Now to elaborate a little, so I'm not a troll, why doesn't this game look as good as SMG? I mean, this had better be some early shots - Mickey's head looks like he's got 4 polys. I'm not a graphics whore on any level, but Disney's (cartoons) whole thing (since the beginning) has been about amazing us with visuals - and these scren slook like something my PSP hacked up.
Hopefully it will look beter in motion.
aspro said:Looks like a PSP game (graphically).
Now to elaborate a little, so I'm not a troll, why doesn't this game look as good as SMG? I mean, this had better be some early shots - Mickey's head looks like he's got 4 polys. I'm not a graphics whore on any level, but Disney's (cartoons) whole thing (since the beginning) has been about amazing us with visuals - and these scren slook like something my PSP hacked up.
Hopefully it will look beter in motion.
I agree, it's not a pretty game and it has little to do with the platform. A highly stylised game like this should have much better visuals. But I guess we have no release date so it could be a long way off.
Anyhow there was a London event, live blog here, highlight white blocks.
FINISHED
Now i'm off to raid the free bar. Get in!
And that's all folks (whoops, wrong cartoon studio). The presentation is over, but i'll be seeing a demo of the game in a little over an hour. We'll have a preview up on VideoGamer some time soon.
A pic on screen shows the Phantom Blot... a massive-looking black wave with yellow eyes. He looks quite scary.
PLOT: Mickey is kidnapped from his home and taken to the cartoon wasteland. The first act of the game is about working out where you are, seeing friends he hasn't seen in ages. He'll re-discover Oswald, and then he'll find out something shocking: he was the one who caused all the devastation. How? I don't know yet.
There's also a massive, super-creepy house with a graveyard and gothic architecture.
Other levels will be based on famous cartoons. One level, inside a giant clock, is based on the classic short "Clock Cleaners".
The idea is that this is an alternate world where all of Walt's forgotten or unused creations live. The toons live here, waiting for audience to remember them. One setting looks like a mad doctors lab. Another one, Gremlin Village, looks very purple-y with what look like pagodas in the background.
These characters live in a place called The Cartoon Wasteland, based on drawings by Disney.
Other Disney friends and foes will appear. There's an image on screen of Donald Duck, and he's half robot. It's like Donald Duck: Judgement Day. Weird.
The gamje will also feature Gremlins - characters that Disney created with Roald Dahl, yeeears ago. There was going to be a film, bit it never happened.
Oswald has lots of kids (hey, he's a bunny, right?) and they all love Mickey. The combination of these kids with Spatters results in problems... but Warren won't spill the beans how.
The badguys are called Spatters - newly-created monsters that look like imps. you can erase them, distract them or make friends with them.
Now let's look at Oswald. He's a little black rabbit with big black ears. Slightly more simple look than Mickey. He's resentful of Mickey, but he's going to play a big role in the story. He can be redeemed.
Seems like an interesting variation on the classic Good/Neutral/Evil thing.
In this game, you can choose to NOT fight the bosses. You can get around them. Warren says that his team think he's crazy, due to this mechanic.
...and if you want to make trouble, you can turn him into a Scrapper. A bad mouse who gets into fights. This will change his look.
....If you make him act like "normal", you can play neutral - sometimes helpful, sometimes not...
These choices will lead to a unique experience, one that makes Mickey cool to you. Mickey has changed a lot over the years, and the idea is that you'll be able to have him act in the way you like. If you're heroic, and don't erase all the important cartoon stuff, it'll change the world and give you special powers...
You can either be a scrapper (mischievous), or a hero. Being a loner, or working for the greater good.
It'll be your call when to erase stuff, and when to paint stuff; when to behave, and when to be bad.
Warren won't be saying much about the inert stuff; he'll talk about that on another day.
Example: a cartoon bookcase. You can jump on it, use it as a platform - but if it's in the way, you can erase it. You could then re-draw it once you've moved past, if you like.
everything in the world is made of paint. Some objects are inert (and immune), but for the most part stuff will look bright and puffy... because its all a cartoon.
everything in the world is made of paint. Some objects are inert (and immune), but for the most part stuff will look bright and puffy... because its all a cartoon.
Here comes the Paint and Thinner mechanic...
It's the way Mickey moves that brings out his personality, not just his look.
The team took their animation rig and blended it with exisiting Disney cartoons, to see how the two compared. From where i'm sitting, they look remarkably close. Warren's engine gives 3d models moving in a 2d scene... if that's not a contradiction.
It's also important to show that Mickey can be badly behaved, as he was in the really early Disney cartoons... before he went all squeaky clean.
"How crazy is it that we have to re-introduce Mickey? Everyone knows him." But, Warren says, we need to remind people that he's a hero, and not just an icon. He can do cool things, be funny, be young and not "your favourite uncle".
So the idea is that Oswald is this bitter twisted husk who felt that Walt rejected him. He came so close to being a star, and was then cast aside.
An image on screen shows Disney encountering an angry black rabbit. It's from the Disney archives, and it's the only time a Disney artist drew Oswald after 1928, when Walt got fired from his old job (at Universal?) over a contract dispute.
