http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/107/1072480p1.html
February 25, 2010 - Last year fresh new developer Twisted Pixel delivered two great games to Xbox Live Arcade: The Maw and 'Splosion Man. For its next trick, the studio is prepping what it calls a "comedy shooter" named Comic Jumper. A 2D action game taking place in comic books, we are immediately reminded of the SEGA Genesis title Comix Zone. Comic Jumper apparently takes more inspiration from games like Contra and Gunstar Heroes, though. It was unveiled with a trailer at the Penny Arcade Expo last summer, but we haven't heard much about Comic Jumper since then. Today, Twisted Pixel is here to change that.
What follows are tons and tons of details on what we can expect from Comic Jumper, straight from the developer's mouth. Comic Jumper has more characters and content than The Maw and 'Splosion Man combined, so there is plenty to talk about. Make sure to check out the new screenshots just added to the media gallery, as well.
Josh Bear, game director and Twisted Pixel's Chief Creative Officer: Comic Jumper is our third original IP console title. You play as the loudmouth Captain Smiley, a half-witted comic book superhero who discovers that his fans are losing interest in his comic books. Smiley can "jump" into other comic book franchises and earn the love and respect he needs to re-launch his own series. Smiley and Star, Smiley's back-talking and foul-mouthed chest symbol, battle villains and help other heroes across four different comic books, each with varying takes on gameplay and their own distinct art style inspired by recognizable real-world comic genres.
The first comic our hero visits is his own, "The Adventures of Captain Smiley."
This comic style represents the world Captain Smiley, Star, Gerda and the rest of the supporting characters inhabit. The look and tone of the comic is supposed to be similar to the early '90s Image Comics, where everything was really in your face as far as art and splash pages were concerned. Captain Smiley's comic, "The Adventures of Captain Smiley," is selling in our current time but still trying to run with the "in your face" art style and putting story aside for the most part.
We had messed around with making Captain Smiley a character based in a future comic book, and in the future no one cared about story or character development at all, with the world being presented more like the one in the movie "Idiocracy." Another idea was to have him come from the past, somewhere around the Golden Age of comics, and play it like a fish out of water story. But ultimately that didn't sync with what we wanted to do with Star, which was make him an angry and bitter character.
There are several different art styles in the game that we will reveal as time goes on, and every one of them has a different feel and unique look. I think the thing that makes Smiley's comic fun is that the world around him fits into the design of his initial character design, so he is really in his element with this art style. Since we are going for a more modern approach, we have some shiny, glossy graphics stuff going on that looks pretty cool. Also, when creating a typical modern, moody comic environment, you have to go with the "city rooftops at night with big moon in the background" look, so that is really fun as well.
I created Captain Smiley when I was in 7th grade. His basic personality today is really similar to the original idea. Kind of pompous and really into himself. And he is a little bit "Inspector Gadget" since he is kind of a moron, and most of the time it is up to other people to solve his problems for him, but he still thinks he did all the work. Star has also evolved over time. Originally he was just a silent symbol that changed facial expressions every once in awhile. Now he is a fully animated, speaking sidekick attached to Smiley's chest.
We wanted voice to be a big part of this game, but we didn't want Smiley breaking the fourth wall all the time just talking to players. And since he doesn't have a sidekick that is always playing the level with him (Gerda remains at a base and communicates to him through his belt) it felt like he needed someone to communicate with. One night while some of us were visiting Austin, TX to find office space, I woke up and had the idea that the star symbol should be alive, and that they bicker like an old married couple. And that was pretty much it. I wish I had thought of it when I originally came up with the idea for Captain Smiley, I think my original comics would have been a lot better.
osh Bear, game director and Twisted Pixel's Chief Creative Officer: Gerda is Captain Smiley's sidekick, but he treats her like crap and always makes sure the writer's write her in as a damsel in distress, because he and Star think it's funny. They kind of treat her like a younger sister. Gerda is actually a highly intelligent superhero of her own accord, but since the sidekick business had been slow she chose to work with Smiley since his comic was the only one hiring. She can barely stand to put up with him, but she is just kind of biding her time until she can find a better gig.
Gerda was a part of my original idea for the Captain Smiley comic, way back when. She was based off of a girl I had a huge crush on in junior high, so I thought I would impress her by making her a character in the comic. Not only would she be pretty, but she would also be the smartest one in the story, lol. I named her Gerda because it sounded like a name someone pretty wouldn't have for some reason…sounds more like an old witch or hag or something. (Sorry to everyone who is hot and named Gerda, or if your grandma isn't hot but really nice, and named Gerda.) She loved that I put her in the comic, but I was too scared to tell her I liked her and nothing ever came of it. But, the character of Gerda lives on, so that is pretty cool.
