What is the Army Men Toyverse project?
Initially our project was going to be a video game only, Army Men Revolution. But currently we are thinking about something broader, not just a video game, but a series of MODs, animations and stories in different formats, mostly interactive, which together we will going to call “Army Men Toyverse”.
Why “Toyverse”? Because it’s not just about the plastic soldiers, but about the other different types of toys, here called “toykinds” which is equivalent to saying “species”, but in this case the “species” of toys. And by Toyverse we mean the entire world they live in, which is not only the Plastic World and the Human World (Real World), but all the other Toy themed worlds. For example the Medieval World, which is like a kind of medieval fantasy world with dragons and characters like Merlin, King Arthur, Dracula, Don Quixote de la Mancha, Frankenstein and Van Helsing, Robin Hood, etc. A world with a very attractive theme for that kind of particular sector of potential players, full of classic characters… copyright-free lol.
And the same thing happens with the Prehistoric World, Space world, Brick World (the world of Army Men equivalents for LEGO) and Action World, the world of action figures and superheroes, among many more. FINALLY, we think it’s better to focus our project on a universe of toys, the Toyverse, also called Microverse, to be able to collaborate with many more people. Without going any further, Attack on Toys is a game that combines Army Men plastic soldiers, action figures and LEGO figures fighting against each other.
It started out as a game of plastic soldiers very much in tune with the Army Men franchise, and after expanding by making Action Figures and LEGO figures playable, it did not lose its essence, its Army Men identity. And on the contrary, it is now played by those people who like LEGO figures and action figures.
But in our case the Real World will be the most important part of the project, which will also involve battles with animals. Anyway, you can read about all these things on this website.
This website is the first step into this Army Men Toyverse project. Is written from the perspective of the Army Men, as if they were the ones describing their historical events and classifying the components of their world and everything related to their Toyverse. Each of the video games is taken as stories of historical events.
We reached an agreement between developers regarding the audience of our fan game:
During all this time, working with other people related to the Army Men videogames fandom, we came to the conclusion that a game just for Army Men fans would not be worth our time and hard work, because there are very few of them. It is not a popular topic. And although there are people interested and potentially interested in plastic soldier games, they are not hard fans of this franchise, but rather “normies”: They liked the games or like the theme, but they are not die-hard fans.
So although it will be a sequel to the 3DO’s Army Men franchise, involving its characters, it will be first a game for new audiences, focused on the “new audience” perspective. So no “only hard Army Men content”. And we are going to make new players have to play the old games to discover key things in the story of Revolution, getting the new audience retroactively interested in playing the old game classics.
The story:
The story will progress over time, possibly with the release of DLC in the format of campaigns, seasons or chapters (whatever name we will going to use). It will also be developed on this website, and the players will shape that story, interacting with us and throwing out ideas (Maybe you will know how to solve the “mystery boxes” better than us).
At some point our idea is that each player will be a unique character in this universe, even if they look the same than the rest of the plastic soldiers. They can all be made from the same mold, right?.
Our personal mission:
What are our intentions in all this? In addition to wanting to continue the original Army Men franchise and give it a better closure than that bittersweet ending it had in Army Men: Sarge’s War and Army Men: Major Malfunction, we want to use this story to reflect some current issues that are really important for us. Because, why make a hollow game or story with nothing to say or communicate?
Among some of our intentions are to raise more empathy for the environment & fauna of our planet and other humanity planetary issues in general. For the youngest or the smallest kids, the simple intention of teaching new and interesting things. For this reason we will going to introduce certain things like animals into the game and the ability to collect data about our world. Anyway, stuff like that.
The game universe:
Everything will take place in a universe we called “Toyverse” that has clearly existed for a long time for us (the spectators) with past events, old known characters, known places, etc. But not that long. Something like the first Star Wars movie, which was implied to be set in a large universe that had already existed for a long time, in a story that have a long time background (from original movies to the time of the prequels).
The main universe will be the Real World (Big World) and you can travel to all types of worlds via Portals. Our idea is to dedicate ourselves to the worlds that people most want us to develop. So it will depend on the interest of the players where the game goes. That does not mean that the Plastic World will be left aside. But at least initially, if no one is interested on it, it will be the last thing to be developed further.
These Army Men (plastic soldiers) come from a world different from ours, as the introduction of Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes says “A world exists quite different from our own (…)” and for them our world, the Giant World which they now call “Real World” is an equivalent for us to what would be another planet. And the same regarding with other worlds to which they can travel via the mysterious Portals.
And what would we do, humans, if we went to other planets?: Study them. For this reason, the Army Men study these strange and new worlds (from their perspective), collecting data and trying to solve the mysteries of their existence, since the Plastic World already suspects that their world of origin is the Other World, the Giant World, which they now call “Real World” because they think it’s the real world they come from (all clues point to it). Who created the Army Men? Who put those mysterious Portals?, with what intention?
But at the same time, it’s been a while since the Army Men plastic soldiers are studying these other worlds, and they have already made the mistake of interfering and changing them. We can quote Plastro and all the chaos that broke out when he arrived to the Real World. The same with Brigitte Bleu, who conquered and commanded with her fatal charm several other worlds (or at least they both tried).
But beyond these 2 known examples, in the time between that and Revolution, other events happened, which, like the Plastro and Bleu examples, always brought Plastic World to the brink of extinction. Therefore, in addition to studying the Real World, the Army Men alliance has created rules not to interfere and do not change these worlds, as much as possible, and even restore the natural order in them. For this reason, some missions for players will range from preserving a giant tree intact, to rescuing and healing an injured animal (even defending it to the death).
To finish with this point, what about humans? Well, nobody knows for sure. Everything indicates that this was their world and their species are no longer here, or at least there are not as many as before. This is a really big world, so that’s hard to check. There are reports of sightings, but none can be truly verified.
Gathering the information they left behind, theories suggest that they self-destructed. That is why the alliance of nations created the rules that apply to the exploration and respect for the preservation of other worlds, as well as their own. Balance will make natural progression harmony reign. The imbalance will cause some worlds to disappear, including the Plastic World.
There are other theories, based on the ideas left by humans, that say that everything is a computer simulation or that it is a parallel world. But these are not taken into consideration by the Alliance’s science division.