Lifting the Lid on Video Games

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LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES

ANIMAL TAKING FARM SIDES The inside story How to design of a fascinating better warring literary adaptation game factions

Issue 43 £6 wfmag.cc MONKEY ISLAND Behind the scenes of a classic series

THE MAKERS OF THE MESSENGER RETURN WITH AN ACTION RPG EPIC xx Interface Licence to thrill

How indie developer Bit Fry has managed to compete with gaming’s biggest publishers when it comes to its Ultimate Rivals games

WRITTEN BY hink of licensed sports games For co-founder Ben Freidlin, the Bit Fry story RYAN LAMBIE in 2020, and your mind might began back in 2013 as something of a passion automatically drift to the big, project: having previously worked at Microsoft T obvious hitters: EA’s FIFA, and 2K and then in fnance on Wall Street, Freidlin Sports’ NBA 2K series. It’s all the decided he wanted to switch paths and set up a more impressive, then, that a relatively small game studio. As a youth, Freidlin grew up playing studio based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire games like Blades of Steel and NBA Jam – sports has managed to acquire such a hefty list of titles with more of an arcade edge. “I’d always big-name licences: Ultimate Rivals: The Rink, the wanted to make these games – I missed them so frst game in a planned of titles, was made with much,” Freidlin tells us. “And, you know, I felt like the likes of the NHL and NBA as licensors, while someone’s got to make them again. And after its roster of players features some real-world years of wishing for them to come back, I just sporting legends: ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky, dropped my career and started the studio.” basketball star LeBron James, and American Those early years at Bit Fry were, as the studio soccer player Alex Morgan are among its fantasy itself admits on its website, “arduous.” Its frst roster. So how is Bit Fry competing with some project was an unlicensed baseball title set in of gaming’s biggest publishers when it comes to the 1920s – a setting partly inspired by such licensing deals? sports movies as Field of Dreams and The Natural. During the early development of that game, however, Freidlin says that “it wasn’t very easy to build a studio around that vision”, and therefore, “through sheer survival” the decision was made to pursue the idea of making a licensed sports game instead. It’s here the fedgling company changed up the project almost entirely – the game’s setting went from the 1920s to a colourful yet dystopian future, while the sport itself shifted dramatically. Or, as Freidlin puts it: “Ironically, I started the company to make a baseball game set in the 1920s and ended up releasing a hockey game set in the future. So there’s really no way of knowing how things are going to turn out when you build something like this. It kind of takes on a life of its own.” Bit Fry stuck to its plans of making an accessible sports game with an eye on the arcade action titles of the past, while also introducing a

The Bit Fry mothership in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. nifty new idea: the ability to pick athletes from

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Frank Miller’s Batman, Blade Runner, and Disney’s TRON are all reference points for Ultimate Rivals: The Rink’s look.

diferent sporting disciplines to build up your hockey team. But again, it’s the kind of thing that would require several licensing deals to be made, both with bodies like the NHL and NFL, and also individual players. The process was, Freidlin says, as challenging as it sounds. “Breaking into the franchise. It took a long time, but we [eventually STAT WARS games industry, without a background or without found] people looking to innovate.” ever working at a studio, is difcult. There are a All of this led to Ultimate Rivals: The Rink With 50 athletes from the world lot of big players, and licensed games typically appearing on Apple Arcade in December 2009. of baseball, basketball, and more appearing in Ultimate don’t go to small studios. If small studios are An action title that owes as much to arcade Rivals: The Rink, we had to doing them at all, they’re usually hired to do brawlers as it does typical licensed sports games, ask: how does Bit Fry go them by big studios. It’s rare that you see a small The Rink has the pace, futurism, and chaos of about deciding how players studio get their hands the classic Speedball from such different sports will on licences.” “I’d always wanted to series – which Freidlin handle on an ice hockey rink? Predictably, make these games – I missed cites those 16-bit “We have pretty good data to acquiring the licences games as another support how [ice hockey player] involved a lot of them so much” reference point. “I think Alex Ovechkin plays hockey,” meetings and pitching, we infused a little bit explains lead designer, Arjun but fortunately, Bit Fry also had a bit of help of [Speedball] into our world – where all these Rao. “So we set up a sort of sports agnostic attribute from a well-known sportsman: former baseball athletes come together in this virtual future, system, close to what you’d star, Todd Zeile. “At one point, I was looking for dystopian world,” Freidlin says. fnd in any RPG, with stats that voice acting for the baseball game, and I was As of September 2020, Bit Fry has around 50 defne the gameplay. But those trying to get hold of Charlie Sheen,” Freidlin tells employees, and ofces in Los Angeles and New attributes carry over between us. “And then Todd happens to be really good York as well as its central base in Portsmouth. games, so if Ovechkin has an friends with Charlie. I met Todd, and he got on There are big plans ahead for its sports series, 8 out of 10 on a certain stat, board. And through his connections in sports, he too, with basketball title Ultimate Rivals: The they’ll have that 8 out of 10 in was friends with Don Fehr, who ran the MLBPA Court due out in 2021, and the next in a planned any Ultimate Rivals game, but [Major League Baseball Players’ Association] and series of interlocking titles for consoles as well it will be interpreted differently now runs the NHLPA [National Hockey League as Apple devices. “We’re defnitely going to bring from game to game.” Rao adds, however, that Players’ Association]. We started to just have a this [series] to consoles,” Freidlin says. “There are The Rink’s arcade tone means lot of meetings and build a vision for a sports other sports titles planned, but the franchise has that it has a bit of creative a long road map ahead of licence when it comes to a it. When you start thinking sporting legend’s prowess. about having two or four “Nobody’s objectively bad titles on the market in compared to another player,” a couple of years, and Rao says. “While a hockey athletes from diferent player may have better sports, and how you use control on the rink, some them in one game to basketball players have better shooting stats.”

refect how they perform With athletes from a variety of sports colliding on one rink, in another – there’s a lot of Bit Fry has taken a fghting game-style approach to the potential to do things that characters’ abilities. are really unique.”

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SPORTS GAMES WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

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