Epic Mickey: Scary disney game to give you nightmares!

[Gaastra]

http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=233248

Don't show your kids. This is a real game coming to the wii. The second or third page has a link to more pictures from the game. I'm shocked disney greenlighted this!

The plot has Forgotten Disney characters out for revenge against Mickey. They mess up the world and change the disney toons to evil mean versions of themselfs. Mickey put you in charge of restoring the world by "repainting" the landscape with a magic paintbrush.

[the_coldest_sun]

This looks pretty dope. That is all.

[Nyssane]

That's effing crazy, I can't wait. I hope we see other Disney characters like Scrooge or Clarabelle Cow.

[Cyke]

Looks like Mickey finally fell to the Heartless...

[Mike Pothier]

Man, the gameplay better match up to that awesome concept art, otherwise the disappointment will be bitter indeed.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Holy crap. Looks badass. But I agree with Mike.

[GrampaGen]

The plot has Forgotten Disney characters out for revenge against Mickey.

...I bet Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow are the main villains.

Would explain why their replacement, Goofy, is all mutilated and such. :eek:

[Gaastra]

New info from twitter.

Wii exclusive game, due out Fall 2010.
- Mickey's tools: paintbrushes, erasers, thinner, pencils and more
- tools mapped to Wiimote movements
- The game involves a world where forgotten Disney characters and rides disappear to
- the characters cast off into this world become bitter and broken-down
- Oswald the Rabbit runs this forgotten world
- Oswald is jealous of Mickey's popularity, and wants revenge
- The Phantom Blot is unleashed, and it's goal is to wipe out Mickey and the cartoon world
- The Phantom Blot starts to take over Mickey's world, and Mickey aims to stop him
- puzzle elements involved in saving the cartoon universe
- adventure and exploration
- Mickey will be getting a makeover that is quite retro-styled

Mickey's appearance is much, much closer to his original debut style
- Disney was the one to approach Spector
- Spector originally was against the idea of creating a Mickey game, because he said that he didn't do kids games
- Spector changed his mind when Disney said that they were looking for someone to 'reinvigorate' Mickey
- Disney had to get back the rights to Oswald before he could be used in this game
- the sorcerer Yensid creates a pen-and-paper world for his forgotten creations, which is where Oswald lives
- this world is similar to Walt Disney World
- Mickey enters this world through a magic mirror, and accidentally spills paint and paint thinner on the drawing of this world. Mickey escapes before Yensid finds out.

- The spill that Mickey caused ends up turning the drawing into a twisted version of what was originally created.
- the Phantom Blot ends up taking over this world
- many years later, after Mickey becomes successful, he re-enters the mirror and sees what has happened to the world. The Phantom Blot drags Mickey into the world, which is where your adventure begins
- use the Wiimote to paint in buildings, platforms and more
- swipe away enemies with the Wiimote when using paint thinner
- create/destroy the world as you go along
- Junction Point took hundreds of photos while at Disney World in order to capture the essence of the park, and translate ideas into the game
- play the game as you like, either destroying everything in sight, or taking the hero's route. It's completely up to you, and you can mix-and-match play styles
- Gremlin Village is reminiscent of 'It's a Small World'
- Mickey's appearance and stance will change based on the way you play the game

- trade some items for health
- Pete returns, and at one point attacks you with a huge zepplin
- Donald Duck animatronic pieces are scattered throughout one portion of the game. Collect them to put him back together.
- Spector wants this game to scare kids, in some ways
- the game will also have funny parts
- Spector calls the game world's visuals 'the bastard child of Tim Burton and Disney'
- elements of platforming, exploration and role-playing
- go into the inner-workings of some levels and rides
- visit the gears and mechanics underneath the 'It's a Small World' ride, complete with an eerie re-imagining of the music
- enter movie screens to move from in-game island to island
- movie screen transitions put you into a 2d world, where you'll revisit some of Mickey's old cartoons
- find sketches, and bring them to life with your paintbrush
- sketches can be activated to give you new powers (clock sketch to slow time, TV sketch to distract enemies, and more)
- collect 'E-Tickets' to enter rides, and use as a form of currency to buy power-ups
- Jim Dooley 'Pushing Daises' is doing the soundtrack

