Video Games & Technology

Wander the Cartoon Wastelands with Warren Spector in “The Art of Epic Mickey”

Published

13 years ago

January 17, 2012

It's the rumor which has got the gaming community buzzing.
That there's supposedly a "Disney Epic Mickey 2" in the works. Even better,
that the next videogame in this critically acclaimed series (which will
reportedly be available in the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii formats) will
allegedly allow players to chose between single-player and 2-player split screen
mode.

But before we start parsing the various rumors that are currently
making the rounds (i.e. That "Disney Epic Mickey 2" will allow gamers to
explore parts of the Wastelands that had initially been proposed for the first installment of this series
but ultimately got dropped. Take – for example – "Mickey
in Wonderland" …

… an area based on Disney's Alice in Wonderland … it was to
be a land ruled by the Red Queen and opposed by the Mad Hatter, the White
Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat).

More importantly, before the release of "Disney Epic Mickey
2" (which will supposedly hit store shelves just in time for the 2012 holiday
shopping season), I thought that it might be fun to take a look back at the design
& development of the first installment of this videogame series. Which is
why I cracked open that copy of "The Art of Epic Mickey" (Disney Editions,
October 2011) which Disney Publishing sent me late last year.

And this handsome 160-page hardcover really does take back
to the very start of this project. Back to when a group of interns at Disney
Interactive Media proposed reintroducing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
to the world
as a game character.

We then jump ahead to 2005, when – as Warren Spector, the legendary
game designer for Junction Point Studios, was making the rounds – Mouse House
officials offered him the opportunity to create the ultimate Disney videogame
which was to pair Mickey with his long-lost half-brother, Oswald.

For a hardcore Disney fan like Spector, working on "Epic
Mickey" was a dream assignment because …

… the Junction Point
team (could draw) inspiration – specific inspiration – from anything and
everything ever created at the Walt Disney Company.

Warren Spector and
Steamboat Willie himself. Photo by Paul Hifflemeyer.
Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

Holy cow.

Talk about a mother lode of material! Talk about fun!

We were like kids in a candy store, rummaging through the
Disney Archives on the Studio Lot, through the prop archives, through the
Imagineering Research Center and the Animation Research Library and the Disney
Consumer Products "Lounge." We devoured every book that we could get our hands
about Disney's history (and that's a lot of books, let me tell you!). We read
comic books, watched movies, read Big Little Books, played with toys. You name
it, we did it, Disney style.

We saw and even touched blueprints and color swatches for
buildings at Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., models for film props (the
Nautilus from Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
was exquisite!), costumes out of
cherished childhood memory (a Mexican soldier's uniform with Zorro's "Z" sliced
through the jacket!), storyboards for films that were never made (The Gremlins
created by Roald Dahl) …

Mickey and Gus the Gremlin
run into Clarabelle Cow in the Cartoon Wastelands.
Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

Which isn't to say that it was all that easy to reinvent Mickey
(who – over the past 80 years – had lost much of the feistiness that had made
the Mouse so popular with moviegoers in the late 1920s / early 1930s) as a
viable "star" of a videogame. As Spector recalled:

We needed Mickey to look like a hero that you'd take
seriously if you were the bad guy. Early in development, we thought about some fairly radical
visual reinventions of the character. In making Mickey a more heroic figure
than many people expected him to be, we toyed with the idea of changing his
classic proportions – making him more of an adolescent in a sense.

I would have gone with this fellow as the player character.
At the end of the day, through, we were making a Mickey Mouse game and this
fellow, appealing as he was, just didn't "read" as Mickey Mouse.

Though it was a promising direction, it wasn't "Mickey enough." Cool as this
image is, we decided that we'd gone too far and pulled back a bit to a more traditional
Mickey. So we looked to other character elements to up his hero quotient.

Warren and the development team at Junction Point Studios
had the same sort of issues when it came to coming up with just the right look
for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. You see, one of the key plot threads of "Epic
Mickey" that these two half-brothers don't exactly get along. That Oswald is genuinely
upset that he was left behind & forgotten while Mickey went on to worldwide
renown & stardom. So some of the earliest designs that the Disney intern
group came up with for this game character actually reflected that inner
torment.

In the end, Spector opted to step away from that angry take
on this game character. Though given the role that Mickey played in the
creation of the Cartoon Wastelands, it's easy to understand why Oswald might be
furious with his half-brother.

As Austin Grossman, the co-writer of "Epic Mickey" explains:

In the wizard's castle, Mickey knocks over a jug of thinner,
drenching Wasteland. For Mickey, it was just a moment's carelessness, but for
Wastelanders, it was one of the defining moments in their history. Their world
was devastated, transformed in an instant from a continent to a group of
islands in a sea of corrosive thinner. This adds another element to Wasteland's
look. It's been ruined, scarred, and half-dissolved in many places.

