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DS Fanboy interview: Red Fly Studio (Mushroom Men)


Red Fly Studio has big goals. In the words of the company's CEO, Dan Borth, they want to be "the world's premiere third-party Wii developer." They're aiming high on the DS, as well. It may sound a little presumptuous, but their inaugural effort, Mushroom Men, shows significant promise on both the Wii and DS, with a unique, detailed visual style, bizarre challenges and an expansive junk-based inventory.

At the EIEIO event, I spoke with Chad Barron, external producer for the DS side-scroller, and Dan Borth, CEO and creative director, about both games, as well as the experience of working for a big publisher on a big license.

Gallery: Mushroom Men

Continue reading DS Fanboy interview: Red Fly Studio (Mushroom Men)

DS Fanboy interview: Insecticide's Larry Ahern


I met with Crackpot Entertainment's Larry Ahern, creative director of Insecticide, at this year's EIEIO event after he had finished demonstrating his game over and over again for successive groups of journalists and other attendees. Even after all of that time spent staring at Insecticide and introducing it to the few people in each group who weren't familiar with it, he seemed enthusiastic about his game.

He was also happy to reminisce -- fondly or otherwise -- about his time at LucasArts, during which he served as art director for Day of the Tentacle, lead animator for Full Throttle, and co-project lead on The Curse of Monkey Island, just to name a few classics.

Hit the break to find out about Insecticide's alternate history as a TV show, to read the most about BioShock you'll ever see on DS Fanboy, and more!

Gallery: Insecticide

Continue reading DS Fanboy interview: Insecticide's Larry Ahern

EIEIO 08: Brief Mushroom Men impressions

I was only able to see a couple of minutes of Red Fly Studio's Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi, but I learned some interesting details about the game. Rise of the Fungi on the DS, codeveloped with Zen Studios, is designed as a prequel to the Wii game, telling two stories in the same world. In both games, a meteor has somehow caused mushrooms to gain awareness and intelligence, along with other organisms. In Rise of the Fungi, one tribe of mushrooms must drive interloping insects out of their village.

Mushroom Men is a (really nice-looking) 2.5D platformer set in a world that looks very big to a mushroom. Multiple characters are available: "heavy" characters with good melee combat skills, "sages" with excellent spore powers (special magic-type abilities) and "scouts" with ranged combat abilities. These characters will traverse 10 levels, each divided into two scenes, solving environmental puzzles and, well, collecting garbage. In fact, garbage is kind of important to the game.

The environmental puzzle we were shown involved using items found in the stage to reach a higher platform. The player had to knock a soda can into a buzzsaw, which turned the buzzsaw on, causing it to fall down. It could then be used to climb up to that platform.

As for the garbage: both the DS and Wii games feature the "scav" system, which allows you to pick up junk and combine it into weapons. And there are a lot of choices -- a quick look at the menu screen showed at least 20 available weapons. A 2D platformer with a lot of weapons? Yes. Yes.

I was very impressed overall with the demo, except for the part in which I didn't play the game. Luckily, Red Fly expects to release Rise of the Fungi late this year, with The Spore Wars to follow soon after. Hit the gallery for new screens and even more delightful concept art!

Gallery: Mushroom Men

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