Weng Chen who is also known as “wonn” to some people is an illustrator, manga artist, and game developer–and a game player. She did all of the 2D art for Fat Princess, and was nominated for Best Downloadable Game by Spike TV Video Game Awards in 2010. Previously Weng wrote the manga Messycow about her experiences in World of Warcraft. Today Gaming Angels Geek Woman was able to ask her some questions about her work.

In a blog announcing the release of Fat Princess, she mentions that “I enjoyed drawing Fat Princess, just like I enjoy drawing Messycow, I guess I like to turn people’s idea bout something not so beautiful and perfect, anything can be cute and lovely–a cow or a fat girl. I mean, why only women with pretty face and sexy figure can be the main characters in games?”

And we tend to agree. With a year behind us that lacked playable female avatars, in Fat Princess players can create and play female avatars. Then those avatars can become either a warrior, priest, or mages or change your mind and switch classes. The game busts the damsel in distress stereo -type by making it possible for the princess to be saved by a female character.

Geek Woman: For many girls getting to create a game world and its characters is a dream job. What background in art did you have?

Weng Chen: I started to draw as early as I can remember, it’s always been my passion. In elementary school I was introduced to Manga (Japanese comic book) and was crazy about it. I published my first Manga in age of 14, on a Chinese comic magazine. I went to art school in college and studied environment design, but what I did most in college was drawing manga.

Geek Woman: Did you start out in art wanting to be a game artist?

Weng Chen: No. I was hoping to be a manga artist for a long time.

GW: What led you to working on a game?

Weng Chen: Doing Manga couldn’t support myself at the time in China so I had to look for a job. I always liked games and the art, I thought designing for game was fun. Luckily I got hired by Ubisoft and started my game career.

GW: How did you come about being part of the team for Fat Princess?

Weng Chen: We started as a very small company with a few friends. We had some ideas of making a multi-play action game and I did some doodling, and it was the early concept of Fat Princess.

GW: When I saw the gallery of portraits that were at your Studio Wonn show, I loved them, they are all of women. Are they real life people?

Weng Chen: Not really. I like to imagine characters when I illustrate. I used to use real life people in my story writing for manga, but it’s rare.

GW: Or are they characters that came to you somehow?

Weng Chen: I just really like to draw female characters, it’s natural to draw them.

GW: Some of them look very elemental, are your some of your portraits spiritually inspired?

Weng Chen: I am inspired by a lot of things, things that’s beautiful and energetic, pictures, movies, music, etc. I did some concept for a game related to spirit, maybe you meant those.

GW: Any chance that you will do a book such as a manga soon?

Weng Chen: I just did a comic for our new game, to introduce the background story and establish the characters. It’s a short story and I printed it out by myself. I always want to do manga again, depends on time and if I can come out a good story.

GW: Will there be a Fat Princess 2?

Weng Chen: Titan Studio no longer works on Fat Princess since releasing the game and a few patches. Sony had another company take over and made the newest patch. I don’t know if there is going to be an FP2, it’s their decision.

GW: What is the next project for you?

Weng Chen: I just started a studio called ” StudioWonn” ( http://studiowonn.com). I’ve been doing games and digital art for a long time and I feel it’s necessary for me to open my eyes and be inspired and creative in a lot of ways. There are lots of ideas I want to illustrate, and I was exploring printing, watercolor and oil, maybe even graffiti and sculpting. I get excited thinking about these art projects and really enjoy doing them. I will keep making games too, I hope the next project will be a fun one.

A new map pack is now available on PSN and it’s going to be released for free! We all love that! The US PS blog has the details from Titan Studios about Patch 1.03 and the new New Pork city level.

Also implemented in the patch are fixes and tweaks to make the game better. The demo will go live with the release of 1.03 so if you haven’t tried it out yet you will be able to.

Some examples are the candy confetti used when blood effect is turned off, various scoring updates, and bug fixes.

Head over to the Playstation blog for the complete list of tweaks and fixes.

Fat Princess

Many PS3 owners that bought Fat Princess love the game but have been complaining about the problems connecting to an online game. Titan Studios seems to have found the “specific problem” and insists that they are working on it right now.

“Players are sometimes experiencing significant lag in some games. Thanks to your feedback, we’ve identified a specific problem and already have a fix in testing. The matchmaking system will randomly pick potential servers bases on a number of criteria. As implemented, the results that are returned are fit in some regards, but sometimes have a high ping for your location,” said the studio on its blog.

“We have implemented a number of fixes for previously identified problems, focusing most of our efforts on connection failures. We have already tested this patch on our own client machines, and performance appears to be dramatically improved. We are working with Sony now to get the patch into the Sony testing process as soon as possible.”

Fat Princess is already available to download, but you may want to wait until the game is patched to play online.

Fat Princess Playstation Home

According to PS Blog, the US Home update is live and it includes a Movie Theater and a new Fat Princess Space.

The Movie Theater update now has a brand-new 10 screen layout, a new lobby, and the ability to unlock rewards in select screening rooms. The screening rooms will have exclusive videos over the next few months and there is a possibility for full-length tv shows or movies.

Burn Zombie Burn has an area where you can watch Burn Zombie Burn videos, or go through the zombie-infested maze mini-game.

In the new Fat Princess space there will be an event launched tomorrow “Quest for Cake”. Gamers will have to find eight pieces of cake locked away in cages. To unlock the cake, feed the princess and search for clues.

Fat Princess

Gamers that have been waiting for Fat Princess will only have to wait for a little while longer. Deborah Mars confirmed on Playstation blog that Fat Princess will be on Playstation Network this Thursday, July 30th for $14.99.

They also have a video from Playstation blog answering fans questions about the title. Enjoy!

