Warren Spector Is Proud Of Epic Mickey, Despite Criticisms

In case you missed it a few years ago, Disney, teaming up with video game icon Warren Spector and his development team at Junction Point, produced a new take on its classic Mickey character, pitting him in a dark world where slinging paint against dangerous inklings made all the difference. Epic Mickey was hailed for its differences on the market, but there are some fans that felt it wasn’t quite as good a game as they were expecting it to be – and thought even less of its sequel, Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.

That said, Spector has nothing but strong memories of the Epic Mickey project, despite what some critics have thought about it. Speaking with IGN, he explained that he still considers the game one of the “high points” of his illustrious career.

Perhaps the biggest example of how wonderful Epic Mickey was to him came in the form of fan mail that came from an autistic girl, and how well she connected with the game’s world. He noted, “Here’s the one that kills me. I got an envelope in the mail and I opened it up and out came a colored pencil drawing of Oswald and Mickey, Oswald with his arm around Mickey, Mickey with his arm around Oswald, legs dangling off a cliff, looking up at a starry sky. And it looked like it an 8 or 9 year old kid had drawn it – I’m getting chills thinking about this – and then I pulled out the letter and the letter was from a father who said, ‘My sixteen year old autistic daughter doesn’t interact with the world but she played your game and drew this, and it she insisted that I send it to you – she engaged with the world because of your game.’”

But he summed up his experience in a blatant but strong point. “Screw Metacritic. Screw the gamers who didn’t like our camera. Screw everybody. I am really proud of that game. I am really proud of the team that made it, and nothing is ever going to sway me from feeling that was one of the high points of my career.”

Epic Mickey is available for the Nintendo Wii. For those curious about the game, a used copy should be able to be picked up easily.