Once again your humble ed-otter was lucky enough to attend the Annie Awards for 2015, presented at UCLA’s Royce Hall on February 6th. Presented by the International Animated Film Society (ASIFA), the Annie Awards honor the best of the animation industry — as selected by members of that industry. Surprising no-one, the night belonged to Pixar’s Inside Out. (It has already won almost every major award it has been nominated for, and of course it’s nominated for an Oscar as well.) Inside Out won in the Best Feature categories for Storyboarding, Editing, Character Design, Music, Character Animation, Production Design, Voice Acting (Phyllis Smith as Sadness), Writing, Directing, and (of course) Best Animated Feature. Bing Bong himself even helped to present some of the awards. (*sniff* Bing Bong…) A few other features managed to sneak in awards, and some of them were even for animal characters! The Good Dinosaur won in the category of Best Effects Animation. (It’s been celebrated far and wide for its realistic backgrounds and water effects.) And The Revenant won Best Animated Character In A Live Action Production for the bear that nearly eats Leonardo DiCaprio. Over in the TV and other divisions, furries were well-represented in several award categories. Disney’s new Mickey Mouse Shorts won for Best Storyboarding, Best Music, and Best Editing. ASIFA favorites. Dreamworks TV had two wins, as Dragons: Race to the Edge won for Best Character Animation and The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show won for Best Production Design. Previous Annie favorites Tumble Leaf and Wander Over Yonder won for Best Production for Preschoolers and Best Production for Children, respectively. Psyop (home of those infamous Orangina commercials!) won Best Commercial for their Coca Cola ad Man and Dog, and Best Animated Game went to the monster adventure Evolve from 2K. [To save space, tomorrow we’ll tell you about the special awards presented at the Annies — and why you should care!] You can find out more about all of these and more over at the ASIFA Hollywood web site.
Games
Boom! Crash! Anthros!
Very soon (mid-February, in fact) a new Kickstarter campaign will be starting up, looking to finance a brand-new furry-themed card game called Fur vs. Scale. They explain it best on their web site: “Fur vs Scale is a fast-paced tabletop card game for 2-4 players, pitting heroes of rival kingdoms against each other in strategic combat. The game captures the ebb and flow of your favorite arcade fighter, challenging players to construct winning combinations of attacks, blocks, counters, and super moves over four rounds to be crowned victor. Featuring colorful anthropomorphic animal characters with unique special abilities, Fur vs Scale offers a variety of depth that can be enjoyed by kids and adults of all ages. Fur vs Scale takes place in the world of Junea, a land at war. The fragile peace that existed for decades between the Kindgom of Leon and the Kingdom of Wyrm is shattered by the disappearance of a sacred idol, and the quest to solve the mystery sets heroes from both lands on a dangerous collision course. Relive their tales of glorious combat and guide your chosen hero to victory!” The web site includes a link to a YouTube video telling you more about the game.
Love and Tolerate the Snot Out of Each Other
Once upon a time there was an on-line game in development called Fighting is Magic, attempting to create a “Ready! FIGHT!” style inter-player game based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Unfortunately, the Powers That Be at Hasbro decided that the game was a little bit too close to the TV show for comfort, and the project was shut down. Fast forward a couple of years: Now none other than Lauren Faust, the original show runner for Friendship is Magic, is on board to help with the development of a whole new game — in a whole new world. This is from the Indiegogo campaign: “Help a cast of cute animals beat each other up by making Them’s Fightin’ Herds become a reality! Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a 2D PC (Windows, with Linux/Mac as stretch goals) fighting game with adorable animals in an original universe designed by Lauren Faust (producer and developer for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; creator, director and developer for Super Best Friends Forever). It is the spiritual successor to Fighting is Magic, with improved gameplay mechanics and graphics, an entirely new (and awesome!) dynamic music system, a graphic lobby, and a whole bunch of new features.” The Indiegogo page features several preview videos as well as numerous preliminary sketches by Ms. Faust herself.
These Animals Rock!
