Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall
| Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Grigon Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Cartoon Network |
| Director(s) | Levon Hakobyan, Greg Grigon |
| Producer(s) | Cree Haas, Toe Bronson |
| Designer(s) | Levon Hakobyan, Chris Sunn, D. R. Watson, Jeremy Polk, Greg Grigon |
| Writer(s) | Levon Hakobyan, Erab Azraeu, Greg Grigon |
| Composer(s) | R. Gerald Pott |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X |
| Release | January 14, 2009 |
| Genre(s) | Massively multiplayer online role-playing game, third-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Cartoon Network and Grigon Entertainment. FusionFall uses the Unity engine as its client technology basis.
For the first year, the full game required a subscription; free accounts could only access to a portion of the content. On August 29, 2013, the game's servers were shut down. Since the game's shut down fans have been working on ways to bring it back, going so far as to revive the game themselves, similar to Toontown Rewritten. There are currently two servers in development, one server based on the original game (2010 Pre-Birthday Bash) and another with additional fan-made content (Legacy).[1]
Gameplay
In FusionFall, the player takes control of a customized avatar based on characters from current and past shows. Their character is viewed from a third-person perspective with an overlaid HUD. The game had large playable environments, with travel facilitated by various warp points as well as certain temporary vehicles to get to areas faster. Gameplay primarily focused on the alliance between the heroes and villains of the Cartoon Network universe, featuring characters from Cartoon Network shows both past and present. Many characters are available as guides after players complete level four of the game. Playing past level five originally required a monthly paid subscription in the form of redeemable cards that could be purchased at participating retailers. The cards were rendered obsolete after April 16, 2010, when the entirety of the game became free to play; players with unredeemed time cards were offered a refund for their unused cards.
Beta testing
The open beta testing began on November 14, 2008, available to anyone with an account on Cartoon Network's website. It ended on November 16, 2008. A second beta began on December 5, 2008, and ended on December 7, 2008. The third took place during the weekend of December 12, 2008, with a single-day extension on December 19. A final beta test started on December 27, 2008, and ran until January 11, 2009. All characters created before December 22, 2008, including those of the FusionFall staff, were deleted, but all made on or after December 27, 2008, were carried onto the official release.
Subscription
When it was first released, FusionFall required a paid subscription for the full game, with a limited portion of the content available to free accounts. Free accounts could only play in the "future" portion of the game, which only allows players to collect four nanos and create two characters. The full game had a total of 40 nanos, 36 before the new extensions. To create up to four characters, players had to earn all 36 nanos during the beta testing. Players with characters that progressed into the past during the sneak peek or during a previous subscription had their characters locked until a current subscription was purchased.
Subscription plans included one-month, three-month, year-long, and family plans. The FusionFall Victory Pack Exclusive was made available for purchase when the game was released. It contained a four-month subscription, as well as a game guide, T-shirt (if bought from GameStop), and exclusive outfits and weapons for the player's character. The Victory Packs were eventually discontinued, having been replaced with one-month and three-month game card available for purchase at Target outlets.
The game was made completely free on April 19, 2010, making everything a member could have available for free.
On the same day, the game gave the player the Clockwork set. It only counts for subscribers and can only be accessed with a code.
Comic
A comic prequel, co-written by Matthew Schwartz and Megas XLR co-creator George Krstic, entitled FusionFall: Worlds Collide!!, was passed out during Comic Con '07. The comic used to be available on the official website for public viewing and in PDF format for download. It covers the events leading up to the start of the game. There is a similar comic in development for FusionFall Legacy that can be viewed on the FusionFall Legacy website.
Events
On certain holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, FusionFall had small in-game celebrations that usually involved a special code for exclusive holiday items, scenery, and missions carried by special guest appearances of future cast members. Events for holidays stretched from two weeks to several months; some rolled directly from one to the other. The game periodically added new missions, NPC's, areas, and elements from more recent shows. An area called the Academy was also put into the game, where players made their characters and started playing. FusionFall's development, however, stopped so Cartoon Network could focus on other games such as Project Exonaut, Formula Cartoon, and FusionFall Heroes. The Holo Suit, an in-game outfit, used to change look, reflecting in-game events and the time of year.
FusionFall Heroes
On March 25, 2013 (157 days before the original FusionFall was shut down), Cartoon Network released a new FusionFall game called FusionFall Heroes. In this game, instead of playing an avatar players created online, Cartoon Network decided to let online players actually play different variants of their favorite Cartoon Network characters. This game occurs concurrently with Fuse' attack on the Cartoon Network Universe in the original game. The first known playable characters are Finn the Human, Fionna the Human, and Marceline of Adventure Time, Dexter of Dexter's Laboratory, Mordecai and Rigby of Regular Show, Four Arms and Feedback of Ben 10, Gumball Watterson of The Amazing World of Gumball, Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls, and Johnny Bravo of his eponymous show. In this game, there are different costumes for player characters, as well as eggs that can unlock new costumes for different heroes. If the player buys an egg that contains a hero costume that the player's hero already owns, the hero is ranked up and all of its stats are increased by one. This iteration of Fusionfall was received with criticism as being a "replacement" for the generally more popular full game, with fans being disappointed about the game being different from the original in many aspects (like the fact that only four players could play together to fight) although there still are fans of this top-down shooter.
