One of the surprises that knocked the wind out of some of us during this year’s PlayStation Experience was the announcement and release of Fat Princess Adventures. None of us really expected it to be announced and then released so quickly, but it was a nice surprise, nonetheless.
The cake hasn’t gone down a treat for some, though, as fans have flocked online to complain about the changes that Fun Bits Interactive introduced to the franchise, namely, turning it into a co-op RPG instead of a PvP cake-battle. Many have disregarded the game – even though it’s quite good – and have stated that they won’t be buying back into the franchise until it returns to its origins. Ouch, harsh words.
It seems that not everything was done because the developers wanted it to be that way. One user on Reddit really laid it all out for Fun Bits Interactive to see. The mini-rant (though we appreciate where the lady/gent is coming from) starts off with complaints before pondering if outside forces (i.e Sony), forced the changes upon the development team.
This is what stinks imo. The first game is what many of us fell in love with. I would have easily supported a direct sequel. I’m not cool with a company doing something totally different that many of us may have zero interest in and essentially hold what made us fall in love with the franchise, hostage.
I loved FP, loved what your group did with the DLC, but I can’t get behind you guys ignoring the gameplay that made the name, putting out a totally different type of game, then implying that if we want classic fat princess, we’ve gotta support the game that we never asked for to begin with. Seems slimy. Maybe it was out of your hands, I don’t know.
It would seem that it may be the case, at least looking at the reply from Fun Bits:
..that last part. Looking ahead, we’re optimistic that we can make all our fans happy.
According to the developers, the studio is committed to making fans happy by creating more PvP games in the future, and even hints that we may see PvP being added into Fat Princess Adventures at a later date.
Sounds like a good plan, keep the faith. The more people who enjoy FPA the easier it is for us to convince Sony to support Fun Bits in doing more multiplayer.
Have you had a chance to play 4-player yet in FPA? It is actually a lot of fun, and has that chaotic feel of the original…it is where the game shines. We hear you on the love for PvP…we love it too, and it is where we will be putting our focus next.
Wow, talk about a super Fun Bits fan! Thank you! We enjoyed making the puzzles in Escape Plan, and writing the dialog and building characters for FPA – moving forward, we’d like to think more about multiplayer stuffs 🙂
Porting the original FP1 to PS4 would be very messy, but expanding the current release is very feasible if we get a lot of good support behind FPA.
If we turn off all lighting and fx, it looks just like FP1. We may release a “Classic Visual” mode in the future, if we can find a bored graphics programmer to help implement it in a way that doesn’t break the game.
So basically, the developers want to do more PvP-orientated stuff in the future, and Fat Princess Adventures might even get something added in the future. There’s also chance we’ll see a “Classic Visual” mode if the opportunity arises.
What’s next for the studio, then? Apparently the team is excited to do something with PlayStation VR. Writing on Reddit, Fun Bits Interactive stated that it would be happy to do something involving Fat Princess and another Escape Plan using the PlayStation VR.
We’ve seen a big ask from fans for more Fat Princess multiplayer, and we’d love to do an Escape Plan title with Morpheus support…but nothing is announced at this time. These are two amazing franchises and we’d love to continue supporting both for a long time 🙂
It’s fun. Watching people explore mechanics in VR is a whole new crazy experience, and it would be fun and challenging to dev games in that space.
YES! We would love to do VR stuff with Sony, please let them know we’d be the PERFECT studio to take this on….(cough cough Escape Plan….Fat Princess VR)
We loved the idea of an FP game that you could play at your own pace, but looking ahead Multiplayer and VR stuff has us excited.
However, don’t expect to see the original Fat Princess ported to the PSVR, as it’s apparently a hell of a lot of work.
We love VR, and would love to support it. The challenge is that you have to render at 90 frames per second (or higher) in both eyes for it to “feel” good, which then can affect your graphics, if you don’t have a slick LOD system. We are currently running at 60 fps, and with the number of enemies we’re pushing at various times during the game in our engine, with shadows, lighting, pfx, that becomes quite a tough challenge to solve (post release). Still, we totally see how that would be fun and add to the experience.
And don’t expect to see any Fat Princess releases on the PS Vita either, as the developer has stated that there’s nothing in the works at the moment. You can still remote play, though…
What do you reckon? Fat Princess VR? Escape Plan VR? Would you be interested in them? Would you like to see PvP added to Fat Princess Adventures, or are you happy with the different approach to gaming’s chubbiest hero?