Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: "Hail to the Chimp" updates ...

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Thursday, June 21, 2007

"Hail to the Chimp" updates ...

I've mentioned Hail to the Chimp before -- The upcoming GameCock-published, Wideload-(Stubbs the Zombie) developed brawler ... thing we'll see sometime in 2008.

I'm a big fan of Halo's daddy (and Wideload founder) Alexander Seropian, writer Matt Soell (can talented smart-ass writers really be this nice in person?), and Stubbs, so I'm looking forward to this game.

There's a new preview over at 1UP.com, including screenshots and video. They say a lot about it, but I particularly like this little nugget about trying to classify the game:

"So what is Hail to the Chimp? We're thinking something along the lines of a stylish kid-friendly modern online fighter parody... with political themes... and animals. Imagine if a high school full of animals held a fighting tournament to see who should be elected student class president and you're getting close."

I totally dig the art style, which is a new take on cell shading, and is driving me nuts, because it's reminding me of some impossible-to-recall kids book or cartoon I grew up with. Maybe Chuck Jones-era Bugs Bunny from the late 60s to early 70s. Maybe Phantom Tollbooth. Maybe felt Bible stories. None of which have anything to do with this game.

Art Director Seth Grima describes it:

"It's kind of like if you were to take a storybook, cut out the images, and make multiple layers almost like a diorama. And kind of picture it like living paper, moving around... backgrounds look like high school plays where they just used to cut out waves and shift them back and forth -- that's kind of how we want our layering to look. And the shading looks as if you just took a pencil and shaded all your elements."

But the best part for me is the 4-way, online and offline co-op. I hope it's also jump-in-jump out.

Labels: brawlers, PlayStation3, previews, Xbox 360