There'll also be a system called "Paint and Thinner". The player can dynamically change the environment. We'll hear about this in a sec.
Warren adds that he likes confounding people, giving them stuff that's hard to define. This game combines elements from platform, adventure and RPG gaming.
Warren adds that he likes confounding people, giving them stuff that's hard to define. This game combines elements from platform, adventure and RPG gaming.
He also wants to tell a story, as with the 19 games he's made before this. The story must also be player-driven. Everyone will have their own experience as they play.
Warren also wants to honour Disney's creative legacy, but he knows that the team needs to present this in a different way: taking familiar items and giving them a "twist up", a darker edge.
This game aims to make Mickey cool again.
This game aims to make Mickey cool again.
Warren says there were two main goals here: Present Mickey in a new way, and re-introduce Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Warren says that Mickey has "never been treated right" in gaming; he's better known as a symbol on a watch, T-shirt etc.
Nice green pullover, Warren!
Then Disney hired Warren to make the project work. Apparently he;s a bit of an animation buff. And here he come....
The rights for Oswald actually belonged to Universal, so Disney had to buy him back.
The Think Tank went back to basics, tried to reconnect with the core of "who Mickey is". They also found a character called Oswald... Mickey's predecessor.
And that's why we've only seen Mickey in Kingdom Hearts, lately.
Disney felt that Mickey had never achieved his full potential in videogames.
This project arose from a Disney think tank in Glendale, apparently.
Hopper is giving us a welcome. "Warren's got a show for you that will make your trip worthwhile."
And we're off...
There's plenty of Disney artwork decorating the venue, but none of it gives much away. The most prevalent image is a sort of ink blot on a white background, with black splodges that suggest a simplified outline of Mickey's face.
Up until now we've not heard much about this game, but we do know that it's supposed to have a much darker tone than what you'd normal expect from a Mickey game.
You all remember him, right? He had a hand in making Deus Ex and System Shock, among other gaming greats...
I'm in a dark corner of London's uber-trendy Shoreditch, birthplace of the asymmetrical haircut. In a few minutes, we'll be seeing the new Mickey Mouse game - which also happens to be the latest project from Warren Spector.
Right, I'm finally here and online - after a small nightmare with my wireless connection. Better late than never...
Spector:
"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!'"
"They walked away from three other platforms - no other publisher on the planet would have done that. It was a magic moment for me. No-one has even mentioned other formats since that point."
Spector says that the game won't support the Wii Remote's MotionPlus technology because the technology became available to developers too late to the studio.
"We played with it and I think that it would be a great fit for our core mechanic, but the best I can say is that in the future we'd love to do more with it," he said.
"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."
Oh Aspro it seems those 1up pics are oversized. I guess it does look better in normal sized pics.
It could still be a lot more detailed and have better/any effects and lighting.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
looks much better in motion
This is cool.
Warren Spector narrates new screens and art and generally tells you about the game.
A potential Xbox 360 and PS3 port of Wii exclusive Epic Mickey is "a decision that other people in the Disney organisation are going to make," Warren Spector has told CVG.
Speaking to us in London last night, Spector said: "Right now we're a Wii game and I'm happy to be able to focus.
"It's interesting - it's kind of fun to be able to focus on gameplay and not have to worry about modern shader stuff," he said.
"That's got its place but you know what? If I never make another game that's trying to be the hyper-realistic, look like everybody else in the world... I'm OK with that. I don't need to do that anymore.
"I'm really enjoying working on a platform where gameplay is 'it'," he added.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3176700
Warren Spector Addresses Disparity Between Epic Mickey Concept Art And Screenshots
Remember when some crazy looking concept art for Epic Mickeyleaked? The kind of art that showed off tanks modeled after the Seven Dwarves in Snow White or a giant whale with Spaceship Earth on its back? Some of you might feel a bit disappointed that the official screenshots released to date don't quite reflect on that crazy steampunk aesthetic, and during an interview, I asked Warren Spector to discuss the disparity between the leaked art and the official art today.
He answers, "There are a couple aspects to that. I think I've mentioned before, that I'm a big believer in finding out where the line is by pushing past it. There are lines that are on every project; every project exists in a creative box. For most of my games, I create that box and the team has to sort of work within it. In this case, there's a creative box that I create, and there's the creative box that Disney overlays on that. I know where my lines are, but I don't know where Disney's are. I had a lot of stuff generated that was very specifically designed to be provocative and to cross that line. I know it's too far -- or is it? You tell me. So it forces a confrontation or a decision. Some of what you saw was beyond the line, and so I learned something from it. Some of it was early design ideas that are no longer relevant. Some of it is stuff that's still in the game, and I'm not saying what."
http://kotaku.com/5392525/disney-considering-movie-comics-for-epic-mickey
Disney Considering Movie, Comics for Epic Mickey
No decisions have been made, but Disney Epic Mickey designer Warren Spector has his way we'll be seeing a lot more than a game coming out of the concept behind the moralistic reimagining of Walt Disney's most beloved character.