The Cartoon Wastelands before
and after the thinner spill. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights
reserved

(Mickey) also creates the Blot, a sentient mixture of the
magic paint and thinner substances, who becomes an unstoppable, marauding
tyrant.

The Blot was another example of how Warren and the Junction
Point Studios took a classic piece of Disneyana (In this case the Phantom Blot,
that mysterious hooded figure who's been battling Mickey Mouse ever since the Blot
first appeared in the Mickey Mouse comic strip back in May of 1939) and then
turned it into something exciting & new for the videogame world.

Because – as you know – a hero is only as good as the
villain that he's going up against. So in order for videogamers to buy Mickey
as an epic hero, the Phantom Blot then had to be reinvented as a genuinely
terrifying figure.

That's the real fun of paging through "The Art of Epic
Mickey." In essence, Spector and Grossman take you through Junction Point
Studios' entire creative process on this project. The discussions that they had
with Disney Interactive Media Group executives about how far was too far when
it came to reimagining the Company's classic characters.

So if you'd like to get a sense of how this acclaimed
videogame was actually put together …

… More importantly, perhaps glean some information about the other parts of Cartoon Wastelands that "Disney
Epic Mickey 2" might possibly visit …

Rumored cover art for the "Disney
Epic Mickey 2" game box.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

… then you should probably consider picking up a copy of
this well-written, fun-to-look-through coffee table book.

Video Games & Technology

“Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion” game coming this summer

Published

6 years ago

June 6, 2018

Alice Hill

Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion

“C’mon on, grab your friends … ” A new Adventure Time game is coming out across multiple platforms.

In this open world game, Finn and Jake will be sailing on a raft (Named Jeff) through the flooded land of Ooo to solve the mystery of why water engulfed their home and to help others & get in hijinks along the way. With a ragtag gang of friends (From a vampire, to an Ice King, to a little robot) Finn and Jake will travel from the melting Ice Kingdom to the Fire Kingdom and fight in turn-based combat like an RPG.

The trailer shows off some absolutely gorgeous character models and environments. I’m particularly enchanted by the gorgeous Candy Kingdom that’s briefly shown in this footage. The art design sticks close to the show, but brings with it a soft, sweet design rarely seen in adventure games. Which is a refreshing thing to bring to the table. Likewise, it’s a joy to see the characters translate to 3D so well. Outright Games has done some fantastic work here with their art design.

Likewise, the voice cast for the show will be reprising their roles as characters in the land of Ooo. And they’ll have a lot of lines to record. Not only can you control Finn and Jake, but you’ll be able to play as BMO and Marceline as well. You can upgrade these characters to unlock unique abilities for combat and the map holds plenty of fun mysteries too. With side stories and secret locations, this seems like a game that’ll have hours & hours of fun.

What strikes me particularly about this game is how much it resembles Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. This is no coincidence. Adventure Time have a history of being direct corollaries to Legend of Zelda games. “Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?!” ‘s gameplay references “Zelda II: The Adventure of Link” and “Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom” has the same top down look & combat stylings as “Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.” With this in mind, it’s absolutely delightful to see a Wind Waker homage with a series like this. Wind Waker was a gamechanger for the Legend of Zelda series, and it feels like “Pirates of the Enchiridion” will be a gamechanger for the Adventure Time games.

‘Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion’ will be out July 17th for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.

Video Games & Technology

Do you like treasure hunting and/or cooking soup? Then Pokemon Quest is the game for you

Published

7 years ago

June 4, 2018

Alice Hill

Immediately after the Pokemon press conference on May 29th, the mobile-switch cross platform game Pokemon Quest was available to download on the Nintendo eShop (with the mobile device version debuting later this month). Curious about the ‘Free-to-Start’ game, I snagged a download and started playing.

Pokemon Quest is a game that feels best letting itself auto-run. You check in several times a day to see what Pokemon have appeared at your camp (The conceit behind this game is that you’re a treasure hunter & Pokemon flock to you to fight their brethren in your honor. They also sometimes just come by because you make really good soup. What can I say?). With the Pokemon at your disposal, you build a small exploration team much in the same style as the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game series. And you then set them out to fight other Pokemon in open levels. From these battles, you win power stones (which allow you to upgrade your Pokemon’s health & attack power), and ingredients to lure other Pokemon to your camp.

You may’ve taken notice use of the term ‘Free-to-Start’ earlier in this article. That’s because — like many mobile services — this game offers add-ons for purchase. I don’t see any age limit on the Nintendo Switch version to take away ads for purchases (which many mobile games have chosen to add. See Disney’s own ‘Disney Crossy Road’) but the Pokemon Company may be expecting parents to set their own controls over the switch with the parental controls available on the system.

Still, the game is typical in mobile game fare for trying to wring money out of players. Energy to play the game costs P tickets, which you can earn 50 a day … or you can just buy. The game gives you an amount to start with, shows you how to use them to speed up your game, and then takes you to the shop where you can see an advertisement to buy it — along with Pokemon furniture to help your team.

