Titan Studios' PlayStation 3 game Fat Princess has already riled up the more sensitive of the internet's residents with its chubby, cake-fed royalty. But its developers aren't toning down their design decisions in response.
Yes, the game is still bloody (and bloody good) with gibs of cel-shaded warriors splattered about the battlefield when sliced in half by a Warrior or exploded into oblivion by a Worker's bomb. Sure, Titan Studios—which is owned by Epic Games China—is giving PlayStation 3 owners a chance to play as male or female characters in Fat Princess, but with custom hairstyles with names like "Prison Handles" for pigtails, someone's bound to have their nerves rubbed the wrong way.
We got to take a look at the game's character customization, which includes quaint skin coloring options like "zombie" and "vomit" as well as more tame ones that add variety to Fat Princess's lily white default lineup. For hair options, expect to see things like "Scottish" and "programmer," the latter of which conjures images of id Software employees during their ponytail-sporting days.
"Fat Princess' art style fits the humor and cheekiness of the game," said Titan Studios lead designer Craig Leigh, noting that the game's gore and carnage should invoke thoughts of Itchy & Scratchy. They're going for humor, as evidenced by the game's copious pop culture references, not something darker or "mature."
The game's unexpected bloodiness should be lessened by its cutesy character designs and brightly colored stages, with names like Sugar Cove, Coco Cliffs and Black Forest, just a few of the eight maps the Titan Studios team plans to ship with.
While visually attractive, the Fat Princess devs look to have added plenty of gameplay depth, with five character classes, each with a two-tier upgrade system and multiple attacks, as well as upgradeable buildings and strategic structures.
Perhaps most appealing for the multiplayer focused strategy game is the PlayStation Network game's host migration, which will ensure that even if the session host drops out, one of the other players, up to 32 of 'em, will pick up hosting duty slack. We'll write more about our hands-on impressions soon.