"I've had some discussions with people and really, really want to see some comics and cartoons and feature animation built around this," he Spector told Kotaku. "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."
In Disney Epic Mickey, due out next fall, players will take on the role of a Mickey Mouse thrust into a dystopic world of his own accidental creation called The Cartoon Waste Land. Once there he will use a paint brush and thinner, controlled by the Wii's remote, to reshape the world while battling the animated creations inside.
Spector told Kotaku that he isn't worried about bringing the game only to the Wii, despite the relative failures other third-party developers have seen on the platform.
"I think there is always a risk," he said. "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 says that he has every intention, Disney has every intention, of this game becoming an established and beloved franchise.
"I certainly have big plans," he said. "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."
Succeed or fail, Spector and his team aren't holding anything back on this game.
"I really can't abide the thought that it will be OK or mediocre," he said. "We are going after Mario and Zelda, Ratchet and Clank, we all aspire to that.
"I don't always succeed, but we're always shooting for the moon," he said. "I'm a man of many motos and one of them is fail gloriously."
Why dosent Donald Duck ever wear pants?!?
That one time I dressed as him for halloween got me a restraining order from a 72 year old lady when I came a running up to her house wang a flappin asking for her treats.
Buttt NOOOOO Donald can do it.
ps: This game looks like a last generation title graphically.
Pss: But the gameplay premise sounds really neat.
GodModeEnabled said:
Why dosent Donald Duck ever wear pants?!?That one time I dressed as him for halloween got me a restraining order from a 72 year old lady when I came a running up to her house wang a flappin asking for her treats.
Buttt NOOOOO Donald can do it.
ps: This game looks like a last generation title graphically.
Pss: But the gameplay premise sounds really neat.
It would but for the animation!
"B..but but godmode! Teh animation!"
Go animate me a beer from the fridge junior
GodModeEnabled said:"B..but but godmode! Teh animation!"
Go animate me a beer from the fridge junior
But it would look like a last generation beer, so would you be happy with it?
totalvideogames 
Spector introduces the mansion
n
nn
GodModeEnabled said:"B..but but godmode! Teh animation!"
Go animate me a beer from the fridge junior
But you're the junior here rank 21
Put some pants on. Donald has no penis.
gamingeek said:
Put some pants on. Donald has no penis.
Donald has a penis. A big penis in fact.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/disney-epic-mickey-preview
"Is it a platformer or an adventure game or an RPG? Well... yes," he says. It will offer multiple play-styles, multiple solutions to problems, a character and a world that change according to your decisions and actions. But it will also have a contained, level-based, linear thrust. When it releases late next year, Epic Mickey will be - surprisingly, but also inevitably - a Warren Spector game through and through.
Epic Mickey's remedy to this is twofold. The first part is to return him to his roots, in the distinctly thirties style in which he's drawn, and in the primal focus on animation by the team at Spector's studio Junction Point. "There's been a conscious effort to make him more human, more grounded... I wanted to remind him that he's a cartoon character," says the designer. He shows videos of Mickey's in-game model composited onto classic cartoons, aping the elastic, expressive, somehow graceful stretching and scampering of the original drawings with amazing faithfulness. It's there in the in-game footage we see, too, and is already easily the best cartoon animation in any non-Nintendo game of recent years.
The twisted, inert part of the Wasteland can't be affected, but everything else - made as it is out of ink and paint - can: platforms can be conjured out of thin air, obstacles removed, objects reshaped.
The element of choice doesn't stop there, because paint and thinner are both limited resources - you won't just have to choose which to use, but when to use it. And the consequences of your choice might be deeper than you think. For example, erasing a bookcase to get at what's behind it doesn't just remove the physical object from your world, it removes the information in the books
We're taken through a demonstration showing multiple routes to a single level - its fractured, colourful 3D exploration strongly reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy, if not quite as pretty or as head-spinning. (There will also be traditional 2D platforming levels, each taking direct inspiration from a specific, classic Mickey cartoon.)
In motion, Epic Mickey looks lively and solid, a polished example of a licensed cartoon adventure - but not a whole lot more. Its aesthetic isn't as stark as the leaked concept art might have suggested, and its flexibility and depth aren't immediately apparent beneath the busy, colourful action.
But seeing the breadth of choice, the player's freedom of action demonstrated - and hearing Spector talk about it - does mark Epic Mickey out as a trailblazer. It's not that these things have never been attempted before in videogames, but they've never been attempted in a game like this, or with a character like this.
Of course, it can be argued that concept art is precisely the way the dev team and designers have to know how far can they push the envelope on the game they're making, and that it would have been naive to expect the same approach or content in the actual product.
Still, a lot of the "wow" factor that kicked in the minute I saw the first leaked concept art is gone now while I browse these screens. Placeholder textures (hopefully) aside, the art direction and color palette are no different from any two-bit platformer, and besides the animation, there's not much more I am looking forward to in regards to upcoming information on this game.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile