Tons of Epic Mickey artwork revealed

By Oli Welsh Published 21 October, 2009

2D sections, painting, Mickey's moods, more.

Game Informer has followed up its magazine debut of Epic Mickey with a huge online feature discussing the game's art and animation, and showing swathes of concept art and videos.

You can see sketches of a robotic Donald Duck and of the game's bizarre enemies - Blotlings, the Beetleworx (a hybrid of skeletal machine and colourful cartoon character) and their creator the Mad Doctor, star of the thirties Mickey Mouse cartoon of the same name. You can also watch some beautifully-animated test clips of Mickey himself in action.

There are a handful of interesting gameplay details on the Disney Wii exclusive, made by Warren Spector's Junction Point studios, in the article too. The 3D adventuring areas will be connected by classic 2D side-scrolling levels, each of them styled like a piece of celluloid film and based on a vintage Mickey cartoon.

The game-world is divided into "cartoon" and "inert" objects, the former in the typical colourful and rounded Disney style, the latter having a much darker, more angular look. Cartoon objects can be interacted with using Mickey's paintbrush, erasing parts of them to make platforms, or creating them by filling in sparkling spaces with a few strokes.

Mickey himself - drawn as he was in the thirties, "mischievous and cartoony" - will change his mood and animation style depending on how players choose to play the game. He's shown in three attitudes, an aggressive "scrapper", cautious "wastelander" and proud "hero".

"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," said Spector.

"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," he continued, suggesting the game would be far from linear.

The Game Informer feature has plenty more information on how Epic Mickey is being put together, and you can also find a video montage of concept art at the site. Look out for our own first impressions of Epic Mickey soon.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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