Epic Mickey Not Brown, Hyper-Real

Junction Point Founder Warren Spector is sending a message with Epic Mickey, seeking to prove that games can not only look great on the Wii, but don’t have to be brown or hyper realistic.

“I remember when we started this project I told the team that some day we’ll be at E3, and there are going to be 2,500 games on display, and 1,800 are going to be brown. ‘Welcome to brown world!’ And the others are going to be [mock enthusiasm] hyper-real! Everything looks real now!” Spector said. “I told the team we’re going to have five seconds – five seconds for people walking past our exhibitor booth to know that Epic Mickey doesn’t look like any other game.”

The team is accomplishing this through color – using the vivid palettes for which Disney films are known.

“It’s going to have the lush, beautiful, bright colours of a Disney feature film on the Wii. And I want players and I want our competition to think ‘holy cow I didn’t know you could do that on a Wii’,” Spector said.

By Spector’s reckoning, this is a goal they have accomplished.

“For my money, Epic Mickey may be the best looking Wii game ever. The critical thing is I believe we’ve captured the spirit of the character, and the essence of Disney,” Spector said. “That’s what we needed to do.”

Fine sentiments, but they’ve been shared by other developers – most notably Platinum Games with MadWorld or High Voltage Software with The Conduit. Epic Mickey aims for a different demographic, however, so it’s much more likely it may have the breakout success sadly denied to other big-budget Wii titles.

[via Develop Online]