Wreck-It Ralph

Maybe they were thinking of Speed Racer's name?

Oh by the way, I got to try Hero's Duty on a friend's newer computer so I could see how it really played. I didn't want to play Story Mode and make them miss out on levels, so I just played Survival Mode over and over again to run up their score. So, yeah, most of it is just timing those grenade launches to land at the feet of the Cy-Bugs so they can't get all up in your face, and then there's planning for snagging the refill packs that are only in range for a brief time. It's annoying when I have to rapid-fire the two flying Bugs, since I have to decide whether to focus on hitting every incoming blast immediately and potentially waste a lot of ammo, or concentrate fire on a single bug for a couple of seconds and risk getting hit by a shot I didn't see in time. The wave where you're at the opposite end of the bridge as the Bugs became kind of hilarious once I realized I didn't need to do anything at all to succeed; the teammates are plenty skilled enough to finish off the bugs before they get anywhere near your character, allowing me to simply wait around for ammo packs.

I also tried Sugar Rush Speedway on there, which ran even more smoothly in Championships than in Time Trials for some reason. I began to perfect a technique where when I drive through power-up cubes that are dense enough to form a zigzag row, I'll angle it so I pass through two in a row and immediately hit the fire button upon collecting the first one so that my inventory is free to actually collect the second one. Thus I don't get to choose when to use the first power-up, but it does mean I'm leaving more traps in place of power-ups for the racers behind me.

However, for unknown reasons, that computer would always suffer a crash in Unity at some point after beginning another Championship after already racing in one. It might have something to do with the activation of the power-ups, but on my computer I could always get through at least two championships before the Flash plug-in surrounding it crashed. Still no high score on the site for me then, I guess!

Where'd you get those games?

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

They're available on the Disney website, right?

Yep! Here are the links to the games on the area where you can compete for score:

Hero's Duty

Sugar Rush Speedway

Fix-It Felix, Jr. (or get a different scoreboard through Facebook)

Fix-It Felix, Jr., "classic style"

While I'm at it, I might as well give all the iTunes store links I know:

Fix-It Felix, Jr., new free preview version

Wreck-It Ralph three-in-one (includes Fix-It Felix, Jr., Sugar Rush Sweet Climber and overhead-style Hero's Duty, and promises Turbotime in the future)

Wreck-It Ralph deluxe storybook (includes Sugar Rush Speedway)

Hero's Duty interactive comic (not a game, but informative!)

Pixel'd (also not a game, but an art studio featuring game sprites such as Wreck-It Ralph's)

edited 19th Nov '12 8:30:40 AM by BagofMagicFood

Fair warning: those of you that wanna play Sugar Rush will have to download Unity Web Player, which is very prone to crashing.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

On the trope page. I only really remember one example or so of Turbo being referred to as a skeleton specifically. I know others refer to him having a "skeletal face," but that isn't the same thing.

I'm being legitimately curious here, though, because I could've missed some - what are offending examples?

edited 19th Nov '12 9:49:43 AM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

As a moment of Fridge Brilliance, regarding King Candy's appearance: his looks being sorta skeletal imply he's kind of an elder, which is true in that his [home] game - Turbo Time - is old; however, the equally-pixelated characters of Fix It Felix Jr. look pixelated only when seen from the outside of the cabinet, but inside the proper game their appearance is faithful to their original artwork. The reason behind this is simple: Ralph has "aged well" because he's a good guy; Turbo didn't because his Attention Whore status, and therefore his obsession with what essentially amounts to immortality through eternal hogging the spotlights, ironically ended up taking its toll on his appearance, which is also why he briefly shows his pixelated form within the game as well during the climax. Moral of the story? Goodness Equals Beauty!

[EDIT: Additionally, there's the fact that Turbo's pixelated appearance itself translated into a skeletal appearance.]

edited 19th Nov '12 11:25:34 AM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Um...no?

Ehh... I've got a different guess.

Messing with his own game code to become King Candy messed up how Turbo would normally look. Because of the combined Turbo Time, Sugar Rush, and, after he is bitten by a Cy-Bug, Hero's Duty code, his own code is unstable and completely glitched up. Turbo pre-code modification probably looked much like the other characters do.

edited 19th Nov '12 11:29:26 AM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly

Well, maybe. Of course, what I pointed out - provided the theory is true at all - maybe isn't that plot-relevant, but it's still awesome nonetheless. "It" being, of course, the amount of detail Rich Moore managed to work into the movie.

[EDIT: That makes even more sense than the one thing I farted out.]

edited 19th Nov '12 11:29:06 AM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

I even have some support for it.

