View source for News/Animaniacs - Hollywood Hypnotics

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Presenting, a contribution from [[MrPinball64]] and [[Billscat-socks]]!

Animaniacs: Hollywood Hypnotics is the only known title in the series of Animaniacs games that, up until now, was completely lost. The game was also something of a milestone for its developer, Full Fat Productions, despite its eventual cancellation.

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<center>[[Animaniacs: Hollywood Hypnotics (Prototype)]]</center>

Based out of Warwick, England, Full Fat Productions is a British developer with humble beginnings as an art studio, taking on contract work for pixel art that appeared in the games of other well-known British developers in the '90s, such as Codemasters and the now-defunct Blitz Games. While the company didn’t officially incorporate until 1996, it wouldn't be until another four years later in 2000 when they began developing games in-house. Like Animaniacs, most of their early output was based on licensed properties for the Game Boy Advance.

As it turns out, an Animaniacs game was the first project Full Fat decided to tackle for the Game Boy Advance, and this was before the handheld had even launched (it wouldn’t release until 2001). This first iteration of the project is only known to have been originally contracted by publisher Conspiracy Entertainment, but any other information as of writing is unfortunately lost to time. Interestingly enough, Full Fat was also working on the unreleased Dreamcast title The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas around the same time, also for Conspiracy.

Unfortunately for Animaniacs, the project was canceled as Full Fat chose to redirect its focus toward other contracts with publishers like Acclaim, Atari, and Midway. While details become murky at this point, it’s understood that the project was revived, likely sometime in 2001, only this time at the request of publisher Swing! Entertainment. Considering Swing later published Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt for GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2, as well as other licensed cartoon titles like Tiny Toon Adventures (they were also slated to publish the unreleased Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Universe for PS2), it’s not surprising they also wanted to bring Animaniacs to the GBA.

This second version of the game would become Hollywood Hypnotics. Rather than picking up from where the first version left off, however, development started from scratch. Still, progress was rocky. As was common in the industry back then, publishers like Swing would contract developers like Full Fat and pay them based on mutually agreed-upon milestones, but it wasn’t uncommon for those milestone payments to go unanswered. This led to staff being often reassigned to other projects, leaving Hollywood Hypnotics in a constant state of limbo.

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<center><small>An earlier title screen provided by the game's sprite artist, Simon Butler.</small></center>

So, was the game ever finished despite this turbulent development cycle? Funnily enough, it seems not even Full Fat themselves know the answer. In fact, as of this writing, Animaniacs is still listed under the GBA section of Full Fat’s website, alongside their released titles. A pre-production image of the game’s packaging, including the box, cartridge, and manual, also exists online, strongly suggesting that the project had reached the manufacturing prep stage. Unfortunately, Swing! Entertainment entered insolvency proceedings in 2003, the same year the game was planned for release, which provides a pretty clear answer as to why it was ultimately shelved.

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<center><small>This image of the German packaging for the game has been on the internet for years now, hinting at a product that was likely ready for manufacturing.</small></center>

But was the game finished? With today’s release, we can now confidently say yes, it was! Though still rough around the edges, the build we’re sharing today is playable all the way through to the final “battle” with Pinky and the Brain. Gameplay-wise, it’s somewhat akin to the Dizzy the Adventurer series: players solve puzzles across six studio lots using items found around the map or traded with NPCs. While the puzzles are generally straightforward, the game’s roughness does show in places. Players may find themselves stuck due to non-obvious alternate paths, unclear item interactions, and misleading NPC dialogue. There's also a double-jump mechanic that can be glitched through rapid button mashing. In fact, the ease of triggering it suggests it might be a bug, but the game begins requiring the extra height around half-way through, so it's a mystery whether this mechanic was going to be further refined or just left as-is.

Graphically, the game’s polish is inconsistent in parts. Some areas show clashing art styles, which may reflect either incomplete development or the game’s modest budget. For instance, fans of Animaniacs may recognize that all player graphics are directly based off of those from the 1994 Sega Genesis game, although they now feature additional shading and many new animations added to the original set. However, the additional animations added to those graphics are quite solid thanks to the work of veteran pixel artist Simon Butler, and many NPCs look like they could’ve walked straight out of the cartoon. The talking head graphics during character dialogue scenes are somewhat off-model, but anyone who remembers the inconsistent animation between different studios who animated the original show back in the '90s will likely find a certain charm here. Combine all of this with a script that feels very much in line with the show's writing style and it's clear there was some effort to capture the Animaniacs spirit in this.

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<center><small>A sprite sheet that the game's artist held onto. Note some graphics such as Yakko rolling into a ball represent a preliminary idea that doesn't appear in the final product.</small></center>

In addition to this game, we're also releasing two very builds of Justice League: Chronicles, which were on the same flash cartridge that Animaniacs was found on. These are very early tech demos, both dated March 3, 2003, on the cartridge, so it's possible this could also represent a date for the Hollywood Hypnotics build, but there's no way to confirm this for certain.

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<center>[[Justice League: Chronicles (Prototype)]]</center>

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<center>[[Justice League: Chronicles (Pseudo 3D tech demo)]]</center>

And finally, from the same lot, a prototype of Freekstyle.

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<center>[[Freekstyle (Prototype)]]</center>

You can also see all of them on the [[Full Fat lot]] page.

We'd like to thank [[MrPinball64]] for acquiring these prototypes and letting us release them, as well as [[Billscat-socks]] for writing the article and playing it on stream. We'd also like to extend a huge thanks to Andrew Docking, Full Fat's former tech director, for helping fill in the blanks on the game's development, and to Simon Butler, the game's pixel artist, for his support!

Until next time!
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