years, Mighty Fight Federation will
be the first time that they have really
come together to create something
commercial from the ground up.
The process, he says, has been
really rewarding, especially after
watching people play and interact
with the game at MAGFest. To see
the game be successful in that arena,
he says, is really a dream come true.
Falconer has now been working in
game development in Toronto for a
number of years. The Blyth native
studied the craft when it was in its
very early stages.
“I remember playing a game
called Metal Gear Solid and really
appreciating the way it told its story.
It was so much different than any
other medium,” Falconer said.
“There were moments where things
like saving data in the memory card
and the game’s box itself had a direct
impact on narrative and
progression.”
Falconer’s love for video games in
high school led him to seek out
education options in video game
development in the early 2000s. He
would go on to study Video Game
Development and Entrepreneurship
at the University of Ontario Institute
of Technology in Oshawa. When he
was in his first year, the course was
still in its infancy. In fact, those who
took the course in its first year had
yet to graduate when Falconer
started his time at the school.
He said he found the education he
was receiving fascinating, but
admitted that it wasn’t for everyone.
A running joke throughout the
course, Falconer said, were the
students who arrived thinking they
would spend their days playing
video games, when nothing could be
further from the truth.
Days were grueling, Falconer said,
going over the behind-the-scenes
development of a game in
excruciating detail. Not only were
the technical aspects of game
development explored in detail, but
so too was the business behind
creating a game.
Falconer said he felt at home, even
as others found it wasn’t exactly
what they were expecting it to be.
“As a gamer, you have some
‘Mighty Fight Federation’ impresses at MAGFest
Attracting a following
Mighty Fight Federation was a hit with those who played it at MAGFest in Maryland earlier this
month. The game, co-created by Blyth native Orie Falconer, is a four-person fighting game
designed for casual gamers and afficionados alike. (Courtesy photo)
A new experience
Mighty Fight Federation, co-created by Blyth native Orie
Falconer, is building an audience already, over a year
ahead of its scheduled release. (Courtesy photo)
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Continued on page 11