Warren Spector on Mickey
"I want him to be a hero...and I want to remind him that it's okay to behave badly."
Warren on Oswald
"All he really wants is to be loved by Walt Disney. In the end, the Blot won the war and pushed Oswald into hiding and exile."
Warren on the Gremlins
"The Gremlins are the only forces of good in the world that can continue to fight against the Blot.
Warren on the Bunny Kids
"These are going to be the breakout stars of the game. Mark my words."
Warren on the Buddies (Donald, Goofy, ect.)
"Oswald is trying to recreate Mickey's life, so he has the Mad Doctor build these animatronic versions of his buddies."
Warren on the Mad Doctor
"He's from an early 30's cartoon that is pretty swell."
Warren on the Phantom Blot
"The Phantom Blot has been a consistent villain since 1939. He's just been lame."
Warren on the Blotlings
"They're the popcorn unit. You need something that the player can just swat away. They're supposed to be funny, silly and stupid."
Warren on the Beetleworx
"In order to deal with these guys, you have to erase their painted bits to get to the vulnerable inert spots underneath."

Video interview

http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2009/10/05/warrens_2D00_collection.aspx

[Gaastra]

Storyline.

Game Informer subscribers are starting to get their issues and with it comes plenty of screenshots and art from Epic Mickey, as well as lots of new information. You’re going to have to buy the magazine to see the images, but I’ve decided I’ll post just one of the pictures for you. Above you can see Mickey Mouse’s new look in the game, and it’s more retro than ever. We now have the full details on the plot, which you can read below…

The sorcerer Yensid (Disney spelled backwards; nickname from “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Fantasia) creates a world for all of his forgotten creations, with Oswald being its first inhabitant. This world is very similar to a Disney theme park and sits on a table in the sorcerer’s study as an intricate model. Mickey Mouse steps through a magic mirror in his house and ends up in Yensid’s study. Mickey, the troublemaker that he is, becomes fascinated by this set and when Yensid leaves, he plays around with it and accidentally spills paint and paint thinner all over it. Mickey hears the sorcerer returning and rushes to clean up and return home, and he soon forgets what happens and lives his life of fame and glory.

Mickey’s accident causes a terrible consequence and turns Yensid’s world into a wasteland controlled by a monstrous being named the Phantom Blot. Oswald and the other cartoons try to fight off the Phantom Blot, but it overwhelms them and turns their land in a twisted mockery of Yensid’s original dream. Mickey Mouse remains oblivious to all of this until one day the mirror he stepped through before comes alive again and the Phantom Blot pulls him into this twisted world. Now, Mickey Mouse must escape the Phantom Blot, find Oswald, earn his trust, and manage to defeat the corrupted menace so he can escape the Wasteland.

So how do you play the game? Mickey Mouse has a paintbrush that he brings into the Wasteland. The world can be created or destroyed with the swipe of a brush using the Wii Remote. Buildings, platforms, and items can be painted in and walls and enemies can be swept away with paint thinner with the Wii Remote. You can play the game as you like, either restoring things or destroying everything. You can be The Hero or The Scrapper, and the Game Informer issue goes into detail on what would happen if you pick a certain side. Mickey’s appearance will even change a bit depending on which side you choose.

There are some other interesting tidbits as well. Donald Duck animatronic pieces are scattered throughout part of the game and if collected, he will be put back together. Gremlin Village is similar to “It’s a Small World”, where you can even hear an eerie version of the music. You enter movie screen transitions to move from level to level where you are put in a 2D world and you revisit some of Mickey’s old cartoons. Collect “E-Tickets” to enter rides and use them to buy power-ups. Some of the characters in Epic Mickey include The Gremlins (led by one named Gus, they work to help Mickey against the Phantom Blot), The Bunny Kids (children of Oswald and his girl, Ortensia), The Buddies (animatronic versions of Mickey’s friends), The Mad Doctor (created The Buddies for Oswald, since Oswald wants to recreate Mickey’s life), Blotlings (the spawn of the Phantom Blot), and Beetleworx (creations of the Mad Doctor that build and fix this world). Oh, and here’s a cool little story. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger went to NBC/Universal (who owned the rights to Oswald for 80 years) and traded Al Michaels (human sportscaster) for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

[Cloudman]

Haha! I love this idea. And really, it's no worse than half the stories kids get told when they're young.

[AdamYJ]

They're using the Phantom Blot! Cool! He was a fun villian in the old Mickey Mouse comics I read.

[Green Goblin]

I can't wait for this either my brother going to get it

[Andrew T]

Mecha Goofy looks pretty twisted.

