Ten Minutes of Epic Mickey

I was asked to play a game that I never played before for ten minutes, and write my experience in the form of a narrative. I purchased Epic Mickey on Wii for my brother for his birthday last month. I never really had time to play video games last semester due to the crazy amount of work I had to do (That’s right, I’m in a gaming program, and I barely have time to play games. The irony captivates me). So I decided to give the game a spin.

I watched the introductory cutscene, very animated and cute, however this wasn’t part of the actual gameplay, so I didn’t count it as part of the ten minutes. It did give me an idea of what the story is about. Mickey Mouse passed through his magic mirror into an alternate world, accidentally ruined another world created by a magician, and then ran back to his own world. Many years later his mistake came back to him in the form of “the phantom blot”, and pulled him into the world he destroyed, now called “wasteland” – a world of forgotten characters. After Mickey’s decent into wasteland, a scientist grabbed hold of him and pinned him to a board. Then for unknown reasons, he tried to extract his heart using some machine he apparently created. Mickey’s heart was too powerful for the scientist to extract, and Mickey broke free. In the shadows, a rabbit called Oswald observed what was taking place. I don’t remember what happened next, but something happened to the machine that caused it to short circuit, gain a mind of its own, and start attacking Oswald. The scientist fled, which left Mickey to destroy the machine. A another character suddenly showed up (I think it’s some sort of gremlin, but a comical and cute one), and told Mickey how to destroy the machine. Finally, the gameplay begins.

Mickey Mouse regains his classic look for Epic Mickey.

During the scenematics, there are no voices or text; just a bunch of noises and grunts. But during the gameplay, the gremlin speaks to Mickey/user in the form of text. Being the slow reader that I am, I decided to skim read what the gremlin said, and just play the game. So using the Wii Nunchuk, I made Mickey move toward some control system that the gremlin told me to destroy. Along the way, I noticed another track that led elsewhere. Being the type of person who likes to traverse each path that precedes the destination, I went down that path, and discovered a closed door. I couldn’t open it, and nothing interesting was around it, so I went back and continued along the track toward the control system. Once I reached the control system, I gave a few shakes of the Wii remote as the gremlin instructed me to, and it caused Mickey to destroy the system. The gremlin then told me that I had to destroy the other control system on the other side of the room in order to fully shut down the crazy machine that was attacking Oswald and Mickey himself. With that, I tried looking for the other control system, but I ended up falling off the platform that the first control system was on. So I continued my search, and couldn’t find it. Eventually I figured out that I was running around in circles in the right hemisphere in the room. I blame the camera system for misleading me. Anyway, I then found the control system, destroyed it, and the machine shut down. Suddenly a cinematic plays where Mickey spots Oswald run away, and he follows him along with the gremlin.

The gremlin introduces paint and thinner to Mickey, and how he can utilize it along his way to find Oswald. To be honest it is quite an interesting game mechanic. Paint restores objects and terrain, and thinner gets rid of it. Sure, the areas where you can use paint and thinner are in fixed areas, but it can still serve as a puzzle element. I found a pile of rocks blocking my way. So the gremlin told me to use thinner to get rid of the terrain, which caused the rocks to fall through what now is an abyss. Then I used paint to restore that terrain, which allowed me to walk over it. Obviously the gremlin telling me when to use the paint and thinner would defeat the purpose of the in-game puzzles, but I assume that as I progress through the game, he will start to give fewer tips as I’ll have enough experience to play the game on my own. Anyway I eventually stumbled upon some enemies, and the gremlin explained that I can defeat them in two ways; use thinner to kill them, or use paint to turn them friendly. Being the goody-goody gamer that I am, I used paint to turn them friendly. I then tried using thinner to see what would happen after they have turned friendly, and it caused them to revert to their evil selves. So I used paint again and they became jolly absent minded creatures again.

Mickey attacks mecha robot! It's super effective!

Later on I found a small tower that housed a treasure chest. Directly next to the tower was a glowing platform. I stepped onto it, and then the gate that protected the treasure opened up. At the same time, a catapult that held another gremlin in a cage moved toward the ground, and locked into place. The guiding gremlin told me that the treasure chest is on top of a platform that is preventing the catapult from catapulting the caged gremlin into the sky. All the while, the caged gremlin is on top of a platform that is holding the gate around the treasure open. So I had to choose either to save the gremlin, or to open the treasure chest. However, since I shifted through my gremlin’s message too fast, I didn’t catch everything he said. So I played stupid, and moved toward the treasure chest. Before I reached the treasure chest, my gremlin told me again, “opening the treasure will cause the other gremlin to be catapulted into the sky, you really want that to happen just for treasure?” Now being clearer on what the outcomes are, I turned back, and chose to free the gremlin. He thanked me, and gave me a Mickey Token, or something along those lines. Then the gate of the treasure closed. I believe that allowing the player to guide the story is the main advantage that games have over movies and novels, however in this case I’m not too sure if this decision has an impact on the rest of the story, or if it’s just one of many means to get more Mickey Tokens. Either way, this sort of conflict is good to implement in games, as it reminded me of real life conflicts; if a listener didn’t grasp the description of a future outcome by a speaker with 100% clarity, although he/she may have received 90% of the information, he/she is still likely to play stupid and assume that nothing bad will happen. After all, that is just what happened to me in this very simulated conflict. Thankfully the gremlin reminded me of the outcome again just before I was about to open the chest (Which heightens my belief that “guides” are important in games that have user-guided stories).

However the only beef I have about this impressive conflict system is that all messages are in text. It’s unrealistic to have the game automatically lock your controls before you open the chest, so that you can read the reminder from the gremlin. I understand that without locking my controls, I would have opened the chest before I could read what the gremlin wanted to tell me. But I feel that a realistic conflict such as that, would require a realistic conversation system, where the messages are delivered in speech instead of text. Here’s my idea on how the conflict should have flowed; first off, the camera should be at a better position (as the camera system cripples the game) as I approach the chest, and then the gremlin would literally pop out in front of me, alarming me of the outcome again. Then at that point, I would instantly have the option to pass right by the gremlin and open the chest, or pause my movements myself to listen (no automatic controls lockdown needed), and then turn around. Again, if there is a realistic conflict system, everything that it needs to deliver itself should be realistic too. In this case, this means that the animation and communication between character and player (or character and character) should be realistic too, in order to effectively deliver the simulated conflict to the player. Whew, that was a lengthy explanation about something so short in length, yet so important in terms of game design.

Amazing concept art for Epic Mickey.

Anyway, after I freed the gremlin and received my Mickey Token, I found the entry to the next level, which is a projection screen that acts as a portal to the cartoon on its display. On the display was “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. As I approached the projection screen, another cutscene took hold of the game. Mickey asked the gremlin, “why a projection screen?”, and the gremlin responded, “because it would only make sense for cartoons, no?” or something along those lines. Then they jump into the next world, which somewhat reminded me of the level system in Super Mario 64, where the player would jump into paintings to access new levels. I then caught a glimpse of the new level, which appears to be side-scroller level. Anyway, at that time my ten minutes of gameplay was long overdue, so I decided to quit the game. The game then reminded me that any progress after the last checkpoint would be lost, so I assumed that jumping through the projection screen was my last checkpoint (As that was a cutscene). I quit the game, and shut the Wii off. Gawd that was 1672 words! D: