puzzle game. On August 11, 2003, Microsoft announced their partnership with publisher THQ for distributing Rare's GBA titles, including the newly revealed It's Mr. Pants, set for an early 2004 release. It's Mr. Pants was originally conceived by Rare veterans Tim Stamper and Gregg Mayles. The game was chiefly designed by Justin Cook and Paul Machacek. Cook, who credits himself for creating two-thirds of the game's levels, described It's Mr. Pants as "just a solid puzzle game", stating, "We knew that it wasn't a big 'wow' game, but the playability was there." After the breakdown of its relationship with Nintendo, Rare chose to rebrand the game using one of their other characters. The team initially considered using characters from the Banjo-Kazooie or Sabreman franchises before settling on Rare's online mascot Mr. Pants, which the company used in its website surveys collectively called "The Pantsboard". The character Mr. Pants was originally illustrated by artist Leigh Loveday, but the design was implemented into the game by Ryan Stevenson. Mayles recounted that the "childish" visual style used in It's Mr. Pants was accomplished by having the right-handed artists draw with their left hands to intentionally make the illustrations appear "genuinely bad". The Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers incarnation of the game featured the ability to switch between top-down 2D graphics and a 3D isometric layout. According to the developer, the isometric perspective was scrapped due to "consistency issues" when swapping between the two views, due to it being awkward seeing where puzzle pieces near the back of the board were, and finally because it "just didn't look as nice" as they had hoped. When It's Mr. Pants was first revealed as Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, the game was intended to be multiplayer for up to four individuals using the GBA Game Link Cable. Rare had experimented with various multiplayer modes during the game's development, but ultimately released the game as single-player only. Once the game was submitted to THQ, the publisher requested a few slight changes be made. For instance, the "Crayon Snake" that circles around the board in Marathon Mode was originally called the "trouser snake". It's Mr. Pants was also in development for the Gizmondo handheld, but was cancelled due to the console's failure. Reception The original game received "mixed or average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, receiving an average score of 73 out of 100. References External links