Sean Riley, Lead Designer: At the beginning of the project, we looked at a ton of old-school shooters like Gunstar Heroes, Contra, and Metal Slug, really trying to dig in to what made them work. I always find it really useful to look at the well-established games not only for inspiration but as guides. A lot of times when you are faced with a problem in your gameplay, it can help a lot to refer to past games and see how they addressed the issues. Usually everyone has taken a slightly different tack, but playing them lets you craft a better solution to the specific issues in your own project.
Comic Jumper, like all of our games, really tries to focus on characters and accessibility. There's something really satisfying about the simplicity of blowing away everything in your way, and I think not over-complicating the base gameplay lets us work with the personality of the characters without having it get lost in a mass of buttons and UI. I think sometimes it can be tempting to add depth by shoving in more controls, but we'd always tried to create our depth through other factors.
As far as accessibility, I really like having score-based games because it lets us tune things so that everybody can get through a level, but those people who really want to push it have a lot of room to grow and really improve their play.
There are actually a bunch of different types of gameplay in Comic Jumper, but we're not revealing all of them just yet. One of the modes I can talk about a little bit, though, is our melee sections. These parts have that big bruising feel: enemies flying everywhere, really over the top.
I think when you are reading a comic, you see so many different types of fights and situations going on -- we really wanted to try and capture those differences in our game. On the team, we talk a lot about the player experience and creating memorable sequences of gameplay, and I think our attention to that is really going to show through once we finish everything up.
Dave Leung, Art Director: After we design the characters and worlds, it's up to me to take those amazing illustrations and turn them into 3D playable assets. Even though Captain Smiley is essentially a smiley face, I was sure to set up his facial rig to include all the tools I need to create whatever emotions the moment calls for: eye lids, eyebrows, a tongue, squash and stretch abilities that drove a lot of the Maw's animation, and most of the morph targets enabling me to form his head and mouth into any shape I need.
Voice acting is a big feature of Comic Jumper that is new to Twisted Pixel games, and the characters' animations will be lip-synced. I will be creating as many fully synced-with-VO animations as one man can humanly handle, which includes body acting like the early trailer we released. We've set up a system that allows me to quickly lip sync just the faces with the VO, in combination with some more general talking body motions. The results are awesome and enable us to cram a ton of animation content into the game.
Matt Entin and Ed Kuehnel, Writers: We worked together on Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, where we did a ton of writing and directed most of the voice over. For each of us it was our first major foray into the world of game writing. We had an enormous amount of creative freedom, had a great time and made a lot of mistakes. Some of it makes us proud; some of it makes us cringe. All told it was good enough to earn a 2005 Game Developer's Choice nomination for Best Writing and we earned a lot of kudos for our efforts from critics and fans. We did a great deal of writing for a sequel to that game which was canceled which is a shame; there was some great stuff there.
Josh Bear: Since each comic book needs to have its own distinct style, we decided to use a different composer for each comic book to increase that feeling that they're each made by different creators in different eras. For Smiley's comic, the composer is Matt "Chainsaw" Chaney, the bearded brilliance behind The Donut Song in 'Splosion Man. Chainsaw is a man of many talents, because he has also handled all of the sound effects work in all of our games, including Comic Jumper.
Matt "Chainsaw" Chaney, Composer: Josh and I talked about wanting to blend some of the big orchestral elements normally associated with super hero themes with more rock and roll elements, so that was one of the driving thoughts behind the creation of the music for this comic. I want this first level to feel like the most awesome sequence from an action movie ever, so I really tried to amp up the energy in the music throughout. I created separate stems of guitar/bass/drum elements and the orchestral elements so that I can solo or combine them at any point in the gameplay to help match the dynamic on screen. So when Smiley does something particularly heroic, you'll hear a big horn and string fanfare accompany him musically. And then as you're just running around and exploring you're accompanied by a more simplified track of drums and bass guitar.
I always try to listen to a bunch of references when starting work on a project. I of course listened to Danny Elfman's super hero themes, particularly the first Batman movie he did with Burton. I loved that when I was a kid. And Josh sent me a ton of references from old games ranging from Johnny Bazookatone on the Sega Saturn, to Sonic CD, to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. And early in production I watched "The French Connection", and the music during the opening sequence really grabbed me, so I incorporated a bit of homage to it during a chase sequence in the game.
Like I mentioned earlier, I think this comic's style is really representative of the Twisted Pixel style. So the sound design in this level is indicative of what you'll hear in our previous games. I guess that means that there's just a lot of mayhem going on. Things exploding left and right, robots going haywire, and overall craziness. I try to provide a lot of detail and variation in the sound effects, to help fill out the world and make it feel more real. For this comic I take real world sounds and then skewer them to create distinct, humorous, and satisfying sound effects to match the brilliant gameplay and graphics.
So far I haven't re-used any sounds between the different comic styles in game. So each comic will present you with a fresh and unique audio experience.
Josh Bear: That's it for today's episode, kiddies, but be sure to tune in next month for another exciting look behind the scenes of the epic development for Twisted Pixel's biggest and most amazing XBLA action title ever -- Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley!
