Fancy Pants Adventures - Gameplay

Gameplay

Fancy Pants Adventures features Fancy Pants Man as the playable character of the series. He is a two dimensional stick figure with spiky, choppy hair, wearing only a pair of colored triangular-shaped pants. Fancy Pants Man's home is Squiggleville, a small country town run by the Mayor (first introduced in World 2).The mayor is introduced more in World 3. Players guide Fancy Pants Man through open levels which feature obstacles to overcome and enemies to avoid or defeat. These enemies include spiders, snails, and mice armed with guns. Enemies can be defeated by being jumped upon and crushed by Fancy Pants Man, who can also launch off them to perform an augmented leap. World 2 introduced the snail enemy, which retracts into its shell when jumped on, after which it can be kicked to stun other enemies. Originally the snail shell was merely a novelty feature in the World 2 demo, however during development, BETA testers made a game out of getting the snail shell to hard-to-reach spots. Brad And Ts7, the game designer(s), used this as inspiration to incorporate "Snail Shell Golf" which adds replayability to World 2 by allowing the player to gain access to different colored pants for the playable character. It is possible to earn a combo by keeping the snail shell in the air. As Fancy Pants Man runs through the different levels, there are many "squiggles" floating in mid-air. They serve two important functions. Firstly, they refill Fancy Pants Man's life meter by 5% if he has been damaged, and they also give the player an extra life for every hundred collected. In the source code, these "squiggles" are referred to as "coins"; possibly as a reference to Nintendo's Mario video game series. Another possible reference to the Mario franchise comes in the form of a box which can be jumped at from beneath to release several squiggles, like the coin boxes in many Mario games. Similarly, Sonic the Hedgehog styled "S-Tubes" made an appearence in some levels of Fancy Pants, controlling in almost the same manner, with Fancy Pants rolling down the tunnel. Both worlds of Fancy Pants Adventures contain different kinds of small trophies that can be collected while playing the game. At the end of each world of Fancy Pants Adventures players fight a boss. In World 1 the boss is an angry penguin, who Fancy Pants Man accidentally falls upon and wakes from sleeping. This is the extent of the story in World 1, while World 2 has a more significant plotline. In World 2 an angry rabbit steals Fancy Pants Man's ice cream. Players must pursue and ultimately defeat the rabbit in a confrontation at the end of the game in order to reclaim the ice cream. In World 3, his sister, Cutie Pants, is kidnapped by pirates because she defeats their captain, and want to make her captain. The first time Fancy Pants tries to bring her back, she doesn't want to leave, and has assumed the role of "Princess Pirate". The second time, though, she agrees to come home.

A secret move, the wall jump, was obtainable in World 1, level 1 as a secret power-up from a pit that you travel to through a cardboard box and was noted by Borne that it was still work in progress. Soon after obtaining the wall jump, you had to employ the uses of it straight away to avoid an inevitable death from the slowly filling pit of ink. The wall jump became an official move available in World 2's increasing repertoire of moves. This was first shown in a demo that was made available by its creator, Brad Borne, on Newgrounds on March 13, 2007. In "World 3", he also gains a pencil which he uses like a sword.

In The Fancy Pants Adventures for consoles, there are a few new additions to the gameplay. These include the ability to swim, which includes being able to kick off flat surfaces whilst underwater, and the ability to use a weapon later on in the game, which features a chargeable attack. The game features a main story mode, in which the player must save his sister, Cutie Pants Girl, who has been kidnapped by a band of pirates who make her their captain. Each level contains two bonus rooms, a 'Micro-Trial', in which players must quickly chase a line of yellow squiggles, and stars which unlock extra content, including remakes of the first two worlds. The game also features local and online multiplayer for up to four players, as well as various challenges. Playing through the game allows the player to unlock hats, pants and weapons to customize their character's appearance.