Disney Epic Mickey is the brainchild of acclaimed game developer Warren Spector, best known for the Deus Ex series on PC. Here he’s taken his style of design and placed it on the most iconic of characters in Mickey Mouse. Does the meshing of designer and character work for the best?

I got a guided tour of the first level of the game by a member of the developing studio, Clay Hoffman, the Senior Environmental Artist and Logo Designer for the game. He graciously answered any questions I had about the game and was a huge help in understanding just what this game is all about.

At its core, Epic Mickey is a platformer, in the vein of Super Mario Galaxy 2 or similar games. The big gameplay hook is the use of Mickey’s paintbrush. Using one button, he is able to paint areas of the level to make them appear. Using another button, he has access to thinner, which will make areas disappear. For example, in the demo I was walking along a walkway when there was a large pile of rubble in front of me. I was able to use the thinner to erase the area under the rocks, which sent them tumbling down. Afterwards, I used the paint to recreate the walkway so I could proceed. That’s a simple example, and the demo I played was very early in the game, but I can only imagine the puzzles they’ll come up with for later areas in the game.

Another part of the game that showed the depth of what Junction Point is attempting was a choice. On a catapult was a trapped gremlin in a cage. I could either save him or go for the chest with E-Tickets, the currency for the game, inside it. If I went for the chest, the gremlin would get launched. If I went for the gremlin, the chest would be lost. It’s a small decision this early, but if that type of choice continues throughout the game (which I was assured it would be, since it’s a centerpiece of what the game is about) then I can see multiple playthroughs feeling very different, in the style of a Bioware game.

For the interested, I decided to save the gremlin.

In the visuals department, the game looks great. Mickey has a classic, almost timeless look to his design that works well for the story, since he travels throughout lots of Disney history in the game. The controls felt responsive and never felt unfair. I knew that if I wasn’t doing something right, it was my fault, not the game’s. It’s as good as you can ask for in every aspect of a platforming game outside of Mario.

Epic Mickey seems to take all the best parts of platformers in the last few years and then add a layer of Disney lore and player choice on top of it. It is without question one of the more interesting games due for release this holiday, and now that I’ve played merely a segment, I’m ready for more. Epic Mickey looks like just the game to get Mickey Mouse back into the spotlight.

Disney Epic Mickey releases on the Nintendo Wii this November, published by Disney Interactive Studios and developed by Junction Point Studios.

There never should be a world with less Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and according to Newsarama, Boom! Studios has done us all a solid.

Picking up the license previously held by Gemstone to produce Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics, Boom! Studios’ publisher/co-founder Ross Richie added that Boom would go into a new direction with the license:

“We’re going to start to approach the Mickey and Donald material from a completely different direction, and we’re going to try to have something that at the same time is less the ‘greatest hits’ reprints and more dovetails into what the Boom Kids stuff is, which is sort of an add to and extension of, modern presence creative take on these classic characters that I think can connect with kids today.”

    
He went on to say that initially we would not see a relaunch or new material, and in September we will get Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #699 (by Riccardo Secchi and Stefano Turconi) and Mickey Mouse and Friends #297.

While I’m on the whole give me some William Van Horn tip, I’d tell Americans not to worry about the Italian talent. Disney is huge here and not at all a passing nostalgia driven market in print form. Not to mention the heritage of Disney art in this country is really strong (Giorgio Cavazzano, Romano Scarpa).

Kudos to Disney and Boom!