These packages can go up to $30 and include Pokemon in-game items & exclusive furniture. And while Pokemon Go offered items in bundles like this, it’s still odd to see in a Pokemon game — let alone a Pokemon game on the Nintendo Switch (albeit, this is a cross-platform game). The game itself doesn’t seem to have any sort of hard-pay line for gameplay, though. I’m up to the fifth world in my game without making any purchases. And while the game difficulty has dramatically ramped up, likely to encourage purchases, it’s still completely manageable to play without paying.

In that sense, for a free game, it’s really cute & enjoyable. The graphics are pleasing and colorful. And if you return to camp, you’ll find all the Pokemon you’ve befriended hopping around adorable decorations. Sometimes stacking on top of each other, other times following each other around in what seems like games of tag.

The ‘cooking’ mechanic to encounter a random Pokemon makes encountering them feel less like gambling and more like strategy. By cooking certain recipes from materials you find on missions, you can draw certain types of Pokemon to your camp. Cooking in certain pots (unlocked by playing through the game) can draw higher powered Pokemon at the cost of more materials. And waiting while your energy fills up means running out of ingredients (At the point of the game I’m at, about half-way through) doesn’t seem to be a problem.

All in all, I’d say, if you have access to this game, check it out and see if it’s for you. There doesn’t seem to be cross platform support for other Pokemon games. But as a standalone, it’s a cute, fun blip of a game. The hard ‘end’ of the levels within surprises me, especially since it seems to end with 150 Pokemon (out of the over eight hundred available). So I’m not sure what there is to get out of it when you get to the end level outside of getting every Pokemon. But it’s still a fun, very casual strategy game. Just keep an eye on purchases if your children decide to play.

Video Games & Technology

“Pokemon — Let’s Go, Pikachu !” & “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Eevee !” to come to the Nintendo Switch this year

Published

7 years ago

May 31, 2018

Alice Hill

Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee - Pokemon Nintendo Game

During a conference in Japan earlier this week, the Pokemon Company revealed three new games : A mobile and Nintendo Switch cross platform game, “Pokemon Quest,” with graphics similar to Crossy Road and some absolutely adorable furniture in a “free to start” format; and for the Nintendo Switch, “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Pikachu !” and “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Eevee !”

Taking inspiration from gameplay styles from the popular “Pokemon Go” for mobile devices, “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Pikachu !” and “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Eevee !’ adopts the thrown Pokeball system. By using one controller with the Switch system, you can make a tossing motion to throw a Pokeball and capture a cute critter for your team.

***Copyright the Pokemon Company. All rights reserved***

Additionally, you can buy the “Pokeball Plus” accessory to act as an additional “Joy-con” controller for your Switch to capture Pokemon. Then load a Pokemon into your pokeball, and take it out on the go.

From there, with the accessory, you’ll be able to interact with the Pokemon you have inside. Although current information doesn’t offer whether we’ll have more options than putting Eevee or Pikachu in the Pokeball Plus, the footage seen in the linked trailer is absolutely adorable.

The game itself seems to be a remake of Pokemon Yellow, a game released twenty years ago for the Game Boy Color. You explore the Kanto Pokemon region, and seem to be limited to the 150 Pokemon available when that game was out (Well, 151, if you were lucky, or good at exploiting glitches). But these games ditch the random encounters of mainline Pokemon games and adopt the overworld encounters of Pokemon Go. What Pokemon you see on the overworld is what you get.

Additionally, Pokemon can follow you around and you can ride some of them. In footage, we see a trainer riding a giant Onyx (i.e., a giant snake made out of rocks. Who wouldn’t be comfortable riding on that?) and followed by a starting Pokemon, Bulbasaur. Although in these two games, you start instead with the series mascot Pikachu, and the evolution Pokemon Eevee, which can evolve into several different pokemon. You can also put little outfits on them. Which is – frankly — incredible.

Likewise, this seems to have local multiplayer. Hand the left Joy-con to a friend and let them enter your game. Or if you’re feeling really lonely, put the left Joy-con in your hand and pretend you have a friend while controlling the new trainer that arrives. What a fun time!

You and your friend can then team up to capture Pokemon together, or go exploring together- And you can have Pokemon you capture in Pokemon Go (of the original 151 Pokemon) arrive in your game. You can also send “Presents” back to your Pokemon Go game, including a possible new form of Pokemon as the trailer discusses.

“Pokemon — Let’s Go, Pikachu !” and “Pokemon — Let’s Go, Eevee !” will be arriving on the Nintendo Switch this November. Likewise, a new Pokemon game will be released in the second Half of 2019. With a Mario movie in development and theme park additions on the way, it’s sure to be a busy year for Nintendo.