Xbox 360

Double Fine Happy Action Theater

Adventure

Overview

Double Fine Happy Action Theater (sometimes referred to as Happy Action Theater) is a casual video game developed by Double Fine Productions and distributed by Microsoft Game Studios. The title is a Kinect motion-sensing based title for the Xbox 360 and was released via the Xbox Live Arcade service on February 1, 2012. Happy Action Theater is based on an idea that Double Fine's founder, Tim Schafer, had on devising a game that Lily, his two-year-old daughter (at the time), could play with.

Happy Action Theater is an open-ended game, providing eighteen different modes that incorporate features of the Kinect motion-sensing and camera system. Players can select any one of the eighteen modes, or opt to have the game randomly select modes and cycle through them every few minutes. The game can support the tracking of up to 6 players.

Happy Action Theater was originally announced in October 2011 as Double Fine's next project after their Kinect-based Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster project. Schafer had found that in playing Kinect games with Lili, his 2-year-old daughter at the time, that her patience and behavior would often cause havoc with the Kinect system, caused by both limitations of the Kinect systems and the hard rules of the specific game. Schafer envisioned the concept of Happy Action Theater as to create the simplest playing experience possible such that his daughter could play it without help. Schafer's idea for the approach to Happy Action Theater was partially inspired by interactive advertisements at malls which would react to people passing in from them.

Double Fine Happy Action Theater was recognized by reviewers as a different experience that most game players, adults and older children, would expect, and recognized that the game was very well suited to younger children. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer reviewed the game through the eyes of his daughter, and well appreciated the efforts Double Fine had gone to give children full control of the game and avoids setting preconceived notions of game expectations, giving children the ability to explore with their imaginations, "make games in their head from the things around them". Similarly, IGN's Casey Lynch reviewed the game with his two sons, who both enjoyed many of the activities offered and the chance to find "secret things" within each of the activities.