Fat Princess was supposed to be coming to Playstation Network this week, but Sony’s Mike Kebby confirmed on the EU Playstation Blog that Fat Princess will not be coming out in June as promised.

“The game is coming at some point this summer, but there is no confirmed release date at the moment.”

The beta seems to be still running only no one was online when I tried to play it.

It’s been about a year since the PSN (Playstation Network) cards became available in the US. In that time, I have waited ever so impatiently for them to figure out how to bring the cards to Canada. I don’t like using my credit card to purchase points or Xbox Live time, and I am a huge fan of the pre-paid card.

Well, a little birdy had informed me the PSN cards were finally on their way. And today while I was visiting at EB Games, they arrived! PSN cards are available in either $20 or $50 increments (same as our US neighbours).

I'm so happy!!

The first game I bought today was Q-Bert! Holding off now for Fat Princess because that game looks awesome!

You can find me on the PSN: Yuki-Hime

The opinions herein are that of the author and does not represent the opinions of GamingAngels.com, others of it’s staff or owner.

So everyone, there’s this new game was announced at this year’s E3 called “[b]Fat Princess[/b].” I’m sure if you frequent this site, then you’ve at least heard of the game and have by this time, formed your own opinion of it.

[b]An official summary of the game from [url=http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Games/Fat_Princess]Playstation.com (us)[/url]:[/b]
[quote]Frantic and fun, Fat Princess pits two hordes of players against each other in comic medieval battle royale. Your goal is to rescue your beloved princess from the enemy dungeon. There’s a catch though: your adversary has been stuffing her with food to fatten her up and it’s going to take most of your army working together to carry her back across the battlefield.

You can switch between five different character classes literally at the drop of a hat: the fearless Warrior, the steadfast Archer, the mystical Mage, the tireless Worker, and the deadly Priest. In order to triumph, players must combine their skills and work together. The name of the game is cooperation, whether it’s helping another player drag a log back to your castle, manning a battering ram to smash through the enemy’s front gate, or building a human pyramid to scramble over the walls.

[b]Key Features[/b]

* Casual Single & Multiplayer Online/Offline Action – Cooperate with your team of medieval soldiers (up to 16 players on each side) to overthrow the opponent’s army, plunder their castle and save the princess
* 5 Character Classes – Change your avatar’s character anytime by swapping hats: Worker, Warrior, Archer, Mage and Priest
* 10 Unique Maps – There will be 10 maps total, shared across single & multiplayer modes
* Experience intense frantic gameplay across diverse, charming and challenging environments
* Resources & Upgrades – Work together to collect resources to upgrade your primitive weapons and basic castle defenses into superior armaments and impenetrable fortifications
* Unique Game Modes – Select from several various game types: Rescue the Princess, Thwart the Invasion, and Medieval Games
* 32-player Online Skirmish – Jump in and join as many as 32 players online to wreak havoc on the battlefield and carry your stout princess back home during the conflict[/quote]

I’ve been mulling over the idea of bringing the unique concept of this game to life as well as the public’s reaction to it’s announcement over in my head for days now. I keep wondering this or that about how the whole thing will end up going down in the end.

It seems that female gamers and/or overweight people alike all over the interweb are in an uproar over this game. According to an article I was reading at [url=http://www.feministgamers.com/?p=466]FeministGamers.com[/url] , it’s an apparently touchy subject. And [url=http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-write-letters.html]THIS woman[/url] is [i]really[/i] pissed.

I would really hate to see a ridiculously fun-looking game like this end up being tossed to the winds due to mass gamer disapproval. I get severely annoyed at people who are intolerant in any way, shape or form. It’s not my duty to judge their personal opinion, but I am sure of my right to disagree with it. Having said this, I think that the people out there who take one look at this game and shout, “Blasphemy! Discrimination! Intolerance!” need to really take a deep breath, step back and lighten up.

Now, I’m not an advocate of reinforcing steriotypes, fat-bashing or intolerance of any kind, but in my opinion, there is little wrong with this game if you think about it. The concept was probably conceived over a few too many beers while watching “Fat Actress” or something. Everyone knows that they come up with crazy ideas like this with their friends or even alone while their mind wanders, it’s just that no one ever thought to make it into a video game before. Lucky Sony. But really, nobody ever complains when there’s a game about a fat [i]guy[/i]. We all love Peter Griffin and Fat Albert. When Homer Simpson inflates his body and rolls around all over the ground like a beach ball in “The Simpsons Game”, nobody complains.

It’s not like the game is just a fat princess eating cake and people laughing at her. The game has a plot that is commonly seen. There’s a bunch of Knights trying to save a princess just like a lot of games, movies and stories. Why can’t the white knight come and ride off into the sunset with the fat princess on his horse? Nobody complains when someone’s trying to save the skinny princess. Who says that the Fat Princess deserves to be saved less than that damn Princess Peach?

You know what, you’re in control of at least a hundred men giving their lives just trying to save [i]one[/i] little princess (the term little used loosely). But hey, fat or not, I bet you she commands some respect to get that kind of a rescue. And besides it’s not like she [i]wants[/i] to do all that eating. She’s being force-fed by your enemy for Christ’s sake. I would want to get her out of there too.

BTW: Looks like there’ll be a lot of blood in the game too. Nothing wrong with that? We’re just too desensitized to it to notice that part.

I think the people who are mad at this game are just mad to have something to be mad at. No… just kidding. They probably relate to the situation and see it as degrading that someone that they see in themselves being treated in a way that they think is wrong, so they feel as if it’s a personal attack on them.

I think we should all give “[b]Fat Princess[/b]” a go and see what it’s about for ourselves before we give way to mindless disgust filled chatter.

Let’s just lighten up people… and pray to [i]GOD[/i] they never make “Black Princess.”

Live, love and laughs,
~Meg