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Disney Interactive Studios has announced the development of Disney Epic Mickey, an adventure-platforming game with “light role-playing elements” for the Wii.
The game stars Mickey Mouse who has been re-imagined for video games by video game designer Warren Spector and his Junction Point game development studio.
“Mickey is an adventurous and rambunctious mouse,” said Warren Spector, creative director and vice president, Junction Point. “I want to bring his personality to the forefront, place him in a daunting world and connect his spirited character with video game players worldwide. Ultimately, each player decides for him- or herself what makes Mickey cool.”
The game sees a sorcerer named Yen Sid – the powerful sorcerer from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Walt Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia” – create a beautiful, whimsically-twisted world where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations thrive.
In Epic Mickey, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit – Walt Disney’s first cartoon star created in 1927 – becomes the earliest inhabitant of Yen Sid’s Cartoon Wasteland after Mickey Mouse is created. Oswald makes the Cartoon Wasteland comfortable for other retired characters as they join him in this magical land. Years pass, and as Oswald dwells in the Cartoon Wasteland, he becomes resentful watching Mickey’s popularity swell. When Mickey curiously stumbles upon Yen Sid’s map, he makes an innocent yet terrible mistake and inadvertently devastates Oswald’s comfortable world. Eventually, Mickey’s mistake pulls him deep into the mysterious Cartoon Wasteland to face the destruction he unknowingly created.
Players will use the Wii Remote to wield magical paint and thinner to re-shape the world around them. Paint’s creativity and thinner’s damaging effect give the player the power to make choices about how they move through the world. Each player’s decisions to use paint, thinner, or both, dynamically changes the world with consequences that affect the environment, interactions with other characters, and even Mickey’s appearance and abilities.
“The core of this game is the idea of choice and consequence, and how that defines both the character and the player,” said Spector. “By putting the mischievous Mickey in an unfamiliar place and asking him to make choices – to help other cartoon characters or choose his own path – the game forces players to deal with the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?’ Each player will come up with a different answer.”
Disney Epic Mickey is scheduled for release in autumn 2010.
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