Warren Spector's "Epic Mickey"/Steampunk WDW Game

[Homer]

I know, in before "rumor, moved to random, or moved to rumor superthread." But I think this is awesome and others here will probably want this game if more art or confirmation is leaked.

 

http://kotaku.com/5325198/this-looks-like-art-from-warren-spectors-steampunk-disney-game

 

Late last year, Gamasutra said they'd heard of a game Warren Spector (Deus Ex) was working on with Disney. Said it was a "steampunk" title. Looks like they were right on the money.

 

The website of concept artist Fred Gambino (via Superannuation) has some pieces for a project called "Epic Mickey", described as an "interactive game". Which just so happens to be the same codename from the Gamasutra article. Interesting!

 

It's unclear what the status of this project is at the moment, or what the final game will actually play like (though rumours suggest it's a platformer), but we certainly like the direction it's taking, incorporating not just Disney characters, but the theme parks as well. A floating Epcot Center dreadnaught, complete with Monstro hull and Steamboat propulsion, is something we never thought we'd see, but are super-glad we did.

 

Looking at the art, the concept, and the people behind development. I came. Attaching the pics in the article for justice. Some are awesome, some is nightmare fuel. I honestly hope more is leaked, some more confirmation, and more awesomeness.

 

Hey, you're into games, who is this Warren Spector guy?

 

Warren Spector (not to be confused with that murderer guy), is an acclaimed game developer behind the Deus Ex games. Deus Ex was released for the PC in 2000 and later on the PS2 and continues being a critically acclaimed game for its unique fusion of first-person shooting, role playing, its cyberpunk setting, and being one of the first games to have multiple stories/player choice.

 

Warren Spector started a new game studio called Junction Point studios back in 2005 after Ion Storm (his original studio) closed. In 2007, Disney bought Junction Point, a later job posting for developers on a game involving "classic cartoon characters" was posted. Eventually over time, this game came to fruition and is tentatively titled Epic Mickey. No idea what systems its going to be released for.

 

What's Steampunk? Is it some genre of music that is blared at Hot Topic?

In short, a work of fiction where a universe is mostly "steam-powered." Google around for more examples.

 

What is this Kingdom Hearts game you keep referencing?

Another alternate-reality Disney game, but totally unrelated to this game.

Disney Normandy. You thought Kingdom Hearts was screwed up enough.

Even more nightmare fuel.

Nightmare fuel. Though I would actually spend time at Country Bear Jamboree if it looked like that.

Watch that front step, it's a doozy.

Why does this eerily remind me of the movie Idiocracy?

More awesome art.

I'm on a boat... with the Earful Tower, Tower of Terror, and Spaceship Earth. One cruise I wouldn't want to get off of.

[robbalvey]

Forgive me if I don't understand exactly, but why is this awesome?

 

I'm looking at the images, having never played Deus Ex or know who the designers are behind this game, and I don't quite get it or understand why this could be potentially cool.

 

Please explain as I would like to be excited about this!

 

--Robb

[Jds03]

That was disturbing.

[Pufferfish]

It's potentially cool because it appears to be a post apocalyptic world that uses the icons from the parks in dark settings as well as the characters. I like the very nightmarish concept art. Although this appears to be more a mixture of both the cyberpunk and steampunk sub genres. I could imagine that with this setting you could make a pretty decent action game. Although a lot of people may be turned off seeing some of their favorite characters and icons being used in such a dark setting. I for one am now slightly excited about this and I hope it ends up as twisted as American McGee's Alice. I enjoy a good mind f***.

[Meteornotes]

Deus Ex was amazing, but I have doubts about this. I can't imagine Disney letting their iconic characters and settings being used in a "dark" game. Certainly not a shooter or any type. So I'm thinking if there is a game, it's going to be something very, very different than the stuff Spector has done in the past. Honestly, it's hard to tell what it might be at this point, as there's about zero information. Pretty pictures, though I wonder if it's more concept art than anything that might actually appear in a game.

 

dt

[EnglndPatriots6]

The last image looks like something from Kingdom Hearts, But this looks,,,weird. Especially for Disney

[dandaman]

All I can picture from that first pic is having this game include a final battle with Cthulhu.

 

Dan "WTF, but in a good way" Smith

[TheRapidsNerd]

Well there's something I never thought I'd see: Mickey's Steampunk Adventure.

