Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Devs serious about fighting games

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Screenshot: Nickelodeon / GameMill Entertainment / Ludosity

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is an upcoming Smash-like that, despite its licensed nature, already sounds like an absolutely legitimate fighting game. Not only are the core developers experienced in creating their own popular platform fighter, but they are also looking to implement the rollback netcode for an optimal online experience. Kotaku got a chance to talk to the folks at Ludosity, the studio behind All-Star Brawl, about their hopes for both its casual and competitive future.

Ludosity may not be a household name, but it found itself in the spotlight thanks to the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl reveal earlier this week. The firm, which is based in Sweden, was founded more than ten years ago and has a staff of less than a dozen people. Ludosity released several games in that decade, most notably 2018’s Slap City, a platform fighter in the wake of Super Smash Bros. that was also featured in major Smash community tournaments.

Shortly after the success of Slap City, we were contacted by Nickelodeon, Ludosity CEO Joel Nystrm told Kotaku via email. At first I didn’t think it was true. You get loads of weird emails and offers on a weekly basis, so I rejected it as spam at first!

The small studio eventually realized he hadn’t been scammed and got in touch with Nickelodeon, who set out his plans for a platform fighter. Ludosity developed a demo, and in early 2020 the developers were in production on Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl along with co-developer Fair Play Labs of Costa Rica and publisher GameMill Entertainment.

That surname may not have inspired confidence in those familiar with his previous, mediocre work on licensed Nickelodeon games, but the niche community of competitive fighting gamers immediately realized the enormity of Ludosity’s involvement. There was a group of people who had already shown deep knowledge and familiarity with creating a competent platform fighter, and were asked to create a game with classic cartoon characters like SpongeBob Squarepants, Hey Arnold! and Rugrats. It was almost too good to be true.

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People have taken to Ludosity’s official Discord channel following the reveal of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl to flood the developers with questions about the upcoming game. And they were more than happy to oblige, missing out on small details about the project’s gameplay mechanics and the use of the rollback netcode.

Screenshot: Nickelodeon / GameMill Entertainment / Ludosity

Elias sinxtanx Forslind, the chief designer who joined Nystrm in answering our questions, was the most eloquent; explained that the team was drawing inspiration from both Smash and their previous work on Slap City to give the release aspects that would appeal to those familiar with those games at all levels.

If Slap City played a lot like the old Smash games, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl definitely plays as a thing of its own, Forslind explained.

But Nickelodeon isn’t really interested in creating a competitive fighting game, right? Not that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl needs that kind of official mandate from its rights holders to generate a dedicated community of top-tier players, of course. I mean, look at Shrek SuperSlam. But the idea of ​​a huge cartoon channel wanting to get into the fighting game community was so out of the realm of possibility for me that when Ludosity made it clear to me during our conversation, I was thrilled.

Nickelodeon is totally okay with making the game competitive, Nystrm said. This has been in the conversation from the beginning. That’s why they came to us.

My approach to the casual / competitive question is the same as in Slap City, Forslind added, answering a subsequent question about the balance between the two. When you make a game fun to play, anyone can have fun with it. This is very positive for me, since I don’t have the crazy skills like competitive players, but I can still enjoy a lot of casual free-for-all matches in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

Nickelodeon also gave the studio a surprising amount of freedom in developing Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, so much so that the developers say very few of their suggestions have been overruled.

Every set of moves and character fighting styles, from SpongeBob Squarepants Patrick Star to Ren & Stimpys Powdered Toast Man, came entirely from the Ludosity team. If it has to do with gameplay, Nystrm said, it probably was an idea that originated with them. And while they’re obviously not ready to talk about the final roster size or DLC plans (talk about post-release support, I’m told.), Ludosity was even able to provide input on character selection. It’s both surprising and encouraging that Nickelodeon is open to this kind of collaboration, a dynamic that bodes well for the game’s success beyond its licensed potential.

Despite being months away from release, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl already has a lot on its cartoonish shoulders. Not only is it a promotional vehicle for a ton of classic and beloved Nicktoon, but also the added stress of appealing to a group of people for whom it seems like nothing is ever good enough in the competitive fighting game scene.

While still stunned by the overwhelmingly positive reception earlier this week, the Ludosity guys seem to be getting attention. The developers are still interacting with the burgeoning Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl community on Discord, they’ve had to open a new channel to prevent the original studio space from being overwhelmed by chatter about the new game and get a very clear picture of what they are hoping for. get on with this ambitious project.

Nigel Thornberry edge guarding is a goal all by itself, Forslind joked, referring to the characters’ status as an Internet meme, before adding: I hope this game can also inspire others to continue experimenting with the platform fighter genre. It’s over 20 years old now, but it still looks like a young genre with a lot of potential.

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