FACT: D3Publisher of America’s new publicist, Edith Yang is a total hoot, sitting there cheerily playing and promoting Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! clearly knowing it’s got “Sleeper Hit” stamped on it in big red invisible neon ink letters. I have special glasses, so I can see that on the big banner off to one side with the game logo on it. I say nothing about these glasses as I’m not wearing any and don’t want to sound completely insane by stating the opposite. But I digress…

Yang also knows anyone who happens to be a fan of the Cartoon Network show who owns a PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS or PC would beat a gory path with a set of broken hedge clippers (no blades, just the handles) through a deep, dark forest  filled with bucktoothed bears wearing thick geek glasses  to get their grubby (or clean) gamer paws on a controller and go dungeon diving with Finn, Jake, Marceline, Cinnamon Bun and the rest of the AT crew for endless hours of randomly generated dungeons packed with plenty of monster dispatching and loot grabbing fun.

She knows this, but she’s being almost too coy, letting us lucky typing drones have a seat next to her, pick up a controller and see what’s what with the in-progress game. She looks sideways at us as we play, watches us grinning like lunatics with a purpose in life as the old-school visuals (a fine and dandy mix of 2D retro sprites and top-down 3D backdrops), voice acting from the show’s cast and hilarious special magic attacks suck us into floor after floor until our already fan-glazed eyeballs double-dip themselves in a sugary glaze and were blinded to the game’s addictive charms.

The game has a familiar action/RPG look and feel to it that’s similar to the classic arcade game, Gauntlet with a LOT of Adventure Time thrown in so you KNOW it’s not exactly like Gauntlet. Each character has a basic and strong attack, can pick up and use assorted weapons and some characters can navigate over pits others need to go the long way around. In solo play, the game will test you with some tricky enemies that can whip you from afar and bosses that tend to humorously rant on before they jump you to stomp, laser blast and otherwise pain the marrow from your chosen avatar’s pixel-shaped bones. If you’re playing well with other live players, you can be revived if they reach you in time. Otherwise, you’ll be old cinnamon toast if you go down for the count.

Yes indeed, this could get bad and bloody. “Bad” as in you will start playing this game and forget about stuff like the legendary acts of “sleeping”, “eating” and other bodily functions best left described on a more interesting site (hey, I know my limitations). “Bloody” as in you’ll need friends and relatives to drag you from in front of the bloody TV or monitor after they break through your door and find you clutching that controller in a death grip. But you’re not dead at all – you’re just looped into “one more level!” mode and that random generator isn’t letting you stop despite the game having a “finite” number of levels (over 100, Yang coyly noted) and a story with a proper beginning, middle and ending.

Yang smoothly eases into chatting up the ability for four players to have at it in Adventure Time’s co-op mode which is thankfully, offline and only requires a couch or floor and more controllers. I immediately think of two people I can borrow to play this with me who like the show, but I’ll need to kidnap or bribe a fourth it seems. I decide against doing this, as I don’t want to be caught and go to prison and miss the game’s release. That would be bad, missing the game’s release. It’s noted that there’s no date just yet, but it’ll be before the end of the year and I wince a little. Not because of that latter news, mind you. I was so thrilled to finally play this game that I sat on my keys. Ouch.

Shifting a bit in my seat to stop the poky bluntness, I got hit on the head by some pointy bluntness from Yang’s changing the subject about that release date. Of course, she’d already noted it was this year, but I think I was busy noticing the keys poking me where they didn’t have to. Naturally, I didn’t want to tell her I had a pain in the butt, as she may have taken that the wrong way and given me a paper cut with one of her business cards. But she smiled and coyly went back to talking up busy (and forever awesome) developer Wayforward Technologies and the stellar work they’ve done here. I’m eyeballing the Wii U and maybe 3DS versions for review as the former console needs more love and the latter (that gets all the love) looks just like its console big brothers and cousins with an interesting second screen I need to bug Edith about soon. I think she noted this screen would also be part of the Wii U version, but my keys decided to poke me again and I was distracted into shifting once more.

Anyway, you don’t need me to tell you to BUY THIS GAME when it comes out, so I just spent over 800 words doing exactly that. I am sometimes very good at what I do (at least I like to imagine so, folks). I’d be more extremely pleased with myself than usual, but I have the feeling that a certain new publicist at D3PoA will be throwing candy daggers at my face the next time we meet. Or she’ll just send a buck-toothed bear after me who has better vision and hedge clippers WITH blades. Eek. I wonder if covering myself with bees will help? While I explore that option – keep and eyeball peeled for Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! when it rolls into stores… um, I don’t know when. Really, I don’t.

Uh… Hey, Edith? When does this come out again?