Steampunk Disney (Epic Mickey)

[Ztalker]

I said that I was sickened by the very look of the game. Have you actually seen what Disney drew? It leant more towards the cute and fuzzy spectrum then it did towards the "make little kids wet themselves" one .

 

Fantasia isn't known for it's cuteness

 

I just meant that visuals don't always tell everything. The game itself can still be Disney-like.

[Sabretooth]

Fantasia isn't known for it's cuteness

 

This calls for a Fantasia short!

 

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

[jrrtoken]

Huzzah for a concept art montage, detailing more steampunk-esque environments, including what seems to be a 2D platforming sequence. Down yonder, there are profiles on Warren Spector and Junction Point Studios, respectively.

[Quanon]

I said that I was sickened by the very look of the game. Have you actually seen what Disney drew? It leant more towards the cute and fuzzy spectrum then it did towards the "make little kids wet themselves" one .

 

I think the clash between these two styles will give this game a unique vibe.

Its time Disney stept away from doing this "cute sweet" thing all the time.

 

Cartoons and the like are a great medium of doing more adult/ older audiences games and films. The western attitude is so boring: drawn cartoons is for kids and only cuteness and sweet sugared stories... bah...

[ARC Cody]

Well, I'm not against incorporating adult themes in cartoons, but I really

loathe this kind of surrealistic/expressionist atmosphere. Reminds me of the

Scream. But to each his own.

[Quanon]

Well, I'm not against incorporating adult themes in cartoons, but I really

loathe this kind of surrealistic/expressionist atmosphere. Reminds me of the

Scream. But to each his own.

 

Fair enough

 

I can't say I'm wild on most J-RPGs, like Final Fantasy and such. For some reason it just doesn't appeal to me. So I see where you're coming from.

 

Ofcourse, good gameplay and a nice story to accompany it might change my views sometimes.

[Salzella]

Taking a page out of Okami? I saw this stuff on Kotaku a while ago, definitely interesting.

 

There are few better games to take the lead from . I love the idea of this, and I love that Disney would allow something so left-field, even though I won't be able to play it.

[Arcesious]

I'm not really into surreal/creepy sort of stuff, but this is pretty imaginative. It seems like something Tim Burton could have come up with.

[Avisto]

It has a stupid title, but hopefully it will turn out to be good. Then again, I don't own a Wii and have no desire to buy one, so I don't care that much.

[Sabretooth]

I'm not really into surreal/creepy sort of stuff, but this is pretty imaginative. It seems like something Tim Burton could have come up with.

 

It would be truly Tim Burton if Johnny Depp were voice-acting Mickey.

[Lynk Former]

I like how people can only come up with comparisons which are relatively young for this when the inspiration for "Epic Mickey" is a lot older than the examples people have stated.

 

I'm also interested to know what people think of this as being a Wii exclusive. I know a lot of people on LF mostly invest on 360's.

[jrrtoken]

I'm also interested to know what people think of this as being a Wii exclusive. I know a lot of people on LF mostly invest on 360's.

'Tis a scourge upon mankind; a vile abomination to only pander to children and developmentally-challenged adults, and to bring more power to "causal" games, while posing a singular threat towards the common good of our Halo and Gears of War, two intellectually-advanced games for the mature adult. Furthermore, any adult male who has the gall to play, let alone own such a device, is clearly a vile homosexual, if not entirely ambiguous in the sexual realm. I curse Nintendo for their volition of destroying the sacred video game media, with their demographically-expanding business practices, with showing not an iota of curtsy to their already rabid fanbase, soon to be converts to the most-exalted Microsoft.

[Quanon]

I like how people can only come up with comparisons which are relatively young for this when the inspiration for "Epic Mickey" is a lot older than the examples people have stated.

 

I know Tim Burton had a good look at the old expressionist(IIRC) German movies from 1930's.Some of those had fantasy and Sci fi themes and great design thingies

[Lynk Former]

'Tis a scourge upon mankind; a vile abomination to only pander to children and developmentally-challenged adults, and to bring more power to "causal" games, while posing a singular threat towards the common good of our Halo and Gears of War, two intellectually-advanced games for the mature adult. Furthermore, any adult male who has the gall to play, let alone own such a device, is clearly a vile homosexual, if not entirely ambiguous in the sexual realm. I curse Nintendo for their volition of destroying the sacred video game media, with their demographically-expanding business practices, with showing not an iota of curtsy to their already rabid fanbase, soon to be converts to the most-exalted Microsoft.

lolwut

 

 

@ Quanon: Then mention those

[jrrtoken]

lolwut

To explain: Every time the Wii is brought up in any conversation, there's always some insecure bloke that needs to mooooaannn about the travesty known as the Wii, to the point of nauseating ubiquity. Naturally, I wanted to dispel any further rants by creating one itself.

 

That, and there's a five-page summary of the art direction, including renders... here.

