Fancy Pants Adventures

Fancy Pants Adventure

Fancy Pants Man, the protagonist.
Developer(s) Brad Borne
Over the Top Games (Console)
Publisher(s) Armor Games (Flash games)
Kongregate (Remix)
EA 2D (Console)
Chillingo (iOS)
Designer(s) Brad Borne
Platform(s) Browser game, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, IOS
Release date(s) Browser
March 14, 2006 (World 1)
January 9, 2008 (World 2)
April 5, 2012 (World 3)
PlayStation 3
April 19, 2011
Xbox 360
April 20, 2011
iOS
March 4, 2012
Genre(s) Platformer
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer(Consoles only)

Fancy Pants Adventures is a series of free side-scrolling Flash games created by Brad Borne. Three worlds have been released so far. World 1 was released on March 14, 2006 and World 2 was released on January 9, 2008. After the 2009 Comic-Con, Borne announced he would officially start working on World 3. It was released on April 5, 2012.[1] A console version developed by Borne and Over the Top Games was released by EA 2D for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on April 19 and April 20, 2011, respectively. An iOS version developed by Chillingo, Over the Top Games and Borne Games was released on the Apple App Store on March 4, 2012.

Gameplay

Fancy Pants Adventures features Fancy Pants Man as the playable character of the series. He is a two dimensional stick figure with spiky, choppy hair, wearing only a pair of colored triangular-shaped pants. Fancy Pants Man's home is Squiggleville, a small country town run by the Mayor (first introduced in World 2).The mayor is introduced more in World 3. Players guide Fancy Pants Man through open levels which feature obstacles to overcome and enemies to avoid or defeat.[2] These enemies include spiders, snails, and mice armed with guns. Enemies can be defeated by being jumped upon and crushed by Fancy Pants Man, who can also launch off them to perform an augmented leap.[3] World 2 introduced the snail enemy, which retracts into its shell when jumped on, after which it can be kicked to stun other enemies.[4] Originally the snail shell was merely a novelty feature in the World 2 demo, however during development, BETA testers made a game out of getting the snail shell to hard-to-reach spots. Brad used this as inspiration to incorporate "Snail Shell Golf" which adds replayability to World 2 by allowing the player to gain access to different colored pants for the playable character. It is possible to earn a combo by keeping the snail shell in the air. As Fancy Pants Man runs through the different levels, there are many "squiggles" floating in mid-air. They serve two important functions. Firstly, they refill Fancy Pants Man's life meter by 5% if he has been damaged, and they also give the player an extra life for every hundred collected. In the source code, these "squiggles" are referred to as "coins"; possibly as a reference to Nintendo's Mario video game series. Another possible reference to the Mario franchise comes in the form of a box which can be jumped at from beneath to release several squiggles, like the coin boxes in many Mario games. Similarly, Sonic the Hedgehog styled "S-Tubes" made an appearance in some levels of Fancy Pants, controlling in almost the same manner, with Fancy Pants rolling down the tunnel. Both worlds of Fancy Pants Adventures contain different kinds of small trophies that can be collected while playing the game.[5] At the end of each world of Fancy Pants Adventures players fight a boss. In World 1 the boss is an angry penguin,[6] who Fancy Pants Man accidentally falls upon and wakes from sleeping. This is the extent of the story in World 1, while World 2 has a more significant plotline. In World 2 an angry rabbit steals Fancy Pants Man's ice cream. Players must pursue and ultimately defeat the rabbit in a confrontation at the end of the game in order to reclaim the ice cream. In World 3, his sister, Cutie Pants, is kidnapped by pirates because she defeats their captain, and want to make her captain. The first time Fancy Pants tries to bring her back, she doesn't want to leave, and has assumed the role of "Princess Pirate". The second time, though, she agrees to come home because, she saw ninjas and pirates hate ninjas.[7]

A secret move, the wall jump, was obtainable in World 1, level 1 as a secret power-up from a pit that you travel to through a cardboard box and was noted by Borne that it was still work in progress. Soon after obtaining the wall jump, you had to employ the uses of it straight away to avoid an inevitable death from the slowly filling pit of ink. The wall jump became an official move available in World 2's increasing repertoire of moves. This was first shown in a demo that was made available by its creator, Brad Borne, on Newgrounds on March 13, 2007. In "World 3", he also gains a pencil which he uses like a sword.

