GC 2008: Fairytale Fights First Look

Once upon a time, Playlogic's internal Game Factory studio started work on its first original game. That was well over a year ago, but it was only this week at the Games Convention that it was shown to the press for the first time. We're very glad that we made the effort to be there, not only because Fairytale Fights looks really promising, but also because it has afforded us an opportunity to write about Little Red Riding Hood pulling a knife on a group of attackers. That's something you don't get to do every day.

The version of Fairytale Fights that we saw today was very early, but it still had a quite slick, colorful look about it. The forest that we saw playable character Little Red Riding Hood skipping through looked like something from an animated movie, while the characters, as well as the way they interacted with one another, brought to mind Happy Tree Friends, Ren & Stimpy, and other violent cartoons.

For example, when Red was attacked by a pack of four animals, she didn't look frightened at all. Rather, she got a maniacal look in her eyes, pulled a knife out from underneath her hood, and set about slicing her attackers. The game's "slicing system" is sophisticated enough to cut off enemy limbs or even cut them right down the middle without having the path of the knife predetermined at all. We saw enemies cut almost exactly down the middle, we saw them lose arms, and on one occasion, we even saw an enemy lose his eyes along with the top of his head after stumbling into a large bear trap. The violence is strictly of a comical nature, but we were still surprised by the amount of blood.

Bright red cartoon blood really flows during combat, and while it currently looks very flat, it's already very convincing as a liquid. Blood spatters all over scenery and runs down surfaces. Puddles also form on the ground, and if you walk through a puddle, you leave footprints all over the level. You can even run through a puddle and slide fast enough to leave a big red streak along the floor if you like.

Having established that she's skilled with a blade, Red went on to impress us with other weapons that she picked up from the corpses of slain enemies. The shotgun and the spiked club performed exactly as you'd expect them to, but we were pleasantly surprised when she not only threw an axe into the forehead of an attacking lumberjack, but also went on to retrieve it as he stumbled around then chopped of one of his arms at the shoulder. Ensuring that you don't miss any of the bloody highlights, Fairytale Fights employs a picture-in-picture system to show close-ups of the slicing and dicing as it happens. Awesome.

Little Red Riding Hood was the only playable character that we got to see on this occasion, but it goes without saying that the world of fairytales and nursery rhymes is home to plenty of other characters who could conceivably make appearances in the game. Promotional materials dotted around the booth hinted at the likes of Humpty Dumpty, the three little pigs, Goldilocks' three bears, Hansel and Gretel, and even a frog prince. Furthermore, Fairytale Fights already supports co-op play for two and, we're told, will support up to four players when it ships toward the end of next year.

We look forward to bringing you more information on this promising and unusual game as soon as it becomes available. Hopefully a year or so from now, we'll all be playing it together and can live happily ever after. The End.