Adventure Time with Finn & Jake
Adventure Time is being made into a game - finally! With A Boy and His Blob and Shantae: Risky's Revenge developer WayForward at the helm, we have extremely high hopes for this mathematical Nintendo DS game. In fact, we're so excited that we marathoned a bunch of Adventure Time episodes to get into the spirit, and got ideas for things we want to see in the game in the process.
A Boy and His Blob's puzzles
Wayforward's Wii game, A Boy and His Blob, the player takes control of a kid with a shape-changing friend. Sound familiar? We'd love it if Finn was able to use Jake to solve puzzles, just as the boy is able to use his blob.
Shape changing
Jake's main power (besides being an awesome friend) is his ability to change to nearly any shape or size. Besides being used for puzzles, as we mentioned before, we want to be able to change his size and shape for other reasons, too. Combat, racing, jumping over things - he's essentially a giant deus ex machina that WayForward should abuse to death.
Awesome dungeons
Adventure Time has had some amazing dungeons in its short history, filled with interesting traps and Dungeons & Dragons-like encounters and monsters. Some of the best episodes involve Finn and Jake delving into a dungeon, and that's just what we want to do in the game. Fighting through dungeons is one of Finn's favorite things, so why shouldn't we be able to experience that as well?
Playable Princess Bubblegum
Princess Bubblegum is awesome. She's a brilliant scientist, an awesome fighter, and rides around on a Rainicorn (which we'll save for another section). She'll, naturally, be in the game, but we want to go a step further and play as her.
Voice acting
One of the things that makes Adventure Time great is the voice acting. Jake is voiced by John DiMaggio, also known for speaking for Bender from Futurama and Marcus Fenix from Gears of War, and the other characters (like Lumpy Space Princess and the Princess Bubblegum) have equally memorable voices. It's going to be tempting for WayForward to replace them all with still images and text bubbles, but Adventure Time is about the characters, and the voice actors add so much personality that it would be a shame to see this stripped out entirely.
Co-op!
"Adventure Time, come on grab your friends..." is the first line of the show's theme song, and we want to do just that. Finn and Jake are a great duo, and while playing with an AI-controlled friend sounds fun, playing games with a real one sounds even better.
Side-missions in the Candy Kingdom
The Candy Kingdom is a silly place, so let's explore it! We want to talk to the different inhabitants (who are all made of sweets or candy, obviously) and take missions from them. They could be completely ridiculous and trivial, like helping deliver a pie, or super serious, like helping to deliver a super serious pie.
Jake's imagination should be involved
Jake has a... strong imagination. In one episode, it was so strong that Jake was able to change the real world just by imagining things. We think this could lead to some cool gameplay possibilities, either by giving him the power to change the world or by creating interesting levels around the obstacles his mind unintentionally creates.
Different costumes
Sure, Finn and Jake stay in their typical outfits for a majority of the show (Finn wearing blue and Jake wearing invisible clothing), but we want to be able to change to some of the different duds they've worn throughout the series. Armor, wizard robes, a chubby human body - changing between costumes doesn't need to be a major part of the game, but it should totally be in there in some form.
There shouldn't be a water level
We hate water levels. You hate water levels. Guess who else hates water levels? Finn. He's deathly afraid of the ocean, which is essentially one giant water level, so guess what? Let's just leave water our entirely.
WIZARD POWERS!
There was an episode where Finn and Jake got wizard powers and Finn could shoot fire and grow a tiger arm. Obviously this needs to be included.
Lootable weapons and armor
Finn loves beating up bad guys and getting treasures, right? What good is a treasure if you can't use it? We'd love to loot items after defeating bosses that we can use in later levels. It doesn't have to be a loot-fest like Diablo, but throwing in some items that can make the game more varied, like what Nintendo does in Zelda games, would be awesome.
Finn's glorious, glorious hair
Once it was revealed that a wonderful golden mane hid beneath Finn's white, fluffy hat nothing was ever the same. This needs to be in the game. We don't care if it's used to blind enemies, to tie them up, or just as part of an idle animation... it just has to be in there. There's no way around it.
Weird allies
Ooo is a strange place full of strange people, and often the strangest-looking people are the nicest. We want to group up with some of those weirdos to fight evil bad guys.
