Q&A: James O'Connor, the writer of "Power Rangers Mighty Force"
Power Rangers Mighty Force, an officially licensed idle-battle mobile game from East Side Games and Mighty Kingdom, was widely released last month following a soft launch in some regions earlier this year.
The game has been well-received; as of this publication it holds a 4.5 rating in Apple’s App Store and a 4.25 on Google Play. And the game’s writing, especially, has been lauded — even among those whose feelings about the game are mixed, at best. Some comments from reviews of three stars or less:
“The writing makes me smile.” — Gregory Judd
“The writing is entertaining and really the only saving grace of this game.” — Alex Potter
“Whoever writes the vignettes has saved this game. They're very cute and in character and the right level of reference without relying entirely on nostalgia.” — Bennett A
The “whoever” behind the vignettes is James O’Connor, an award-winning writer based in Adelaide, Australia. O’Connor recently left Mighty Kingdom and was kind enough to answer some questions about his extensive work as the narrative lead on Power Rangers Mighty Force.
(Some questions and answers edited for grammar.)
1.) You have an extensive and eclectic background as a writer and person involved with/around video games. What led you to writing, what are your earliest video game memories, and how did your first opportunity to marry the two come about?
When I was young, I used to read a lot of Nintendo magazines. Here in Australia, the big Nintendo magazine when I was a kid was N64 Gamer, but I'd also occasionally pick up multiplatform magazine Hyper. As a kid I never wanted to write for these magazines — I had a bit of a complex around games being a nerdy activity that I should not take seriously as an adult. Luckily I jettisoned this viewpoint later on, because an opportunity to start freelancing for Hyper came up when I was a young adult, and I haven't stopped writing since.
2.) What brought you to Mighty Kingdom?
I'd done a lot of different jobs by this point: I've worked as a teacher, a critic, a research assistant, and in a few other roles. At the time I started to really look at Mighty Kingdom seriously, I was working for GameSpot. Mighty Kingdom was a growing studio, based in my hometown, with a reputation for having excellent working conditions. A friend of mine had just started there as a narrative designer, and the more I heard about their work, the more that job seemed to fit my skill set. Still, I feel very lucky that when a role popped up I was able to successfully interview for it — those jobs are very competitive.
3.) How did the project that became Power Rangers: Mighty Force begin? Did Hasbro approach Mighty Kingdom? Vice versa?
I actually wasn't involved in those discussions — by the time it was in front of me, it was my boss telling me that we were going to be working on a Power Rangers game, and they wanted me to write it.
4.) What was the pitch/early development process like? What did Hasbro want from this game, ultimately?
By the time I got my hands on it, the initial pitch had already been put together: Rita has broken the Grid, and there needs to be a plot that justifies the idle/fighting gameplay model. It had been a long time since I'd last watched any Power Rangers, so I went and started researching to figure out a good way to overlay a narrative onto this concept.
At the time I was working with another narrative designer, Melissa Koven (who is now working on her own game), and we worked together to make sure that everything made sense. I remember feeling very excited when I learned more about Morph-X and realized that it would make sense as a currency.
5.) What level of familiarity did you have with Power Rangers before working on the game? Was it something you grew up with? What kind of reference materials were you provided (and how extensive were they)? Just based on in-story references and the sheer breadth of characters/items used, it sure seems like a ton of homework was done.
I loved Mighty Morphin when I was a kid — I even had a Saba toy that I was fond of, and I'd forced my parents to watch the first movie with me several times. But I had not thought about Power Rangers in a long time. Hasbro gave me an extraordinary amount of reference material, including a 700+ page episode guide, PDFs of the comics, brand guidelines, everything I could ask for.
But really, the most useful tools were the Power Rangers YouTube page — which hosts several hundred episodes of the show across multiple series — and the fan communities. I read a lot of Reddit posts. I listened to podcasts. I watched a lot of The Sixth Ranger. I wanted to get a sense of what Power Rangers fans would really want out of this game, and what it was about Power Rangers that they loved. So I started without a heap of knowledge, but was able to build it up very quickly. I still can't say that I'm necessarily an expert on the whole franchise, honestly, but thanks to the nature of how a game like this is written I could go and do my research for each individual character and plotline to make sure that I was doing them justice.
6.) How much discretion did you have over which characters were used? Were there recommendations made by Hasbro? Were there characters, story elements, language that were off limits?
There were a handful of license agreements, and I decided to steer away from Rangers who were played by actors who had done particularly awful things in real life — considering how many characters there are, and how few this vetoed, it felt like a reasonable thing to do.
I will say that working with Hasbro was incredible. They were so supportive the whole way. I am not exaggerating when I say that they never turned down any of my story ideas. There are some basic branding guidelines that I was given to follow, but they were straightforward. As a writer, it was kind of a dream relationship.
7.) What are the challenges and advantages of writing a story for a game with gameplay loops like Power Rangers Mighty Force? How much does story inform the gameplay, and vice versa, in a game like this?