In The Fancy Pants Adventures for consoles, there are a few new additions to the gameplay. These include the ability to swim, which includes being able to kick off flat surfaces whilst underwater, and the ability to use a weapon later on in the game, which features a chargeable attack. The game features a main story mode, in which the player must save his sister, Cutie Pants Girl, who has been kidnapped by a band of pirates who make her their captain. Each level contains two bonus rooms, a 'Micro-Trial', in which players must quickly chase a line of yellow squiggles, and stars which unlock extra content, including remakes of the first two worlds. The game also features local and online multiplayer for up to four players, as well as various challenges. Playing through the game allows the player to unlock hats, pants and weapons to customize their character's appearance.

Menus

The menus for each game are interactive. That is, you control Fancy Pants Man through them exactly like in-game levels. The menus contain boxes of which jumped on from beneath to change the pants colors, or to view collected trophies, as well as links to Brad Borne's site and Armor Games's site. They also serve as level selectors for the game.

The player starts World 1 in a dark corridor, then enters the menu through a door. In World 2, before the menu appears, the opening credits and the Armor Games logo scrolls up, with the option to skip the credits. The menu opens with instructions at the top-left hand corner of the screen.In World 3 , it starts with Fancy Pants man in his bed when suddenly the mayor comes and talks to him. Then Fancy Pants Man jumps out of bed and training starts.

Development

Fancy Pants Man (left) fights against Newgrounds mascot Pico (middle) and Alien Hominid in Newgrounds Rumble.

The Fancy Pants Adventures series was created by Brad Borne, who had previously created games with the help of Mark Fleig Jr. Fleig provided all of the computer graphics on their collaborations. The previous games provided experience and allowed for more complex designs. Before using Macromedia Flash Borne had experimented with the TI-BASIC programming language on a TI-86 graphing calculator, his first involvement with Macromedia's software was stop motion animation. The stop motion experience was built upon with Flash's action script, used to create video games, which lead to further interest and ultimately Borne felt he "knew enough to make something that I thought was worth playing."[8] Despite not having a background in art, Borne created the graphics for Fancy Pants Adventures himself, resulting in the "sketchy" graphical style.[8] The World 1 penguin boss was originally named "Pauly Penguin" and was created by one of Brad's friends, Paul Downs.[6]

After the release of World 1 Borne began freelancing, but stated in an interview that he views his own projects as a hobby, and that he doesn't "get as consumed by the process as much as I used to".[8] According to Borne "Trophies were my way of giving a nod to a few Flash artists whose work I really enjoyed."[5] In World 1 these trophies are located within standard levels, or at the end of a simple level designed by Borne. Several trophies from World 1 represent Borne's own works in progress, In World 2 however the developer worked directly with the artist each trophy represented in order to design a unique level for obtaining that trophy.[5]

Bornegames is the hub for Borne's work and blog, which quickly became an integral part of the beta testing process. With new betas being released on a regular basis that no other websites had, players visiting the site act as beta testers and report software bugs. It became the central hub for the latest bug-fixes and BETA news. Borne has also used his blog to post question and answer videos to reply to questions sent in by fans, he has also posted a "Behind the Fancy Pants" video as well as an "Official Snailshell Golf Guide".[9] In May 2008 Borne completed a Fancy Pants Man move set and character design for the fighting game Newgrounds Rumble.[10] In Newground Rumble Fancy Pants Man was supposedly invited for free ice cream in the Newgrounds world until he finds out that it was a setup for revenge by the other characters in the Newground universe. Newgrounds didn't appreciate "kiddy" games unlike killing, shooting, violent, etc. games. Fancy later fights characters like S'asshole, Hank, P-bot, Nene, and the Newgrounds mascot Pico.During the Pico and Nene stage, Pico's rival Piconjo joins Fancy's side. Fancy later tries to find whose idea was the setup.

World 1

This was first installment of the series The Fancy Pants Adventures. It was created by Brad Borne, and released March 14, 2006. It is a platforming game with trophies, side goals (squiggles and stars), and a variety of colors and styles of pants.

Story

World 1 does not have an original story, other than The Fancy Pants Man going around the world and accidentally giving the angry penguin a rude awakening. Borne began to expand the plot in World 2.

World 2

This is the second installment of the series The Fancy Pants Adventures. Also created by Borne,it was released in January 9, 2008. It is a platforming game with circled slopes and new tricks included. It has more levels, trophies and colors than the first installment.

Story

Fancy Pants appears in a type of golf-shell course with his pencil as a golf stick and Snail Shell as a ball. When he gets the ball inside the hole that says Pants, the mayor of Squiggleville will appear. He will give him an Ice Cream, then the Angry Rabbit appears and steals Fancy Pants Man's Ice Cream. The mayor tells Fancy Pants Man he must retrieve the Ice Cream, for the sake of humanity, justice, and so that World 2 will have a significant plot line. He then dives into the golf hole. After beating all 6 Levels and 6 Extra Levels, Fancy Pants Man will enter The Angry Rabbit's Rabitty Hideout. Then they will fight. If Fancy Pants Man wins, his Ice Cream will come floating down slowly.

