Where exactly did ‘Epic Mickey’ get it so wrong and Castle of Illusion get it so right’.

In part 2 of my assessment of Epic Mickey, I delve right into the heart of platform game design and compare and contrast Castle of Illusion (referred to as COi from now on) and Epic Mickey (henceforth referred to as EM).

I'm not convinced that there's one rule to rule them all but I do know that there is one major rule to developing a great platform game – and it's one that IMO, Junction Point got so wrong.

Rule 1: Platforms in a platform game need to be comfortably traversable.

Obvious? Yes. But you’d be surprised how many games get this wrong. It’s possibly one of the biggest issues that sets apart a great platform game and an average to poor one. But what does the statement actually mean?

Well. It means that the 'real estate' of any platform that a controllable character can jump onto and walk on top of must be of a size that the character – being controlled by the player - can comfortably move around on.

This is basically a calculation that takes into account the character size and the walk animation cycle which is then used to work out the size of the traversable top of the platform. The further the distance the character moves in taking a single step, the larger the traversable area needs to be. My own personal preference is that this space equates to something in the region of about two to three steps of the walk cycle.

In practice, setting up this rule isn't that difficult: Create a flat square platform, place the playable character on it and walk around. The character should comfortably be able to take somewhere between two and three steps when walking from one side of the platform to the other before reaching the edge. As mentioned above, this is heavily dependent on the animation and character size. In some circumstances, you might get away with less and other times you might need a little more. There are exceptions to this rule with a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with the exception discussed below.

Now that we’ve expressed the rule, let’s bring the discussion back to EM and COi.

COi does this to perfection. Every platform Mickey jumps onto is comfortable to be on top of. It’s one of the reasons you feel so 'in control' of the little mouse as he’s walking and jumping around. Mickey is a dream to control; walking, jumping and running around is never stressful, is always reliant on your skills to make the correct jump at the right time and if you die – it’s always your own fault (something that I don’t need to tell you is a #1 rule of any game right?).

So what about EM? How did Junction Point deal with this rule? Well. They didn’t. Every single level in EM is littered with areas and platforms that Mickey can traverse that are simply too small for him to be easily controlled on. Thin balconies, rooftops, lamp posts, ledges, windows – they’re everywhere! And this, in my opinion, is one of the biggest failings of EM. Many people point to the camera, but actually, I believe that although not perfect, the camera system would have been workable if the design had put in place the rules they needed in order to not make it a hindrance to players.

For instance, When Mickey jumps on top of a small platform in EM, you often slide off. When you fall, the camera goes nuts trying to readjust to the world geometry in conjunction to Mickey’s location. Fall off a ledge that has a wall a few feet behind where you were walking and the camera tries to adjust, then readjust as he falls, and continues to readjust all the way down and finally coming to a stop when Mickey stops. Where it stops is reliant on luck. If you happen to be standing on the wrong side of a wall - your fucked: the camera throws a wobbly.

They didn’t even have rules to state that basic geometry should not be built in such a way that causes the camera to adjust. So don’t place buildings, or walls, or in fact anything that sits higher than the camera within a certain distance of each other. I.E. Don’t put a high wall opposite and close to another high wall (where 'high' is higher than where the camera sits).

Interestingly, there are certain sections in the game where Junction Point did adhere to this rule and the camera and control of Mickey work much better, so I do wonder if they worked it out too late in development but didn’t have enough time and resource to fix earlier built geometry? I have a suspicion that this might be the case.

Ok, so what’s the exception to this rule and how can you have small traversable platforms such as bannisters, ledges etc? Easy. It’s all to do with Mickey’s animations. In COi, If Mickey jumped on top of a small platform – or indeed, whenever he reached the edge of any platform, he started to falter. You could see him, arms outstretched, trying to stop himself from tipping over. This is an incredibly powerful visual feedback to the player; 'I know I can’t run on here, I know I’m on precarious ground. I can see it! So what do I naturally do? I go slower. I take much more care.' COi was very clever in the way they used this and coupled it with a proper ‘sliding down a vertical platform’ animation that meant if Mickey was ever on a bit of dodgy geometry and started falling, he would enter this sliding animation which again, gave the player a powerful visual that told them exactly what was going on – you’re no longer in control of Mickey as he’s falling down. When Mickey landed, you got control back. Very easy, very clever, years ahead of its time!

Contrast this with EM. Mickey gives no feedback that he’s on a small platform and therefore the player doesn’t instantly realise he needs to take care. But even when you learn yourself to go slower, the walk slowly animation is not a good one – it’s too cumbersome and the camera not being a great one means that you often can’t control Mickey comfortably whilst he’s on top. You end up going so slow and having to readjust every micro step to try and stay on there. It’s not nice - it’s frustrating and painful. Had they forced a ‘faltering’ animation and coupled it with an auto ‘careful walking animation’ controlling Mickey on all of those ledges would have been a much nicer experience and the game play would have gone through the roof. Even if this problem was kept to a minimum, it would be ok – no game is perfect right? But the fact that EM is littered with small platforms means it’s a game killer. This, more than anything else, made Epic Mickey a frustrating game to play. What could so easily have been a great game, was turned into a painful experience because of these few, basic schoolboy errors. Well. In my opinion anyway.

COi got these things so right. They are level design perfection. Right up there with the Mario games for me. Epic Mickey on the other hand, got these so wrong and fell the other way. A case of so close, yet so far. Sorry Warren and the designers at Junction Point - it’s easy for me to criticise, but had you got that right, you would have had a great game and a great legacy on your hands. Have you fixed these problems in EM2? I really hope so!

There are several other things that marred the game for me, such as how they used the 2D side scrolling sections as 'hallways' between the full 3D levels or the basic control of Mickey (his jumps and using brushes for instance). But these are secondary to the 'traversable platforms' problem for me. If there's any further interest in discussing those, I'll write another post on the subject, otherwise, that's it for Epic Mickey and Warren Spector for now - until Epick Mikcey 2 is released of course!!  :)

Thanks for taking the time to read my bollocks post.

Love and kisses,

GigiFusc.