I'd come from working on the Star Trek: Lower Decks game, and our episodes on Power Rangers Mighty Force were a little shorter, and always had to end in a battle (although a bigger challenge was in writing Events and figuring out endings where the Power Rangers won without breaking into a fight). Writing these short episodic adventures was fun, because it meant that I could realistically work with most of the ideas I came up with — the big ones and the really small ones. Thanks to the incredible artists and cinematic designer I worked with, it was really easy to visualize how these stories would look as I was writing them.
In an idle game, there's typically a bit of a disconnect between the gameplay and the story. I tried to reference elements from the overarching game in plotlines, but there was a lot of freedom to just try and tell interesting stories.
8.) The writing complements the art style incredibly well. How intentional was that? It's hard to imagine your story working as well with a "harsher" look, or the inverse.
I spoke with our art lead, Jonathan Munro, every single day. We planned out development cycles together, discussed ideas, gave each other feedback, and really collaborated to make sure that the game's art and story were a good match.
Actually, the entire art team on that game was stellar. We also had an incredible technical designer on the project who put together a lot of the tools we used to make interesting effects happen during the cutscenes, which were built by Maggie, our cinematic designer. We had a tight "content" team that made sure to work together and share things constantly. I would always apologize to them when I asked for a particularly complicated monster (and anything with wide shoulders, which is hard to do in portrait mode), but they always produced incredible work.
9.) On the overall tone: I think what your work on Power Rangers Mighty Force does a great job channeling and spotlighting the earnest hopefulness I feel encapsulates the entirety of Power Rangers, the show. What themes resonated most with you throughout your research/watching? What were you most excited to try and say with these characters?
The thing I really took away from looking into the Power Rangers community was how much fans are inspired by these characters. My instinct was that big fans of Power Rangers know that the whole show is quite silly, but their love for it is very sincere — the themes and the characters offer real value, and even a sense of hope. There is an introduction in one of the collected Power Rangers comic volumes that talks about a young fan of the show with leukemia, who compares his fight against cancer to the way the Red Ranger never gives up — reading that unlocked something in me.
My goal with the writing of this game was to have a lot of fun with it, without ever making fun of it. Power Rangers fans are, in my experience, lovely and sweet people, and I wanted to make a game that spoke to that sweetness, even if it's a little more tongue-in-cheek in places.
10.) What didn't make it into the game (that you're allowed to discuss) that you really wish could have?
I can't say too much. But I will say that I wrote some events that I hope will run in the future that I was really pleased with.
11.) Which three characters were the most fun to write? Why?
Pudgy Pig, Crabby Cabbie, Mad Mike. I am a simple man, and I like any character I can reasonably call a “freak.” Hasbro sent us a few figurines early in the process, and I immediately called dibs on the Pudgy Pig they sent, which now sits near my desk. I love him.
12.) How did working on this game affect your perception of/relationship with Power Rangers?
I had not really thought about Power Rangers in a long time, and it's so big! It was really interesting digging in and finding so many things that are a bit vague or unexplained, or don't quite add up, and how effective Power Rangers is at just sort of steamrolling through all of that.
I will say, I really liked the Go Go Power Rangers comic, and that gave me more of a sense of how many different takes you can have on this material. I think, because it was on the air for so long and discovered at different points by so many different audiences, that Power Rangers means something a little different to everyone who experiences it, which is interesting, too. I tried to represent something from every era in our game, even if I was more drawn towards some of them than others (I'm not sure where most people fall on this, but I thought Cosmic Fury was really fun?)
13.) Why does Power Rangers continue to resonate more than 30 years after its debut? What makes it unique in a crowded superhero space?
That's probably a bigger question than I can answer in a paragraph or two, but I think the answer is a little different for each person. The iconography is just seared into people at this point — watching Mighty Morphin as a kid it was such a strange show, but watching a huge robot beat up a giant monster as sparks fly and buildings explode was always really exciting. Maybe as a kid it's one of the first shows that really exposes you to that kind of scale — the Earth is in danger, everything is gigantic, and the characters who have to fix it aren't that much older than you.
Later on, as a teenager, I'd get really into Neon Genesis Evangelion, and that show’s creator, Hideaki Anno, made a Kamen Rider movie — it just feels like there's a lot of overlap between all of these big, bombastic, emotionally resonant series, and for some people this is the flavor that hits hardest.
14.) What can we expect from you in the future now that your time in the Power Rangers mine is (for now) over?
I just wrote a book! It's about Untitled Goose Game, and it'll be published by Boss Fight Books next year. Other than that, I've been freelancing a bit, helping out with a few games projects and writing other stuff. I'm hoping to figure out what the next big thing from me is going to be soon.
15.) Where can fans find you (to say nothing but nice things, of course)?
I'm on Twitter and BlueSky at "Jickle". I'm at other places too, but those are the easiest places to find me.
I have to say, the people who have contacted me have only said nice things, which is lovely. I know and respect that idle games are not everyone's cup of tea, and if you bounced off the game right away I understand that. But the folks who kept playing have been so nice about the story and the art and the cutscenes.
Please consider supporting James by pre-ordering “Untitled Goose Game” through the Boss Fight Books Kickstarter campaign. BFB and the authors with which it works do a fantastic job documenting and telling the stories behind some of the greatest video games in history.
My own book, “Morphenomenal: How the Power Rangers Conquered the World,” is available for pre-order now. Click here for various pre-order links.