World 3

The third installment of The Fancy Pants Adventures was released on April 5, 2012.[11] A beta edition was available before release at bornegames.com for anyone to test out. There also is a new character in this game and new enemies. In this installment, Fancy Pants Man's little sister, Cutie Pants Girl, is kidnapped and Fancy Pants Man has to save her. Borne has released some art for the new game and asked followers of his site for feedback. Some of the elements in World 3 are:[12]

The Fancy Pants Adventures (Console)

On November 10, 2010, series creator Brad Borne released a video on his website and on YouTube announcing a home console version of The Fancy Pants Adventures for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The game is a collaboration between Borne Games and development studio Over the Top Games, and was published by Electronic Arts, under the company's EA2D label.[13] New features include a two to four player mode and a brand new set of levels, as well as World's 1 and 2. The game was released on April 19, 2011 for PlayStation Network and April 20, 2011 for Xbox Live Arcade.[14] Borne announced in an FAQ on his website, the console game is not World 3, but World 3 is something of a devolution of the console game.[15] He also included a new "fighting" technique in the console version, the player earns a "pencil" which its looks can be changes to a sword, etc... fancy pants can charge attack, make combos, and compete in many entertaining player VS player challenges unlike the free PC version, the console version also includes arcade races and challenges.

Reception

The Fancy Pants Adventures games received a positive reaction from video game critics and "drew in crowds on sites like Newgrounds and Armor Games".[16] Both worlds have featured on numerous "Best Games" articles; on sites including TechCult,[17] ExtremeTech,[18] and GamesRadar.[16]

As of May 2011, World 2 has been played over 14.8 million times on Armorgames. World 2 had been played over 17.8 million times on Addicting Games, and over 5 million times on Kongregate. World 1 has been played about 7 million times on Armor Games, almost 7.8 million on Addicting Games, and over 2.3 million times on Kongregate. World 2 won the 2008 Newgrounds Tank Award for Best Flash Game,[19] and is the fifth most played Flash game of 2008 in the Mochi Media Flash game advertising network.[20] The game was also nominated for Nick's Most Addicting Games Showdown.

IGN gave The Fancy Pants Adventures a score of 7.5, praising its parkour style gameplay, but criticising the inclusion of weapons and the lack of drop in multiplayer.[21]

References

  1. ↑ Borne, Brad. "Borne Games". Fancy Pants Adventures. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
  2. ↑ Bardinelli, John (2006-03-24). "The Fancy Pants Adventure". Jay is Games. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
  3. ↑ Haas, Juergen. "Linux Game: Fancy Pants Adventures". about.com. Retrieved 2009-02-28.
  4. ↑ Psychotronic (2008-01-11). "The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2". Jay is Games. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
  5. 1 2 3 Borne, Brad and TS7 (2007-10-07). "Cameo Levels". Bornegames.com. Retrieved 2009-02-28.
  6. 1 2 Borne, Brad; Downs, Paul. "Behind the Fancy Pants". Bornegames.com.
  7. ↑ Fahey, Mike (2008-01-10). "Hot Flashes: Fancy Pants Adventure 2". Kotaku. Retrieved 2009-02-28.
  8. 1 2 3 "Brade Borne and TS7, developer of The Fancy Pants Adventures". Planet Freeplay. 2007-03-08. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
  9. ↑ Borne, Brad. "Videos". Bornegames.com. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  10. ↑ Borne, Brad and TS7 (2008-05-31). "Fancy Pants a fighter?". Bornegames.com. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  11. ↑ http://www.kongregate.com/games/DrNeroCF/fancy-pants-adventure-world-3
  12. ↑
  13. ↑ http://www.fancypantsadventures.com
  14. ↑ http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/116/1160491p1.html
  15. ↑ http://www.bornegames.com/games/fpa-for-console/faqs/
  16. 1 2 Nagata, Tyler (2008-12-09). "The BEST FREE games to play this holiday". GamesRadar. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
  17. ↑ Scocco, Daniel (2008-10-06). "The 150 Best Online Flash Games". TechCult. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  18. ↑ "The 20 Best Free PC Games". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  19. ↑ Fulp, Tom (2009-03-07). "2nd Annual Tank Awards". Newgrounds. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
  20. ↑ Au, Wagner (2008-12-15). "10 Most Popular Flash Games of 2008 — Mochi Network". GigaOM. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
  21. ↑ http://uk.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/116/1163079p1.html

External links

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