The Gentleman wants to lead you a merry dance
Thinking on your feet
Potentially a difficult one to search for online thanks to flash games of the same name, The Gentleman [official site] was a delightful rhythm-action game I bumped into while squeezing through the crowd at the MIX event at GDC. From the prototype I played it's about following the onscreen cues so that your character Fred will caper along the street performing a Golden Age of Hollywood dance routine, waltzing with passers-by, swishing through fallen leaves and vaulting trash cans.
Fred's deal is that he's a street performer whose life becomes intertwined with that of Lisa, a society girl whose father (Johnathan Joseph Harrington Price III) wants to marry her off to Count Grossenstein of Teuffelstein in order to further his own social climbing ambition.
"Fred and Lisa first meet at his street performance, where immediately sparks fly. The Count is quick to interrupt but, due to a series of cascading events our Gentleman becomes involved in the wedding preparations. As Fred and Lisa grow closer, it is evident that there is something more to the Count than meets the eye. Will Lisa and the Count be married, or will true love prevail? What is the Count hiding? Will Johnathan Joseph Harrington Price III ever be accepted by royalty?"
The dance along the street was the level the developers seemed to be focusing on but from speaking to them there are other types of level intended for the finished game – a wall climb which you see a tiny bit of in the trailer and a boxing match, for example. The wall climb doesn't look as interesting in the video as the street scene but without playing it I have no idea if that's representative of how it would feel.
The Gentleman currently intended for a PC release later this year. I'm hoping that the Cape Copenhagen team can extend the playfulness and little flourishes of the demo across the full project. The MIX event is so packed that it's hard to get a feel for anything that requires concentration and sound, so I absolutely spent a lot of the demo walking into lampposts and people. Perhaps there will be a preview closer to release so I can get a bit more of a sense of how well the spirit of the idea has translated into play!