[Lynk Former]

To explain: Every time the Wii is brought up in any conversation, there's always some insecure bloke that needs to mooooaannn about the travesty known as the Wii, to the point of nauseating ubiquity. Naturally, I wanted to dispel any further rants by creating one itself.

 

That, and there's a five-page summary of the art direction, including renders... here.

 

lol, i know exactly what you meant XD the "lolwut" was just an expression of "it's funny cause it's true" ...in an internet lingo kinda way... *looks around* no one ever said the internet had to make sense.

 

 

But anyway, I'm interested to see how this game turns out as a Wii game itself. Are they releasing it on Wii to take advantage of its unique abilities or is it just for the sake of "this platform has a certain kind of audience we want to target"?...

[jrrtoken]

Unfortunately, most occasions that I've seen and practiced it, Lynk, I end up ruling it as sarcasm, so yeah. >_>

 

Upon further scanning the article, I found some tasty tidbits, including the adaptation of Disney shorts as 2D platformer segments.

 

Even a small section or level takes many steps to emerge into gameplay. In Epic Mickey, special 2D side-scrolling levels interconnect the larger 3D areas. Every one of these 2D images is based on an old Disney cartoon classic. This area was based on Clock Cleaners, a 1937 cartoon starring Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. Using scenes from the original as inspiration, the team creates a colored concept art piece to illustrate the idea of the level.

There's also more evidence of a dual-world dichotomy, in this case "Toon" and "Inert", which boil down to "nice" and "corrupted", respectively.

 

The most interesting part, to me at least, is this:

How you decide to play the game should make a difference. You get to determine what kind of hero you are. Everybody solves the problem. Everybody saves the day. Everybody gets to save the world and gets the girl,” Warren Spector tells us, in regards to the shifting spectrum of play styles that change the appearance of Mickey throughout the game. “But how you do it, and how you end up looking is up to you. What abilities you have is up to you. Who likes you is up to you. What missions you hear about or not is up to you.” Each version of Mickey has a distinct look crafted by the character artists at Mickey, from the crouching and feral scrapper to the stalwart hero.

If this wasn't just pure exaggeration, then I think Mr. Spector just confirmed a massive inspiration from Deus Ex and the like of more gameplay-oriented role-playing. (In case anyone doesn't understand, that's a good thing. A very good thing.)

[Lynk Former]

http://gameinformer.com/games/disney_epic_mickey/b/wii/archive/2009/10/24/An-Interview-With-Warren-Spector.aspx

 

Yeah... pretty much figured it was about the audience.

[Tobias Reiper]

M-m-Mickey?

Goofy?

Excuse me, but goofy doesn't look too goofy anymore.

He looks more Check the closet twice and the bed three times or be eaten.

Seriously, Epic Mickey is going to scare the hell out of kids.

I mean, look at them, they look like soul-less monsters designed to look cheery, but ultimately are evil in this disturbing way.

Mickey even has a face on his shoulder with a scared, screaming expression on it!

[Lynk Former]

They want to make the children cry. No joke.

[jrrtoken]

Screen shots, even though they are quite early and very alpha-build-ish..

 

Show spoiler

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[Ctrl Alt Del]

^ Bunny kids. Funny they included those Oswald the Lucky Rabbit "offsprings". I bet most people don't even know about it.

 

[leXX]

I used to play a game called 'Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse' on the Sega Master System. I absolutely loved it, and played the hell out of it. The concept art gave me flashbacks and seems very similar in design.

 

 

If Epic Mickey is half as good as Castle of Illusion, I'll be all over it.

[Lynk Former]

I can't be bothered going through the thread to see if this was mentioned already or not, but apparently Disney wanted to get Oswald the Rabbit back so much that they traded Universal a sports presenter for the rights to use Oswald in this game.

 

 

Oh and this: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/28/epic-mickey-was-originally-an-epic-pc-ps3-and-xbox-360-game/

[jrrtoken]

In this web stream, our hero, JC Denton Mickey Mouse, is exploring the dark, seedy world of Hell's Kitchen The Wasteland, in pursuit of the whereabouts of an elusive Smuggler Smee. Using the JC's Mickey's exclusive power of nano-augmentations Paint & Thinner, players can manipulate the game environment to their own whims, creating a role-playing-esue experience of limited yet expansive free agency, among other things.

 

Summarizing it all: gameplay is structured around "Quest Zones", which act as hubs to buy equipment, receive quests (duh), etc. "Action Zones" are your standard missions/dungeon crawls, and are the bulk of the core gameplay. "Travel Zones" are 2D platforming levels which allow Mickey to explore new Zones and to travel between hubs. Travel Zones are thematically inspired by Disney cartoon shorts, and they replicate the art direction and content of the cartoon within every level (And they seem do so quite expertly, if I might add). Basically, I'm excited, to say the least; Epic Mickey sounds more like Deus Ex than anything else, oddly enough.