Step in the Ring If You Dare – it Could be Fatal!  “Fatal Arena” Launches 3D Fighting for Mobile Phones

by Louis Bedigian

“We hope hardcore gamers will appreciate the console-feel we believe the game has.” 

Up until recently mobile gaming didn’t include much more than card games, parlor games, and the occasional puzzler. Now every genre is covered, but not to the extent that serious gamers desire.

That’s all about to change. Fatal Arena, an original fighting game property from developer Progressive Media and mobile publisher Synergenix, is bringing a new kind of gaming experience to mobile phones: a good one. Choppy, two-dimensional fighting games will be a thing of the past when gamers get their hands on the richer, higher-quality experience provided by Fatal Arena’s impressive 3D engine.

“Back in 2004 we thought there was a real need for a good, old-school fighting game for high-end mobile phones,” said Thomas Nielsen, Project Lead on Fatal Arena. “Fortunately our publisher, Synergenix Interactive, thought the same, and we decided to work together to bring a new fighting series to market.” 

The results are astounding considering the platform it’s running on. We spoke to Thomas to learn more about this exciting, play-anywhere-you-go fighting game.

Fatal Arena is one of the first, if not the first 3D fighting game designed for mobile phones.  How did you do it?  What technology does the game run on?

Thomas Nielsen: May 2005 we launched Fatal Arena, which is currently the most advanced over the air-delivered 3D fighting game available for high-end mobile devices. It features five fighters, two arenas, multiplayer over Bluetooth.

Production of something like this is very similar to ordinary console game production. We have people modeling characters and arenas in 3ds Max, and people doing the character animation. We export everything to our own format, and our programmers write thousands of lines of code, and – hooray – you have a game. Darn, looking back, it does sound a lot easier than it is.

The game runs on the Mophun technology by Synergenix. Fortunately we had a lot of experience with this technology from past productions, so we didn't have to work hard to get things running. It was however our first mobile 3D title, so we obviously had to spend a lot of time getting everything down to just 150kb, which was what we were allowed to use for the entire game.

Are those polygons we're looking at?  If so, roughly how many polygons is this game pushing?

TN: Yes, everything in the game is real-time 3D. Each fighter consists of around 300 polygons, and each arena around 200 polygons. That means we're rendering around 800 polygons at any time throughout the game.

Since this is a brand-new fighting series, we're all dying to know who the fighters are, the reason for battling (is it a tournament?  A war?  Or something else?), etc.

TN: Each fighter in the game represents his own tribe - He is the strongest warrior of his kind, and was sent to the arenas to end the war between the tribes. As the player starts the game up, he is introduced to the story:

"Clan wars have been raging for as long as any man can remember. The fight for supremacy between the five clans remains unsettled. Great battles have annihilated the armies and shattered every home in every village.

“Rogue members of the once so proud clans now roam the wastelands of the scorched realm, picking out each other. One-by-one. They clash on windswept mountaintops and deep beneath the world in foul dungeons.

“Here, they settle the strife of generations by the sword. Honor and world supremacy is no longer an issue. Survival is." 

"Am I cool or what?" 

What kinds of special abilities do the fighters have?

TN: The characters vary in strength, speed and stamina. The knight is strong but slow – the amazon has great stamina and is quick, but is less [powerful]. The samurai moves quickly, but has low stamina, and so on.

How many weapons are there?  Does each character have his/her own weapon?

TN: Each fighter has his own weapon, so there is a total of five different weapons in the game.

Tell us about the gameplay and the controls.

TN: The gameplay itself is well-known to anyone who has ever played a fighting game. Each fight is divided into three rounds; whoever wins two rounds wins the fight. You win by knocking out your opponent, or by having more energy when the timer reaches zero.

We've done a lot to try to simplify the controls for Fatal Arena, compared to "traditional" console fighting games. For mobile phone games, you cannot rely on users having to press a lot of buttons quickly or at the same time - The devices simply aren't built for that sort of interaction, and it would be too hard to get a good grip on the phone if the controls were too outrageous.

Is it possible to perform combo moves?

TN: Not in the traditional sense, no. We have some special moves that you need to be able to learn and master, but trying to keep controls simple we decided that it would be best not to include combos.

Instead, Fatal Arena is more performing the right blocks on different attacks, and placing your attack move some place your opponent is unable to defend.

What mini-games are being planned?

TN: There's two mini-games in the game; one where you have to deflect heads that bounce towards you (!), and one where you have to emulate the moves of an opponent.

Most mobile games I've played just don't feel right.  What did you do to overcome the physical limitations of mobile phones' odd-shaped buttons?

TN: I think a lot comes down to selecting the right controls for the specific genre on the specific device. The console manufacturers all have guidelines on how controls should function in a game, which is good for the player - You can almost always guess which button does what. On mobile phones, it's a different scenario; Keys are different, feel differently from device to device, and there are no general guidelines that anyone have agreed on.

Sometimes developers do their job well, and then mobile games feel great. Having worked a lot with the control configuration, we think Fatal Arena feels good. Also, we've tried to keep the style/graphics polished and console-inspired, so you get the sense of a more complete package. Some devices do feel/work better than others for any game, but that's not something we can do a whole lot about. 

Victory! 

Who are you targeting with this game?  You're entering new territory with a 3D fighter – do you think this will increase mobile game interest in hardcore gamers?

TN: It's always going to be hard to satisfy the really hardcore gamers with mobile games. Hardcore gamers playing PC and console games today are used to state-of-the-art graphics hardware, specialized controllers, and games with huge game worlds and advanced physics. Mobile phones will always be mobile phones - Talk, cameras and music will be more important for handset manufacturers to support well for a long time, so I don't think mobile phones will ever be able to compete if you compare to traditional consoles.

However, mobile phones are really unique gaming machines in other ways, which is what I think is important to realize.

With Fatal Arena, we try to target everyone who likes to play a quick game without too much hassle. Perhaps you're on, or waiting for, the bus or train. Maybe you're in school and want to challenge a friend for a couple of minutes before class starts. Or you just have a few minutes to yourself that you want to kill.

Obviously we hope hardcore gamers will appreciate the console-feel we believe the game has, and that some will come to see mobile phone games as a fun option when you're on the move. But other than that, we're not trying to specifically satisfy hardcore gamers - for us, it's equally important that non-hardcore gamers like what we do.

Two players can battle wirelessly via Bluetooth.  For future iterations of Fatal Arena, do you think the technology will be there to create multiplayer with gamers all over the world?

TN: Definitely. With the introduction of 3G, we're beginning to see the first online multiplayer action games running – and it does look like it is finally going to be technically possibly to play action games wirelessly over longer distances. However, for 2G and 2.5G phones and networks (that's Nokia 6600, N-Gage and phones similar to that), we're not going to see any multiplayer action games unfortunately. The network traffic is simply too slow and unreliable.

We don't have any plans currently, but we're monitoring the development of 3G closely. We do want to keep pushing the technical boundaries with Fatal Arena, so we'll definitely be supporting long distance multiplayer matches when it's technically possible.

Thank you for your time.