Remember The Punky Pets? Here’s a refresher: “Who are the Punky Pets? These eight vastly different musicians meet up for the first time while auditioning for the hit TV show International Icon, in New York City. Their dreams of stardom are crushed when each performer gets booed off the stage, laughed at, ignored and criticized for their lack of talent. At least now they all have something in common. They talk about giving up, they express self-doubt, and they call each other rejects. In their darkest hour they see the light. With the help of a talent scout, they decide to turn their tragedy into triumph and form their own punk rock band.” Got it? Well now in addition to the music videos and various tie-in products on the Punky Pets web site, there’s a new Punky Pets app game for the i-Phone and Android formats. Join DJ Freak, lead singer monkey, as he races around New York trying to collect instruments in time for the band’s next gig!
The Nordguard Expanding
And more from Tempe O’Kun: The author and designer has been hard at work on a new expansion set for the card game based on Nordguard — the award-winning graphic novel created by the artist collective known as Blotch. “Developed directly with Blotch, Nordguard: Tribes of the White Land is an all-new fully-canon expansion for Nordguard: The Card Game. The entire original ThinkTank Games development team came back to work on this set. Includes exclusive new Blotch and Chromamancer art, as well as art from the upcoming Nordguard: Under Dark Skies. This 36-card set will be for sale at Sofawolf Press’s table at Anthrocon and later on their site for $12. With Nordguard: Tribes, we throw players into a new side of the Nordguard setting. Caught between savage strays and strange settlers, the wolf, lynx, and caribou tribes have a thousand-year head start on both. Friend or foe, they’re the unequaled masters of that lethal environment. We brought in an archaeologist specializing in the real-life equivalents of these cultures—advising our artists on everything from the carvings on their Items to the structures on the Locations. If you’re looking to spice up your Nordguard game, don’t miss this expansion.”
Fast Cash
There’s been a lot in the news lately about the new video game Yooka-Laylee (get it?). It’s the flagship product of a new company called Playtonic Games, which features a lot of the creative staff from Rare. And this new game is considered to be a spiritual successor to the wildly-popular Banjo & Kazooie series. But that’s not what’s got people talking. This is: Playtonic put up a Kickstarter campaign to finance the game… and they reached their initial multi-thousand British pound goal in less than 40 minutes. That’s got to be some kinda record, we think. “Yooka-Laylee (yes, like the tiny guitar) is a 3D platformer starring Yooka, a bipedal lizard-like dude, and Laylee, a purple “wisecracking lady-bat.” They have unique abilities, such as Yooka’s tongue-grapple and Laylee’s tactical sonar blast, and together these best buds explore five worlds filled with weird characters and feisty bosses. Also, one of the abilities is a “giant fart bubble.” Playtonic knows the way to its players’ hearts.” And their pocketbooks, it would seem. Head on over to Engadget to find out more.
Freddy’s Back! (The OTHER One!)
After what can only be called a very successful year in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon has announced that Part 3 is in development and will be released very soon for computers and a variety of mobile devices. According to an article at Cinema Blend, this new chapter takes place 30 years after the horrific events of Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 and 2 have resulted in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza being shut down and demolished. But now, someone has come up with the bright idea of building a brand new theme park attraction based on Freddy Fazbear’s! Even better, they decide to use some of the old parts from the original animatronic characters for this new dark ride. As you can imagine, things don’t go as planned… No word yet on a precise release date, but the article does feature a very creepy teaser trailer for the new game.
Space, The Post-Human Frontier
A new science-fiction role-playing game has appeared on the scene, called HC SVNT DRACONES (a variation on hic sunt dracones, or “here be dragons” in Latin). “HC SVNT DRACONES puts you in the body of a human experiment that outlived its creator, and has gone on expanding into the galaxy while trying to heed the lessons of a race that fell to ruin. It’s about exploration and fear, expansion and conquest, intrigue and subterfuge, and ultimately, it’s about you, learning to be you, when all the trappings of humanity you define yourself with are dead and gone. A unique character generation system allows you to assemble you Vector layer by layer, from their family to their species to the unique anatomy that defines their appearance. Interact with your story on two legs or four, from 6 feet up, or less than one. Explore new character interactions and problem solving possibilities when your party can range dramatically in size and shape from person to person.” After a (very!) successful Kickstarter campaign by HSD creator Pierce Fraser, the game manual is available now as a download at Drive Thru RPG — with the hardcover edition soon to follow. Also, make sure to check out HSD’s official page at Tumblr for updates.