Toonstruck
Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:39 am
I thought I'd post a thread about one of my latest favorite adventure games (one of the many that I played while I was doing "research" for Adventure: The Inside Job).
The sadly underrated Toonstruck stars Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fame. He plays a down-on-his-luck cartoonist named Drew Blanc (pun intended) who is sucked into a cartoon world where he meets his own animated creation: a three-foot-tall purple thing named Flux Wildly (reference to BTTF possibly intended). This game can be defined as an FMV only in the losest of terms, since (with the exception of the intro and the outro) Drew is the only "real" person in a completely animated world, almost the inverse of WFRR?. There are many impressive animated cutscenes, many of which involve Drew interacting with other characters and objects in a remarkably convincing fashion.
Toonstruck is probably one of the most expensive adventure games ever created, mostly because of the technological requirements of compositing live action actors with 2D backgrounds and animations. Sadly, the game made so little money that not only did its company go bankrupt, but the scheduled sequel was cancelled.
I'm not that crazy about the Warner Brothers cartoon style that this game seems influenced by, but I enjoyed the game nonetheless. The puzzles (which I thought were relatively straightforward) require a somewhat warped sense of humor and a knowledge of classic cartoon cliches to solve, and despite the cartoony appearance, this is not a game for kids. It's somewhat reminiscent of the Gobliiins series and the Sam and Max games (some puzzles involve you using Flux to do something that Drew can't do himself). There are a couple points in the game where you risk getting captured by the villian's henchmen, but if you are captured, you're not out of luck: if you can solve a few additional puzzles, you can free yourself (this alone was enough to make me replay the game multiple times). The game is also pretty good at letting you know why a certain item won't work with something, and even if you're unsuccessful with solving a puzzle, you'll almost certainly be treated with an amusing animation or a quip from Flux or Drew.
One thing I particularly found interesting about Toonstruck is the dialogue system. If you strike up a conversation with a character, chose one or two of the avilable topics and then chose the "Goodbye" option, Drew will say something like "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks for the chat." However, if you back out of the conversation without chosing any of the topics, Drew will say "On second thought, never mind. I just thought I'd say hello."
I haven't encountered this feature in any other adventure games that use dialogue trees -- your character's "Goodbye" dialogue will be the same, regardless of whether you've actually talked about anything with the other character or not. For such a cartoony game, this seems like a surprisingly realistic touch -- I mean, if you start a conversation with someone, then suddenly decide that you don't want to talk to them anymore, would you say "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks for the chat."?
The sadly underrated Toonstruck stars Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fame. He plays a down-on-his-luck cartoonist named Drew Blanc (pun intended) who is sucked into a cartoon world where he meets his own animated creation: a three-foot-tall purple thing named Flux Wildly (reference to BTTF possibly intended). This game can be defined as an FMV only in the losest of terms, since (with the exception of the intro and the outro) Drew is the only "real" person in a completely animated world, almost the inverse of WFRR?. There are many impressive animated cutscenes, many of which involve Drew interacting with other characters and objects in a remarkably convincing fashion.
Toonstruck is probably one of the most expensive adventure games ever created, mostly because of the technological requirements of compositing live action actors with 2D backgrounds and animations. Sadly, the game made so little money that not only did its company go bankrupt, but the scheduled sequel was cancelled.
I'm not that crazy about the Warner Brothers cartoon style that this game seems influenced by, but I enjoyed the game nonetheless. The puzzles (which I thought were relatively straightforward) require a somewhat warped sense of humor and a knowledge of classic cartoon cliches to solve, and despite the cartoony appearance, this is not a game for kids. It's somewhat reminiscent of the Gobliiins series and the Sam and Max games (some puzzles involve you using Flux to do something that Drew can't do himself). There are a couple points in the game where you risk getting captured by the villian's henchmen, but if you are captured, you're not out of luck: if you can solve a few additional puzzles, you can free yourself (this alone was enough to make me replay the game multiple times). The game is also pretty good at letting you know why a certain item won't work with something, and even if you're unsuccessful with solving a puzzle, you'll almost certainly be treated with an amusing animation or a quip from Flux or Drew.
One thing I particularly found interesting about Toonstruck is the dialogue system. If you strike up a conversation with a character, chose one or two of the avilable topics and then chose the "Goodbye" option, Drew will say something like "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks for the chat." However, if you back out of the conversation without chosing any of the topics, Drew will say "On second thought, never mind. I just thought I'd say hello."
I haven't encountered this feature in any other adventure games that use dialogue trees -- your character's "Goodbye" dialogue will be the same, regardless of whether you've actually talked about anything with the other character or not. For such a cartoony game, this seems like a surprisingly realistic touch -- I mean, if you start a conversation with someone, then suddenly decide that you don't want to talk to them anymore, would you say "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks for the chat."?
