Back in 2021, Fairy Tail manga author Hiro Mashima put 10 million yen toward funding an indie game contest based on the series. Kodansha tossed in an additional five million yen, and now the first two titles in the project have been revealed.
It all started when Mashima happened upon the Kodansha Game Creators Lab on YouTube a few years ago. Shortly after a personal visit, Mashima proposed the Fairy Tail indie game contest, with the aforementioned 10 million yen (about US$69,796.50) coming directly out of his pocket. The main stipulations were that the games should be developed within a year and released on platforms like Steam, iOS, and Android.
Flash forward to August 2024 and the FAIRY TAIL INDIE GAME GUILD has officially been unveiled. You can see a preview of the first two titles—Fairy Tail: Dungeons and Fairy Tail: Beach Volleyball Havoc—below.
Fairy Tail: Dungeons is a deck-building roguelite from developer ginolabo that’s out via Steam on August 26, 2024. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the absurdly colorful Fairy Tail: Beach Volleyball Havoc, which hits Steam on September 16 from developers tiny cactus studio, MASUDATARO, and veryOK.
Per the proposal, Kodansha will distribute the games and profits will be split between them and the developers. As is evidenced by the titles alone, these are very different games, and that was the aim of the project all along. Dungeons has you forming a party of three—including characters like Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza, and Wendy—to venture into the Labyrinth Depths. Beach Volleyball Havoc is, well, just look at it! Up to four people can dive into magic-fueled two-on-two matches locally or through Steam Remote Play.
Like many manga authors, Hiro Mashima has been vocal about his unabashed love for video games. He previously said he doesn’t care what the genre is or how big the games are. He doesn’t even care if the devs know Fairy Tail, though he would like them to read it if they win (via Crunchyroll News). He literally put his money where his mouth is with this one, and it’ll be cool to see something new come out of the world of manga and anime-inspired games.