[DF2506]

Got my issue of Game Informer today!

The game looks & sounds very good imo. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on this one. I think it could be the next Kingdom Hearts-ish game or even better than Kingdom Hearts! I like that it will have platforming elements &
2D & 3D levels. Plus: the darker look, the changing look of Mickey, & the plot all sound very interesting. Looks like the Wii will finally get another cool game! :)

DF2506

[Alex]

I can't beleive disney is doing this.
Good for them, do kids still know who mickey mouse is anymore though?

[worstblogever]

I read the Game Informer article, and totally agreed with Spector's comments. The gist was, Disney went out of their way to sanitize Mickey, and give most of his personality quirks to his sidekicks. His mischievousness went to Donald, for example. Other parts of it went to Goofy, or Pluto, even, until Mickey's just been left to play the straight man to the rest of his cast's antics.

Spector didn't want a sanitized Mickey for kids, and wanted to bring him back to being a ballsier character than he's been for decades.

Which, as far as the "sanitized" Mickey... I agreed. I went to Disneyland with my girl a few years back, and they had classic black & white Mickey cartoons playing in the theatre. We went and watched a few and I thought, "Wow. Mickey was a total bastard back then. What happened?"

So yeah, good to see they're not afraid of having him back to his old ways.

[AdamYJ]

I read the Game Informer article, and totally agreed with Spector's comments. The gist was, Disney went out of their way to sanitize Mickey, and give most of his personality quirks to his sidekicks. His mischievousness went to Donald, for example. Other parts of it went to Goofy, or Pluto, even, until Mickey's just been left to play the straight man to the rest of his cast's antics.

Now don't be too hard on Mickey. When you have that cast around him, everyone's got to have some sort of personality. Mickey can't have Donald's mischeviousness, Goofy's naivete and Pluto's loyalty all the time.

My view of Mickey Mouse is generally that he's the "little guy". What I mean by that is he's essentially an everymouse (so to speak), but he's also someone who regularly gets in over his head either by his own fault or those of big bullies like Peg-Leg Pete, Mortimer Mouse or the Phantom Blot. And he does have his flaws. Granted, my view tends to come from House of Mouse cartoons, which may have been a start to restoring Mickey's personality. I remember one where he built a plane so he could take Minnie on a flight and promptly threw out the instructions and ignored the part that said "for display purposes only, do not fly". And there was one where he went so far in trying to prank Mortimer that he ended up having to try and convince the whole town that he wasn't dead. Oh, and I even remember a scene of Goofy breaking him out of prison (it was used to explain why Mickey owed him a favor).

[Mike Pothier]

I didn't even know until I read the GI article that Warren Spector was heading the project. Damn. Now my excitement just skyrocketed.

[worstblogever]

Now don't be too hard on Mickey. When you have that cast around him, everyone's got to have some sort of personality. Mickey can't have Donald's mischeviousness, Goofy's naivete and Pluto's loyalty all the time.


I'm not hard on Mickey. I'm hard on Disney for taking the center of their empire, and making him PLAIN.

[AdamYJ]

I'm not hard on Mickey. I'm hard on Disney for taking the center of their empire, and making him PLAIN.

I suppose that's true. Of course, I'm not crazy about '20s Mickey. I don't want him to be plain, but I also don't really want him to be someone who'll toss Minnie out of an airplane and laugh about it when she won't give him a kiss (see the short "Plane Crazy").

Of course, I remember watching Disney shorts on Disney Channel when I was a kid (an ever-growing number of years ago) and I remember that it often seemed like there were very few that actually centered on Mickey. The ones that had Mickey were often either centered on Pluto, usually as he got into trouble while chasing Chip and Dale or they were about the trio of Mickey, Donald and Goofy as they fouled up some business enterprise or other. So, Mickey himself might have been kind of on the back burner. Heck, he didn't even get a Disney Afternoon show. There was the Carl Barks derived Duck stuff like Ducktales, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers (originally created because they weren't allowed to do a Rescuers cartoon) and there was Goof Troop that came out after Goofy had a surprising upswing in popularity. The mouse wasn't really much more than a figurehead until he got a new short with "Runaway Brain" in '95 and the Mickey's Mouseworks show in the late '90s early '00s (which would later turn into House of Mouse).

