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Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never been shy about their love of gaming. From Randy Marsh playing Guitar Hero in his underpants to the legendary "Make Love, Not Warcraft" episode, the comic duo have demonstrated an obvious familiarity with the medium. Now that they've conquered television, film, and Broadway, the next target on their hit list is the gaming industry.

Thanks to a collaboration with THQ and Obsidian, Parker and Stone are writing the script, performing the dialogue, and overseeing the development of South Park: The Game. Unlike the cash-in Acclaim titles from over a decade ago, this ambitious project is a full-scale RPG for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. As the new kid in South Park, it'll be up to you to make friends and defend the town from a wide range of threats. Be sure to check out our January issue for all the details, as well as an interview with Parker and Stone themselves.

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Basics

-The first game Parker and Stone have directly participated in, writing the script and the dialogue.

-Parker has always preferred silent protagonists in RPG's, so the player’s character will be silent.

-The player’s character will be fully customizable.

-Your character has a smartphone that acts as the primary game menu and has a facebook-like app show your number of friends you have and your current standing with the various kid factions.

-There are five classes, which are wizard, paladin, adventurer, rogue, and a fifth unannounced class.

-Obsidian is using the Dungeon Siege III engine.

-Obsidian developed a dynamic lip-syncing tool to accommodate changes to the script.

-Parker and Stone gave Obsidian 15 years of assets used during the show and a detailed list of approved textures and colors.

-Critical hits, cash rewards, experience, and consumables are in the game.

-Parker hates unskippable cutscenes.

-The humor will be more focus on the games they have played in the past but Parker mentions that games have lampooned other games before so they don't want to do exactly that instead they are focusing more on RPG's on how big and bombastic they can get sometimes.

Story

-The player will play as the new kid in town, the main theme of the game is fitting in and being accepted.

-The story begins with your character participating in a live action role-playing game that the neighborhood kids started, which eventually evolves into a real adventure.

-Eric Cartman will greet your character and help you decide your class, which are wizard, paladin, adventurer, rogue, and a fifth unconventional class made up by Cartman.

Combat

-Many elements of the combat system are like Paper Mario and the Mario & Luigi games.

-If player initiates combat they will attack first and vice versa.

-X button is for melee attacks, pressing it in well-timed succession will result in multiple hits.

-Timed inputs occur for defense as well for reduced damage.

-Obsidian doesn't want the player to have to sit and watch animations play out; they're incorporating dynamic camera angels at certain times, such as a Ro Sham Bo attack that stuns an enemy.

RPG

-Enemy encounters are visible on the map.

-Soda are health potions and Tweak's coffee is a haste item.

-There are melee and ranged weapons, as well as a lightning powered Okama Gameshpere that is a magic item.

-There is a Final Fantasy Materia like system in the game to augment weapons with various abilities like fire, poison, and electricity.

-There is a Summon System but they are not able to talk about it.

Collectibles

-There are collectibles to look for in the environments, some appear throughout the game while other are in specific areas.

-An example of a collectible is a Chinpokomon doll and a magazine, Chinpokomon dolls are not all the same model Obsidian are using various models that appeared in the episode.

Other

-When Obsidian were first coming up with ideas they show Parker and Stone a quest where you go into a cave and fight a giant bat boss that Ike is riding on, Parker and Stone said that the quest wasn't Southpark, that it was a generic video-game. Parker and Stone then mention a quest to get Kung Pao Chicken from City Wok, to readjust Obsidian focus.

-When they start making the town hub Parker and Stone realized that they did not have a true layout for the town, so they had fun figuring out where everything went.

-There will not be any platforming, they tried jumping early on but it didn't seem right.

-They talk about how they have had to scrap level because the perspective wasn't right because everything is hand illustrated and hand animated.

-They talk about the challenges of making a comedy driven game, Portal 2 is mention, they say if Portal 2 dialogue was on top of a shitty game it wouldn't be as good, so they want to make a game that is as good as the dialogue.

Concept Art (Massive Spoilers!!!!)

-The first concept art is a 'Gnome Mine' a concept, my guess underpants gnomes.

-The second concept art is 'UFO Crash Site', it shows Kenny, Cartman, Stan, and Kyle in front of a military fence with a UFO further away in a forest surround in mountains.

-The third concept art is a 'Gnome/Crab People D.M.Z.' label as a rough concept, it show a border fence with gnomes on one side and Crab People on the other side.

-The last concept art is 'Christmas Town' a concept.

Interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone

-Parker and Stone really enjoy rpgs and they do think that rpgs are the best fit for southpark.

-They were asked of how making a rpg story differs for an episode, they say that the learning curve was be bigger than anything they have done other then their Broadway musical.

-Visual and Visual style seen in episodes like “Good Times With Weapons”, or the live action hamsters in “Pandemic” will not be in the game they want to keep a simple 2D style.

-Parker has been a lifelong gamers, he really likes rpgs because he like the singleplayer nature of them so he doesn’t like or get MMO’s. His favorite game is Oblivion.

-Matt when he was young used to play the old Infocom game and Wizardry and likes open world games like Arkham City, Infamous, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and also hockey and soccer games. He mention that he is more of a button masher and remember Serious Sam because he likes to shoot shit and blow shit up but he is now more interested in games like Arkham City and he hasn’t play a RPG in year because he got tired of walking everywhere. His favorite game is FIFA and he mentions getting his ass kick online by kids with English Accents.

-Lastly they joke how this Southpark game will be a cross between Obilivion and FIFA were “you gotta go kill a bunch of monsters and shit but you can only use your feet.”

Update:

Here are some things I missed. The editor says the game look like an episode of southpark and there is one screenshot that I am not sure if it is a cut-scene or in-game but it definitely looks like it could be a screenshot of an episode of southpark.

Also you can explore the town between quests its a little vague it sound like walking around the town is 2D the writer mentions "exploration takes the characters from the left to the the right(and vice versa), but branching paths occasionally take them in the background or foreground to prevent the game for m becoming overly linear".

There are a few screenshot of combat, the editor mentions that encounters are like classic Final Fantasy that are presented from a side view. With every combat screenshot there is only the player and one other party member(Cartman, Kyle, or Butters), fight 2-5 enemies(Girls, Gingers, Hippies, Fantasy style, and Goth) at a time.

The screenshots in the article show the player in a tree house and fighting on a top of a, different?, tree house or fort, fighting in a backyard, a cave, a forest, and a cemetery. Also in the article they mention the insides of Stan's house and just now looking at the screenshot of the tree house there is a map that I could replicate that might be layout for the town.

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