In the movie, we actually get to see King Candy's box of code and besides being three times as large and colored wrong compared to everyone else in Sugar Rush, it is also a twisted mess of code. Thus King Candy's code is already a twisted mess even when he was in disguise and looking normal.

edited 19th Nov '12 11:41:33 AM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly

the mixing and fragmentation of code data makes the most sense to me on a practical level, but from a storytelling standpoint I do appreciate the twisted by years of evil theory. My only issue is that Turbo looked like this from the start- his glitchness to 8bit signifies his incapabaility to match Sugar Rush's graphics.

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.

I just go by the theory that that's just how his original sprite "translated" to 3D.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

"SPACCO TUTTO!"... I have some more news about the Italian angle of the situation. Well, not really, given most of you have already seen the movie, but still. Remember when I mentioned there was an early screening at the Rome Film Festival, in an earlier post of mine a few pages ago? Good. Turns out Rich Moore was present there (Google it: you'll find out there also were life-size Sugar Rush cars and simulated snow, in theme with the Christmas release date here in Italy.), and was interviewed. The result (English dialogue, Italian subtitles) is here.

I'm also working on a little (drawn) surprise for you all, one that you might like. Stay tuned and I might even pull it off in an hour or so (hey, it's already midnight here).

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Hmm, I think I saw some videos of the French version that did a similar thing, but I didn't get around to watching them all the way through.

I just remembered another annoying thing about Hero's Duty when I was playing last night: There was this one Cy-Bug that would sometimes decide to walk completely off the right edge of the screen for a while and thwack Corporal Kohut a bunch of times from there. My only guess for what to do then was to try launching grenades at my right foot, but it usually didn't seem to work. Why didn't my character want to turn to help his buddy?

I think I also found a bug, where after switching to full-screen and back once, the game seemed to get a lot harder, and I discovered it was because my aim had been misplaced a few pixels away from the point my mouse was actually hovering over. Well, it wasn't a mouse but a fingerpad, so it's not a good choice for full-screen anyway.

Bagof Magic Food - There's several times during Hero's Duty where the Cy-Bugs will attack your teammates either above or to the side and you can't do much, like you said, the grenade launcher is your best bet. It's one of my very few complaints about the game, I'd like to at least be able to look a little outside the frame when stuff like that happens.

-

I've got a couple more articles I've scanned:

Article about the meet-and-greet characters from the Mickey Monitor Winter 2012 issue.◊

Two-page article about Wreck-It Ralph from the Disney Rewards Winter 2012 issue:

Top of page 1◊ | Text from page 1◊ | Text from page 2◊ | Bottom of page 2◊

Article about the toys at the Disney Store from the Disney Rewards Winter 2012 issue.◊

I wonder, has anyone here actually gone to Subway to collect those exclusive Hero's Duty codes I read about on their banner ads?

Thanks, Alex! That was a particularly interesting interview; I had no idea the director had been personally invited by Lasseter, nor that he'd been told he could do the film his way with (reasonable) freedom.

And I can't wait to see what your drawn surprise is!

edited 19th Nov '12 4:29:02 PM by Sijo

Okay, here's the surprise I had in store for ya. As far as stuff I draw goes, if there's an Author Appeal of mine, it's Inkblot Cartoon Style (I blame this on 'The Good Old Days'). So, given Wreck It Ralph is a movie I'm already really hyped for due to its focus on another passion of mine, Video Games, I thought it'd be cool if I threw some 1920's black & white toon style in the mix. You can see the resulting six characters (so far) in this very post. Welcome to "Wreck It Ralph in Inkblot Cartoon Style"!

Going to bed now. I hope you enjoy the whole thing. See ya tomorrow!

edited 20th Nov '12 1:31:48 AM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

King Candy seems Obviously Evil.

Persona 3 Portable Liveblog

That's because he is Nope, I was just aiming at a "wacky" expression there.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

He's MAD, I tell you! Wonderfully, funderfully mad!

Vanellope looks like Betty Boop.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Seriously, I can bet five hundred bucks that King Candy's design is a homage to, or at least takes some cues from, the Mad Hatter.

[EDIT: Intentional.]

As a last favor I feel like asking to you guys today, does anyone have a screenshot of the Tapper scene? If anything, I kind of want to spot Sora (the reason's right there in my nickname).

Going to bed for real now. See you tomorrow!

edited 19th Nov '12 5:55:52 PM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Damn it, I wanted to see this movie. But I missed it, it's not in cinemas anymore.

Be not afraid...