 

Sounds like they're taking the classic twisted carnival idea, but using more of a steampunk bent instead. Hmmm...I like the idea of it, and I like Steampunk, however family cutsey steampunk with Disney characters, in a post apoc world, just doesn't seem to work. Anybody else detect a hint of Final Fantasy here?

 

"Well gawrsh Mickey! It looks like the a-bomb shore tore up the place, huh?"

 

Hmmm...to be fair, we'll have to wait and see. Neat idea, but just dunno.

[slicknixon]

The game is being developed by Disney Interative Studios and is tentatively titled Epic Mickey.

 

here's the wikipedia entry:

 

Warren Spector's project, "Epic Mickey" is a video game in the works. The game is being developed by Disney Interactive Studios and is described as a steam-punk title. Tony Pulham, a concept designer for the game stated that the game is expected for the Wii, no information about the games release on other consoles has been given. Concept art for the game (by Fred Gambino) depicts "darker" Disney than we're used to seeing. Some characters shown in the concept images include Horace Horsecollar, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and a steam-powered robotic version of Goofy.

 

Seeing that Robb has worked for DIS before, I'm surprised that he hasn't heard of this game nor does he seem interested in the concept.

 

I think the game has potential to be great and will somewhat change the image of both Disney Parks and the Wii as strictly kids/family fare by mixing a normally family oriented subject and making it into a mature fantasy game. If the concept art is representative of what the final product will be, I'm sure there will be many people pleasantly surprised at Disney.

 

Seeing how popular the Kingdom Hearts games were, the game will surely succeed if it is any good and I feel that it will do nothing but good for both companies. Bring on the surreal potential masterpiece.

[BeemerBoy]

Chalk me up as another one who just doesn't "get it." Quite frankly, it looks stupid. Some themes/ game ideas just aren't meant to be married.

[slicknixon]

Keep in mind that concept art is usually nothing like the final result. Judging by how extreme this art is and knowing that is being developed by Disney themselves, you can bet that it will be almost nothing like this.

 

I can picture a futuristic setting with mutant animatronics and all that, but I picture it as the Disney licensed characters all being the good guys like in Kingdom Hearts (save for the villians) and the "bad guy" is some futuristic order of evil. Judging by the picture with the castle on top of the hill and the one with Spaceship Earth and TOT, I'm betting that the idea is that evil forces have captured Disney World or something like that and there is a captive being held in the castle. Of course, who knows. It's hard to get the idea of a game from only the concept art but you can rest assured that there will be nothing in the game to tarnish Disney's image. With that being said, it's almost certain the game will be totally different from what we see here.

[robbalvey]

Seeing that Robb has worked for DIS before, I'm surprised that he hasn't heard of this game nor does he seem interested in the concept.

Just because I worked for a company does not A. make me privy to every single project they are doing or B. force me to have to like everything they are doing.

 

I worked for Activision for many years with an office two doors down from the guy that produced Guitar Hero and to this day I have never played the game nor did I have any idea what versions of the game were in production while I worked there.

 

Contrary to popular belief that "people who make video games just sit around and play games all day" there is a TON of work that goes on 'behind the scenes' and most of it isn't glamorous at all.

 

In fact, most of it is down right dull and headache inducing.

 

The amount of budgets, contracts, schedules, databases, design docs, technical docs, etc, etc, that need to be monitored on a daily basis is FAR from getting to "play games all day long." Not to mention countless, pointless meetings with people who don't quite understand what exactly your development team is doing, but think they do, and then direct you as such.

 

I used to always tell people who would say "That's so cool that you get to play games all day long" that my response would be "You know, I would love that, but that's like saying people who make movies just sit around and watch movies all day long."

 

As for the art style, I have to be honest, I'm not into it. Well, actually I take that back, I do like the art style, but I don't find the mixture of worlds to fit together well. At least not to me.

 

Some of it looks very "Nightmare Before Christmas-like" (one of my favorite movies of all time), some of it looks very "Seussian", some of it looks like "Watchmen", some of it looks "Evil Toy Story Toys" and some of it looks "Disney."

 

In my job I'm used to seeing concept art for different games, television shows, animated movies, comic books, etc on a very regular basis. (Remember that when a new IP gets pitched, a lot of times the game concept is pitched as well, so we'll be right there in a pitch meeting for a new entertainment piece with our game design docs in hand.)

 

And I have seen quite a few "mixture of worlds" concepts pitched, and I dunno, I think Kingdom Hearts worked very well (although it's a game I had zero interest in) but this, I'm just not sure. I think it's one thing to mix the staple Disney characters into a different world, but to mix the characters AND theme park attractions AND theme park characters, I dunno.

