#junction point

Since Thinner is implied to include Turpentine in Epic Mickey, it would be toxic to us, too!

YAY TURPENTINE FUMES!

Description

The reason Disney's Robin Hood is a fox, and the Sheriff is a fat wolf is because it was originally going to be a Reynard the Fox adaptation

They changed their minds after realizing Reynard is a terrible role model. Like, lies to, cheats, and eats the other characters. Regularly is presumed dead, hears everyone talk smack about him at his funeral, then plans revenge. Sometimes on his wife for remarrying so fast.

Disney used Ken Anderson's designs for Robin Hood, instead.

Reynard the fox is a series of fables that parody Medieval Court.

In Wasteland

He disguises himself as Robin Hood to con the characters of Wasteland. Peg Leg Pete sends you to go get and arrest him. You have the option to either accept a bribe from Reynard, or turn him in.

Haven't done one of these in a while

The game wasn't even out, yet. All we had was leaked concept art and a couple magazine interviews.

Fan trailers were everywhere, and usually used "Runaway Brain"

We didn't know yet that the idea of Oswald being the villain was scrapped.

Some parents were freaking out because it looked too dark.

The one really cool track that was everywhere never got used outside of the digicomic

Like a lot of people, it bums me out that Epic Mickey did not commit to the full potential of its premise.

I know it's easy to sneer at things like this because it's "dark and edgy" or whatever, but this was one of the rare instances where it was actually interesting. Because it's Disney, right. It's Disney and it's Mickey Mouse. The most iron-clad, short-leash, sacred cows in the entertainment business. You don't just make a Mickey Mouse horror platformer. People were interested in it for the "are they actually gonna get away with this?" factor.

And for a time, it seemed like they would.

It helped that it seemed like they had the right team to pull it off, too. This was peak Warren Spector "this guy made Deus Ex and therefore he is the greatest game designer available right now." You got the sense that if anyone could pull off a concept like this with skill and tact, it would be Warren Spector. A Dark Mickey Mouse game with a morality system? Sounds interesting.

Spector, of course, is now equally famous for a quote where he urges people not to think of him as a monolithic individual responsible for all good ideas in a game:

He's been big on spelling out "I'm not as important as you think I am."

Of course, Spector was the one who got out in front of things and eventually admitted that he felt guilty about making a dark and edgy Mickey Mouse game. That naturally leads to speculation as to whether or not Disney got to the team and told them to reign it in, or if he was indeed telling the truth and he didn't like what he was doing to Mickey.

Maybe the team just wasn’t right, and wasn’t behind him on it. You look at Mobygames, and the “related games this team has collaborated on” category is mostly full of generic Disney shovelware. Some of those games were good, mind you, but many of them deeply were not.

Point is, it felt like compromise. One way or the other, the things that were most interesting about Epic Mickey had been neutered. It looked dull and soft compared to what we knew was pitched.

I never played much Epic Mickey. Maybe 30 minutes. I meant to go back to it one day, since people generally did seem to like the game, but that "one day" never came around. It didn't help that it felt like a motion control gimmick game. I never got comfortable with aiming using the Wii Remote. Not in Epic Mickey, not in anything.

I played a demo for Epic Mickey 2 on the Xbox 360, which felt even more reigned-in style-wise, and decided no thanks. Disney paid all this money to get the rights to Oswald back and I just did not care. Did not help that they adapted a sluggish, poor version of their aiming system to work on a controller.

Maybe due to Epic Mickey, and maybe due to his desire to just get out of the spotlight, but it feels like Warren Spector has kind of fallen off the face of the planet since then. There was a time where it felt like everybody was talking about him and what he was going to do next and now, while writing this ask, I was surprised to learn he's attached to whatever System Shock 3 is going to be, because it really feels like nobody cares.