An RPG party member who can't attack or even move, who spends every turn being the butt of more than a hundred jokes? Yes, he's real, and I learned all about him at E3.
Candy Corn is his name, and he's a small yet rather funny part of Double Fine's Halloween-themed RPG sequel, Costume Quest 2. Kotaku, if you'll remember, liked the original more than any other Double Fine game.
The concept is fairly simple: the game's cast of candy-seeking kids can equip costumes to essentially become different characters in battle. Candy Corn, then, is one such option, a costume that made an appearance in the original Costume Quest, but wasn't actually playable. This time around, however, Candy Corn will be selectable from the get-go.
"Candy Corn doesn't attack," Double Fine publishing manager Greg Rice explained. Rather, he just sits there while the game tells a joke about him.
I watched as turn after turn passed. Two other characters—one dressed as a superhero, the other as the world's most horrifyingly gelatinous clown—traded blows with baddies using a new timing-based battle system (think Paper Mario or any Mario RPG), but Candy Corn just sat there. Unflinching, bold, beautiful.
Then his turn came. The moment of truth. Candy Corn's time to shine. "Don't expect much from Candy Corn," read a brief dialogue. How very fitting. And then it was an enemy's turn.
This repeated all throughout my demo. Other gags included, "Candy Corn is gonna sit this one out," "It's time to look at Candy Corn," and "Candy Corn wishes he were more like real corn."
"Right now there's about a hundred different jokes in there, but we're gonna continue to add more," said Rice. "The idea is that he's just a tank soaking damage. It's for more experienced players who want to get through the game with just two characters."
What if you stick it out, though? What if, against all common sense, you keep Candy Corn in your party through the whole game? Well:
"If you finish the game using Candy Corn the whole way through," Rice explained, "you'll unlock the 'Hardcorn Mode' achievement, which is obviously... really silly."
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