 

To me this image:

Looks like it *could* be something cool, I guess? But it also looks to me like "Nightmare, Waterworld, and Dr. Seuss" all mixed together with a color palette from Watchmen.

 

This image:

To me just looks incredibly dumb. Even as far as scale goes, these things don't seem to work together and just look really stupid to my eye. "The Earfull Tower on the front of a boat?" C'mon! That's just retarded. The elements in this image feel forced and out of place.

 

This to me:

Looks like rejected concept art for Toy Story. I'm not a fan. I feel like I've seen it before. In a movie. From Pixar. In 1995.

 

This is probably the coolest image of them all:

But what is it? Looks like a screen shot from another game with a different world and had some Disney-esque thing in there to pay homage to animation the original designers were fans of during their childhood.

 

Every one of these images reminds me of something I've already seen somewhere else before, but with Disney imagery forced into it for the sake of branding it as a Disney property. Now granted, this worked for Kingdom Hearts, because IMO, Kingdom Hearts was just taking the Final Fantasy world and shoehorning Disney characters in the mix. So who knows, maybe this could work.

 

If I was asked "Based on this concept art, is this a game you would be interested in?" my response would be "no."

 

And overall the one thing you have to remember is that all of this concept art is just that... CONCEPT ART!

 

When I worked at Disney I would walk the halls of the animation buildings, Imagineering, etc, and the amount of concept art made for the stuff that NEVER SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY was staggering.

 

If I had to guess there is probably at least 100 pieces of concept art created to every 1 thing that comes to life on your television screen or at a theme park. And that number is probably being VERY conservative!

 

Hope my little bit of insight helps...

 

--Robb Alvey

[testtrack321]

I'm turned off and repulsed by the game and the artwork so far. Doesn't seem to respect the material at all. And I agree with Rob, that boat looks incredibly stupid.

[slicknixon]

I agree that some of the art represents ideas that could potentially fail, but the real thing to get excited about is the fact that the game has been confirmed to be in development stages which, judging from the dates on the sites seems to have been leaked yesterday.

 

Any fan of Disney's games should be excited about a new Disney game that isn't based on a particular movie or license because Kingdom Hearts proved that the company could endorse games for the "hardcore" gamer as well as the kiddie games by allowing their licenses to be used in game development.

The end result with KH was a masterpiece that was so great because of so many characters that the gamer could relate to and easily recognize no matter who they were.

[robbalvey]

I agree that some of the art represents ideas that could potentially fail, but the real thing to get excited about is the fact that the game has been confirmed to be in development stages which, judging from the dates on the sites seems to have been leaked yesterday.

 

Any fan of Disney's games should be excited about a new Disney game that isn't based on a particular movie or license because Kingdom Hearts proved that the company could endorse games for the "hardcore" gamer as well as the kiddie games by allowing their licenses to be used in game development.

The end result with KH was a masterpiece that was so great because of so many characters that the gamer could relate to and easily recognize no matter who they were.

Some things to note from your post (and I'm not coming down on you at all, just speaking from my personal experience)

 

1. Just because a game is "in development" means nothing. I have probably worked on 10 times more games that were "in development" that have made it to the store shelves. It's just a fact that most games don't make the cut. In my 20 years of video game development I've seen more game IP's get cancelled than get released.

 

2. You don't need to be a "hardcore gamer game" to be a good Disney game. I produced Aladdin on the Sega Genesis. That game appealed to a very wide audience because we mastered both the "hardcore" and the "general gaming" audience with that title.

 

3. Just because you're a fan of Disney or Disney games does not automatically mean you "should be excited" about a new Disney game release.

 

I am a huge fan of Nightmare and I was absolutely NOT "excited" about the game that Capcom announced. I just didn't feel it was a property that lent itself well to a video game. And as of yet, no game has been released that proves that statement wrong. Same thing goes with Tron. Leave Tron alone as the legacy that it is. You cannot recreate an "accidental masterpiece" by trying harder.

 

I will say that I think it's cool that Disney will concept out, or even put into development new and different ideas. Whether those ideas turn out to be good ones, or ones that I am personally excited about remains to be seen.

 

When I was working on Transformers I wasn't a big fan of the new styles of the robots, but everyone else seemed to love them. Go figure.

 

--Robb

[Not For Sale]

I think we're all ignoring that it looks like a crazy mechanical narwhal.

