Art director Mark Hamer wrote a post about his process of arriving at the final artwork for Middle Manager of Justice! Read about it here:

http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_art_of_middle_manager_of_justice/

And then discuss! Hopefully we can get Mark to stop by and answer burning questions!

Man, this game looks great! Reminds me a lot of Day of the Tentacle. A webcomic in this style would be very cool. Maybe it’s an idea to make a short comic leading into the game? Comics fit with the superhero theme, and I’d love to learn more about the world and characters of the MMoJ world.

Favourite art pieces from that post: Middle Manager himself (does he have a name?) and the evil villain with the skullface. Oh, and I remember Herc’s Adventures! That game looked amazing.

What sorts of artistic limits did you encounter when working on a game of this scope? And were those limits budgetary or technical?

Thanks guys, it’s great to hear back on my post!

@AlfredJ - Glad you like the look! I love DOTT and was definitely thinking of it while working out the look of MMoJ. Especially for the base/office. DOTT has so much character and appeal in its visuals, it really pulls me into the world. That’s a great idea about a webcomic! We’re actually planning some comics for the website - quick little 4 panel strips that show a bit more of each hero’s personality. And hopefully will be funny Coming soon!

The Manager has no name btw, he is simply “The Middle Manager” - we played around with names for a bit and ultimately liked keeping it open ended and focused on his job.

@VicOfAges - Good question! Most of the limits were just memory and file size concerns. Art and animation are very important to this game(and to Double Fine!), and we tried to keep things as rich as possible while keeping the game a manageable size. We did prune our anims and scale down assets where possible, but never at the expense of the game.

Budget-wise there were no problems. We’re very lucky to be working with Dracogen as a partner on this game - they’re big DF fans and are just as committed to putting out a great game as we are.

Thanks again for your comments! Hope you enjoy the game

DF Mark - 12 September 2012 12:35 PM

That’s a great idea about a webcomic! We’re actually planning some comics for the website - quick little 4 panel strips that show a bit more of each hero’s personality. And hopefully will be funny Coming soon!

Great news, I love me some Double Fine comics. Looking forward to it (and the game itself of course, but I’m holding out hope for a PC version at the moment, don’t have access to an iPod/Pad). Thanks for your answer!

Hey Mark- kudos again to you and the team for the comic art style of MMoJ! The art alone makes me want to play it! I loved The Incredibles and can totally see these characters being from the same universe. Also, just calling it now: [spoiler]will the follow-up for this be called: “Executive Director of Evil”?[/spoiler]

Oh, and I, too, am really excited that you’ll be making comics again! It’d be a great way to introduce the super-heroes and super-villains!

Any chance for an eventual PC port?

@Ace - thanks! Ha ha, no comment on the sequel spoilerz I’m pretty excited to be doing comics again too, I’m having lots of fun with this project

@Kibertoad - that would be great! We want to have the game on as many platforms/devices as possible, including pc, but for now we’re focusing on the iOS version

Just listened to the podcast. So you guys want superhero ideas? Get ready for awesome.

Behold the power of Delusional Lad:

Even though he calls himself a Lad, he’s clearly in his sixties (I told you he was delusional). Looks surprisingly like Jim Henson, and operates a handpuppet in the same way (see picture). Never talks, and always looks frightened. Always wears his standard lumberjack shirt, and makes no effort to conceal his own identity. He doesn’t have to. He lost his own identity ages ago. Mr Friendly has taken over for years now.

Mr Friendly is the Muppetmonster-like puppet at the end of Delusional Lad’s arm. Lost his family friendly primetime television show somewhere in the seventies. He never really recovered. There’s no room in the modern world for singing bears and frogs. Children today seem more interested in violent videogames, leading to a sharp increase in crime. Mr Friendly decided that the kids need a proper role model again, so he’s taken to the streets. And he brought his banjo.

Mr Friendly re-educates any punks he comes across by sharply (but lovingly) smacking his banjo on their necks. In contrast to Delusional Lad he does wear a superhero outfit (see Super Grover for inspiration) to protect his many wives. Never really acknowledges ‘the guy downstairs’, except when he really has to (meaning: when he needs someone to blame for losing a battle).

So, there you have it Double Fine. No charge. Hell to animate? Perhaps. Will it sell millions of copies (even if it’s a free game)? Most definitely.