Yes, The Fancy Pants Adventure is an extremely silly game. Dig below the surface, however, and what you've got is a fairly straightforward core: it's a 2D side-scrolling platformer in which you attempt to run and jump in a generally left-to-right direction across a variety of treacherous levels. But layered on top of all of that is a thick smattering of ridiculousness. Fancy Pants, based on a free Flash game by then-college student Brad Borne, is presented in a hand-drawn stick-figure art style that feels more than a little bit like you're peering at someone's notebook doodles. The controls are also quite different from most platformers, because momentum and building up speed plays a huge role in how you move about the levels--you're basically sliding all over the place as though you were running on ice.
Completing levels earns you random rewards such as clothing and accessories for you to outfit your little stick-figure avatar. There are the aforementioned fancy pants that come in all manner of patterns and colors, but also hats and handheld weapons. At one point we defied all logic by rolling with a character decked out in plaid pants, a wizard hat, and a wooden sword, only to later switch a frog hat, striped trousers, and a wooden pencil.
Adding a bit more eccentricity to the proceedings is the ability to play with up to four players at once. Anyone who's played co-op platformers like New Super Mario Bros. Wii will know that addings three more players to the screen can be more hindrance than help, but the entertainment value you get out of four players dashing across the screen, knocking each other over, and jumping off of one another's heads is well worth it. Fancy Pants offers levels that fosters both antagonism and co-operating, including one level in which all four players try to kick a large glf ball across the length of the level and attempt to deposit it securely in the hole at the end. In each of these levels, you're completing for points that determine a final outcome in which the top three players stand atop a podium, each hoping to get first place because that's where the best clothing and accessories are most readily available
Having played the game, we can certainly attest to the delightful chaos that four-player co-op offers in The Fancy Pants Adventure. The overall experience is quite charming, and we're looking forward to seeing how the final game turns out when it's released this spring on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.
Completing levels earns you random rewards such as clothing and accessories for you to outfit your little stick-figure avatar. There are the aforementioned fancy pants that come in all manner of patterns and colors, but also hats and handheld weapons. At one point we defied all logic by rolling with a character decked out in plaid pants, a wizard hat, and a wooden sword, only to later switch a frog hat, striped trousers, and a wooden pencil.
Adding a bit more eccentricity to the proceedings is the ability to play with up to four players at once. Anyone who's played co-op platformers like New Super Mario Bros. Wii will know that addings three more players to the screen can be more hindrance than help, but the entertainment value you get out of four players dashing across the screen, knocking each other over, and jumping off of one another's heads is well worth it. Fancy Pants offers levels that fosters both antagonism and co-operating, including one level in which all four players try to kick a large glf ball across the length of the level and attempt to deposit it securely in the hole at the end. In each of these levels, you're completing for points that determine a final outcome in which the top three players stand atop a podium, each hoping to get first place because that's where the best clothing and accessories are most readily available
Having played the game, we can certainly attest to the delightful chaos that four-player co-op offers in The Fancy Pants Adventure. The overall experience is quite charming, and we're looking forward to seeing how the final game turns out when it's released this spring on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.