[slicknixon]

@Robb - harsh truths, i know lol

 

It's just that I want to be optimistic about this game getting released as I am a huge fan of the Wii and WDW and anything that combines the two will be gold to me. Seeing that there hasn't been many other huge game announcements lately and the fact that the gaming industry has been suffering from sales losses lately, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets green-lighted as an attempt to tap into a previously successful (KH) yet new market for gamers on the most successful current-gen system.

[robbalvey]

Seeing that there hasn't been many other huge game announcements lately

Ahem... A Boy and His Blob.

 

Thank you very much!

 

--Robb

[slicknixon]

^ lol yeah, but that was announced last year and as soon as it was I knew I'd be buying it.

[BeemerBoy]

When I was working on Transformers I wasn't a big fan of the new styles of the robots, but everyone else seemed to love them. Go figure.

Actually, I thought I was the only one in that category, Robb. To me they look too "busy." And I couldn't understand how each one seemed to transform into something 10x bigger than what is was in automotive form.

 

Anyway, back on topic. This Disney concept still sucks.

[Emiroo]

I worked for Activision for many years with an office two doors down from the guy that produced Guitar Hero and to this day I have never played the game.

 

Is this on purpose? While I'm hardly a GH freak, it's an awesome game that even non gamers eat up. If you have even a casual interest in music, you'll have a good time. My 65 year old non-gamer, non-musical mother was interested enough to give it a try.

 

Contrary to popular belief that "people who make video games just sit around and play games all day" there is a TON of work that goes on 'behind the scenes' and most of it isn't glamorous at all.

In fact, most of it is down right dull and headache inducing.

 

I'm not in the industry, but this video profiling a single day of the making of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance completely redefined my ideas of what designing games was like and definitely backs up what Robb said.

[Meteornotes]

As someone else that has worked in the game industry (I even worked at the same company as Robb for awhile), I implore all of you to really, really pay attention to everything he says. His description of the game industry and how it really works is PERFECT and really needs to be read by people, especially those that think that making games is "fun". It's actually a crapload of annoying work.

 

And remember, this is Disney. They have more money than many nations. And they will have no problem developing something like this and killing it right before it's published. They've done it many, many times in the past, and will do it many, many times in the future. And they probably have at least one warehouse (or more) of concept art of projects that will never see the light of day. I'm really thinking this is going to be one of them, as I still cannot wrap my brain around the theme and what they're trying to do. And remember, I like my entertainment DARK AND SCREWED UP. This is normally the sort of thing that would intrigue me, but so far I'm not excited, even with Spector's involvement. It just seems to me that at this point they're tossing a bunch of non-connected ideas together to see what might work.

 

I guess we'll all have to wait and see what happens, but I wouldn't be heading down to Gamestop to put in your pre-order just yet...

 

dt

[robbalvey]

I worked for Activision for many years with an office two doors down from the guy that produced Guitar Hero and to this day I have never played the game.

 

Is this on purpose? While I'm hardly a GH freak, it's an awesome game that even non gamers eat up. If you have even a casual interest in music, you'll have a good time. My 65 year old non-gamer, non-musical mother was interested enough to give it a try.

Not at all. Just had no time. I was just highlighting the fact that just because you work at a company, you don't automatically know what is going on with every single game and are into every other project that is simultaneously being produced.

 

^ lol yeah, but that was announced last year and as soon as it was I knew I'd be buying it.

It was announced March 2009.

 

--Robb

[Raider82]

This game has been rumored to be in the works since 2007 so I doubt that it is something that will simply be canceled and not released. Warren Spector has helped with some pretty critically acclaimed games so I'm interested to see how the project turns out.

 

The concept art is defiantly different from what I would expect from a Disney title. I can't really judge the game from these early images. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of game it is - as far as the genre, gameplay, who the main character is, etc.

 

I personally loved the Kingdom Hearts games and hope that this game brings some of that iconic Disney characters, and familiar places we got to visit in the KH universe. Speaking of KH I've always wondered by Disney hasn't greenlight a move based off the game, it just seems like a no brainier.

[robbalvey]

This game has been rumored to be in the works since 2007 so I doubt that it is something that will simply be canceled and not released. Warren Spector has helped with some pretty critically acclaimed games so I'm interested to see how the project turns out.

Two years in development is NOTHING!

 

I have worked on projects that have sat in development for much longer that got cancelled, brought back to life, cancelled again, etc.