Weird bad guys
Yes, that's a heart holding Bubblegum hostage. Looks can be deceiving in Ooo, and sometimes the nicest-looking people are the meanest. We hope that WayForward gets this right by having us fight adorable creatures on our way through the game.
Crafting with the touch screen
Not like, crazy in-depth crafting, just a little crafting. And since it's Adventure Time, the crafting should be silly - taping stuff to stuff, dropping things on things. Just fun stuff to let us make good use of the touchscreen.
Lumpy Space Princess needs to have an incredibly large role
Because we lumpin' love her.
Ninjas
Because Ninjas are awesome. Whoosh!
Lady Rainicorn racing levels
Lady Rainicorn is awesome and amazing. She's a lady (obviously), a rainbow (naturally), and a unicorn (suspiciously). She's every little girl's dream, and we want to race her around Ooo. We don't care if we just ride her in some horrible Battletoads levels. That's fine, as long as we get to ride a rainicorn.
We want to eat Tree Trunks' apple pie
There have been episodes (plural) about Tree Trunk's apple pie. Like, we've heard so many good things about it, how could it not be in the game? It's like the Triforce of Ooo... or something. Whatever. As long as we get to hear that tiny elephant's sweet, sweet southern voice we'll be happy.
The Ice King needs to be the big bad
The Ice King is evil, maniacal, and crazy, capturing princesses due to a psychological condition explained in the Christmas Episode (don't ask). But just because we can sympathize with him doesn't mean we don't want to punch his face off. This might seem to be a given, as making the Ice King the big bad guy is sort of on the nose, but there's a reason it's very obvious: it would be awesome.
Marceline the Vampire Queen needs to be involved
Oh, Marceline, why are you so mean? The fearless vampire is essentially the Ada Wong of the Land of Ooo - she jumps between ally and enemy so often that we lose track. Last we checked she was kind and fun, but we wouldn't be too upset to see her change sides throughout the game to keep things exciting.
An autotune voice modulation feature
Finn swallowed a computer when he was young and now he sings in autotune. That's actually a thing in Adventure Time. The DS has a microphone, so let's just throw the feature into the game. Why not? We want to belt out some tunes and hear them back with computerized filters. Imagine how much fun children would have annoying their parents with that?
We want to be able to Voltron into a giant dude
Remember that episode where Finn became a foot? Yeah. It was awesome. He met up with a bunch of other people that got turned into body parts by some jerk in an episode with the moral of "some people are just jerks." This new giant Voltron-like guy then beat the jerk up, and it was awesome. We want to be able to pile a bunch of guys together to make one giant guy, too.
BMO minigames
BMO is Finn and Jake's computer, serving as... well, whatever technical thing he has to serve as. Usually, however, he's a video game machine, so let's turn on BMO and play some silly 8-bit minigames!
Title screens
Each episode of Adventure Time opens up with an amazing title screen, brilliantly illustrated to set the tone of the episode. These dark, beautiful images are a staple of the brand, and we'd be ecstatic to see them show up before each level.
The Flame Princess
The Flame Princess is a newcomer to Adventure Time, replacing Princess Bubblegum as Finn's potential love interest. We'd love it if the game continued moving this story forward, advancing Finn (and our) love for the new evil princess.
Gunter
Apparently, there isn't one "Gunter" on Adventure Time - it's just the name Ice King gives to whatever penguin servant is closest in proximity. No matter. We want him in the game because he's a penguin, and penguins are important.
Fiona & Cake
The gender-swap episode of Adventure Time is one of the best, and we'd love to explore this in the game at some point. Fiona and Cake have a much different dynamic than Finn and Jake, and that's something we think could make for some interesting gameplay changes. Plus, Prince Gumball is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, so, yeah.
There should be some really weird stuff
Weird stuff happens in the land of Ooo. Like... really weird. There are giant, scary monsters, weird people, and floating werewolf heads with sideways hats on. We want WayForward to bring the full brunt of Adventure Time's strangeness to the DS - we don't want them to hold back at all.
We want a 3DS release
When Pendleton Ward first revealed the Adventure Time game he said it was coming to the 3DS, and we got really, really excited. Later, he correct himself and said that it was only a DS game, which, while still exciting, was much less. We know the DS has more units sold worldwide, but we want it to look good on our 3DS. We want Finn and Jake to pop off the screen in glorious 3D, and that can't happen on the DS.
