'Wallace & Gromit' to become episodic video game

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Telltale Games is creating an episodic video game based on Aardman Animations' Oscar-winning animated film series titled "Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures." The popular stop-motion clay animated franchise stars the cheese-loving, hair-brained inventor Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and his long-suffering loyal pooch, Gromit.

"We're certainly going for the clay look with this," Telltale Games CEO Dan Connors told The Associated Press. "Clay presents a challenge if you really get into the detail of it. For example, adding fingerprints in a medium where there aren't any is one of the discussions of how far we should go with the game's detail."

"Grand Adventures" will allow gamers to play as both Wallace and Gromit, engaging in zany entrepreneurial schemes and tinkering with kooky contraptions. Connors said "Grand Adventures" will feature more physical and situation-based comedy and would likely follow the distribution model of Telltale's episodic video game series "Sam & Max."

Aardman Animations has produced three Academy Award-winning "Wallace & Gromit" animated short films as well as the full-length feature film "The Curse of The Were-Rabbit," which won an animated film Oscar in 2006. "A Matter of Loaf and Death," a fourth animated short starring the twosome, is currently in production.

The characters previously appeared in the standalone games "Cracking Contraptions," "Project Zoo" and "Curse of The Were-Rabbit."

Connors hopes the new take on "Wallace & Gromit" will be more true to the franchise than previous games.

"The other games captured the personality, but all you ended up doing was running through the world," said Connors. "It was a standard platform game. We feel like the gameplay should be more of an experience. You should be able to interact with the other characters and really feel like you're in the world of 'Wallace & Gromit.'"