The Fancy Pants Adventures

Fancy Pants Adventures features Fancy Pants Man as the playable character of the series. He is a two dimensional stick figure man with spiky, choppy hair, wearing only a pair of colored triangular-shaped pants, hence his name. His gameplay is similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, in which it utilizes momentum-based platforming with running as a major gameplay mechanic. More references to the Sonic the Hedgehog series is how some the level design (like the "S-Tubes") is centered around momentum, increasing momentum by rolling down a slope, and how the collectables are essential to the player's health besides providing an extra life for every hundred collected. Similar to Sonic, collectables can be lost when damage is taken, but the loss is limited to 5% of total health and collectables. Another video game reference is from Nintendo's Mario video game series, with a box that can be jumped at from beneath to release several squiggles, and the source code referring to the squiggles as "coins". 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.[2] 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.[3] World 2 introduced the snail enemy, which retracts into its shell when jumped on, after which it can be kicked to stun other enemies.[4] 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 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. Both worlds of Fancy Pants Adventures contain different kinds of small trophies that can be collected while playing the game.[5] At the end of each world of Fancy Pants Adventures players fight a boss. In World 1 the boss is an angry penguin,[6] 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. They then make her their new captain. The first time Fancy Pants tries to bring her back, she refuses to leave, and has assumed the role of "Princess Pirate". The second time, though, she agrees to come home, because she saw ninjas, and pirates hate ninjas.[7]

A secret move, the wall jump, was obtainable in World 1, level 1 as a secret power-up from a pit that the player travels down through a cardboard box, and was noted by Borne that it was still a work in progress. Soon after obtaining the wall jump, the player 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 Borne on Newgrounds on March 13, 2007. In World 3, he gains Borne's 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 while 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, 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.

Fancy Pants Man (left) fights against Newgrounds mascot Pico (middle) and Alien Hominid in Newgrounds Rumble.

The Fancy Pants Adventures series was created by Brad Borne, who had previously created games with the help of Mark Fleig, Jr. Fleig provided all of the computer graphics on their collaborations. The previous games provided experience and allowed for more complex designs. Before using Macromedia Flash, Borne had experimented with the TI-BASIC programming language on a TI-86 graphing calculator. His first involvement with Macromedia's software was stop motion animation. The stop motion experience was built upon with Flash's action script, used to create video games, which lead to further interest and ultimately Borne felt he "knew enough to make something that [he] thought was worth playing."[8] Despite not having a background in art, Borne created the graphics for Fancy Pants Adventures himself, resulting in the "sketchy" graphical style.[8] The World 1 penguin boss was originally named "Pauly Penguin," and was created by one of Borne's friends, Paul Downs.[6]

After the release of World 1, Borne began freelancing, but stated in an interview that he views his own projects as a hobby, and that he does not "get as consumed by the process as much as [he] used to".[8] According to Borne, "Trophies were [his] way of giving a nod to a few Flash artists whose work [he] really enjoyed."[5] In World 1, these trophies are located within standard levels, or at the end of a simple level. Several trophies from World 1 represent Borne's own works in progress. In World 2, however, the developer worked directly with the artist that each trophy represented to design a unique level for obtaining that trophy.[5]

Bornegames is the hub for Borne's work and blog, which quickly became an integral part of the beta testing process. New betas were released on a regular basis, and players visiting the site acted as beta testers and reported software bugs. It became the central hub for the latest bug-fixes and beta news. Borne also uses his blog to post question and answer videos to reply to questions sent in by fans and has posted a "Behind the Fancy Pants" video as well as an "Official Snailshell Golf Guide".[9] In May 2008, Borne completed a Fancy Pants Man move set and character design for the fighting game Newgrounds Rumble.[10] In Newgrounds Rumble, Fancy Pants Man was supposedly invited for free ice cream in the Newgrounds world until he finds out that it was a setup for revenge by the other characters in the Newgrounds universe. Newgrounds did not appreciate "kiddy" games unlike killing, shooting, violent, etc. games. Fancy later fights characters like S'asshole, Hank, P-bot, Nene, and the Newgrounds mascot Pico. During the Pico and Nene stage, Pico's rival Piconjo joins Fancy's side. Fancy later tries to find whose idea was the setup.

The Fancy Pants Adventures games received a positive reaction from video game critics and "drew in crowds on sites like Newgrounds and Armor Games".[22] Both worlds have featured on numerous "Best Games" articles; on sites including TechCult,[23] ExtremeTech,[24] and GamesRadar+.[22]

As of May 2011, World 1 has been played about 7 million times on Armor Games, almost 7.8 million times on Addicting Games, and over 2.3 million times on Kongregate. World 2 has been played over 14.8 million times on Armor Games, over 17.8 million times on Addicting Games and over 5 million times on Kongregate. World 2 also won the 2008 Newgrounds Tank Award for Best Flash Game,[25] and is the fifth most played Flash game of 2008 in the Mochi Media Flash game advertising network.[26] The game was also nominated for Nick's Most Addicting Games Showdown.

IGN gave The Fancy Pants Adventures a score of 7.5, praising its parkour style gameplay, but criticising the inclusion of weapons and the lack of drop in multiplayer.[27]

• BorneGames.com Brad Borne's Website
• Fancy Pants Adventures