[Gaastra]

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7228/1512epicmickeycoversing.jpg (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/1512epicmickeycoversing.jpg/)

[Alex]

the official screens kinda look like ass.
None of the cool designs really came through, though i only saw 2 pictures.

[Gaastra]

The game is no were near as scary as the artwork from the looks of it.

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/1121/screenshot24767.jpg (http://img687.imageshack.us/i/screenshot24767.jpg/)

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/3604/screenshot24769.jpg (http://img340.imageshack.us/i/screenshot24769.jpg/)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7017/screenshot24773.jpg (http://img403.imageshack.us/i/screenshot24773.jpg/)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5198/screenshot24750.jpg (http://img403.imageshack.us/i/screenshot24750.jpg/)

From nintendo magazine--

Spector on working with Wii, and Nintendo's quality...

"I think a lot of people missed the boat with Wii. I think a lot of people are enamoured with going 'ooooh look shaders'. They like the idea of doing in real time what Pixar does with pre-rendered CGI. I guess it's kind of natural that everyone always goes for the flashiest, glitziest, biggest hard drive sort of thing. But for me, I don't know - I just look at Mario and Zelda and go to my friends: 'where are the best games?' Being able to focus on gameplay over flashy graphics is kinda nice - almost like the good old days of development. I mean that in an entirely positive way."


Spector on the game originally being for PS3/360...

"The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title. It's burned in my brain - Graham Hopper [Disney Interactive boss] pulled me into my office one day and said 'What does it take to deliver on the goals we have for this product? And I said, well, you need enough time and enough money to be competitive. And it'd be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform. At that time we were talking about a Wii port and I was begging people - no, we can't just port to the Wii, it's not going to work. It needs to be its own game. A lot of the design ideas just won't work on the Wii, we need to give the Wii its dues. Graham looked at me and said 'What do you think about a Wii exclusive?' And I went 'Holy cow - yeah!'"


Spector on reinventing Mickey...


"This is a labour of love for me. I've always been a Disney fan and I love Mickey - I love the character. It's pretty obvious to anybody that looks at the character today in broad strokes what we need to do to bring him back to the top of the cartoon heap."


Spector on Epic Mickey animated features and comics...
"I've had some discussions with people and really, really want to see some comics and cartoons and feature animation built around this. There have been discussions about all sorts of things talking about other possibilities around this project. I really hope it's going to happen and I'm going to keep beating on that drum."

Spector on the Nintendo-like quality of Epic Mickey...
"I think there is always a risk. The nintendo games are fantastic and do extremely well and third-party don't do quite as well. We are putting a lot of muscle behind this. We have an advantage that no one has. You say Mickey and Disney and the whole world changes, everything changes. If anyone has a chance of really delivering something special on the Wii, Nintendo-level special, it's us."

Spector on franchise plans...
"I certainly have big plans. Have they been approved? No. But I have had a lot of discussions about what is going to happen next. In my mind it's already a franchise.I really can't abide the thought that it will be OK or mediocre. We are going after Mario and Zelda, Ratchet and Clank, we all aspire to that."

[Gaastra]

A new video about the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNcQhdBVGM

[AdamYJ]

A new video about the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNcQhdBVGM

Well, it's a nice video. I like the fact that they emphasized the ability in the game to be either hero, scrapper or somewhere in-between. However, his saying that they were trying to reinvent Mickey Mouse because he's more known as a symbol on a t-shirt continues to make me wonder aloud "Am I the only one whose seen the Mickey's Mouseworks and House of Mouse cartoons". Those shows did a fine job re-fleshing out Mickey. Also, referring to the scrapper as being like the Mickey from Runaway Brain kind of had me scratching my head. The Runaway Brain Mickey was more middle-of-the-road, actually. A nice guy, but not perfect. He's probably thinking of the bit where Julius the monster's mind was in Mickey's body and he was this creepy, scary creature. It's not really the same thing, but all people seem to remember from that short is that image of "scary Mickey". It looks like a fun game, though I'm not sure I'm necessarily on the same page as Spector regarding characterizations.

[Fallman]

The game is no were near as scary as the artwork from the looks of it.

~Snip'd images~

Have they just not gotten around to putting in Cel-shading? Because I think that would help with the look, and this is really the kind of game you'd expect to have it.

I really hope that they give it a proper name before launch, though. Epic Mickey? Arrrgh.

Ah well, at any rate, it look more interesting than the usual shovelware. I wonder how many people are going to try to link it with Kingdom Hearts?