‘OK K.O.’ is a brilliant cartoon with a game to match

The game

Capy's game is a bright, cheery blend of genres. It's partly an adventure game, with meticulously drawn 2D environments portraying Lakewood Plaza, Gar's Bodega and the robot Boxmore factory. You run around as K.O. and pick up quests from the show's standout characters: One mission, for instance, has you hiding in the carpark to catch an elusive vandal who keeps spray painting Rad's van. The culprit, unsurprisingly, is an android that wants nothing more than to make your life a misery. It's here that the game then shifts into a 2D fighter, with simple but stylish combos and special summons.

"This is a game that I've really wanted to make," Vella says. "I love fighting games, I love brawlers and I love marrying genres together. In the history of Capy, we've never really made something that fits in that fighting-game-brawling space, even though it's my favorite genre. So this game is something that's been percolating at the studio and at some point we probably would have wanted to make." The game has plenty of throwbacks to the show and humor that can be enjoyed by all ages. It's also surprisingly deep, with a combat system that doles out style, strength and other useful stat bonuses depending on your performance in battle.

"We were figuring things out in the show at the same time as they were figuring them out in the game," Jones-Quartey said. "So week-to-week, any time we came up with something, be it a new design, a new storyboard, new animatics, things we working on for the show, Capy had access to all of it. So we were just sharing whatever we were making with them, and they were sharing their stuff with us. They were telling us about solutions they were coming up with, and then we would be like, 'Oh, that's a good idea, maybe we can work that into the show.'"

It's a true collaboration that wouldn't have been possible unless Jones-Quartey was willing to give up a degree of creative control. He describes OK K.O. as a "playground" for creativity, a property that embraces different interpretations. The show and the game, for instance, have completely different art styles, like the shorts that were released on YouTube. "One of the things I was a big proponent of very early on was, 'Look, instead of having a stranglehold on what it is, we should just find people who we trust and whose taste we like and just set them free,'" Jones-Quartey said.

"We were given complete license to do our own art, our own music, our own writing, our own gameplay," Vella says. "And that was the focus. We didn't have to fight for that, that was the push."

That freedom is fast becoming a model for the video-game industry. The best licensed titles, like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, have (almost) completely original stories. They're based on properties that people love, but have unique, refreshing takes on the world, characters and lore.

"Batman and Shadow of Mordor are important because they're showing other developers that you're not stuck in this little, itty-bitty bubble," Vella says. "We've made those games in the past. When we were starting out, we did all licensed work, and it was awful, it was an extremely taxing way to build because we were building with no room to move. It was: There's six months, there's a release that has to happen, there's a design that was written by somebody else already. And it has to be on brand, all of your models have to look exactly right ... the stuff that's great in games is everything that pushes past it."

Toby Jones, co-executive producer on OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

A different Cartoon Network

The project represents a shift in thinking at Cartoon Network. Video games are no longer an afterthought or secondary to animation. Shows are now conceived with the idea that they could be adapted and released in many different forms. It all started three years ago, when Rob Sorcher, Cartoon Network's chief content officer, decided to move the game production and publishing group inside the core content team. "At that point, we were no longer on the tail-end of the development process, but at the very beginning," Chris Waldron, vice president for games and digital products at Cartoon Network, said.

That setup allows Waldron and his team to approach show creators earlier in the development process. If there's a game-like reference or theme, it can be discussed and possibly nurtured into something that would work as a side project. Waldron can then look at signing a game developer who has the same sort of outlook and sensibilities as the show's creators.

OK K.O. is a unique case because of how long it spent in a conceptual development state. Nevertheless, it seems likely that this sort of collaboration will happen again, two teams with different backgrounds and areas of technical expertise working together to bring a charming world to life. It means that however you first experience OK K.O., whether that's the game or the show, you're getting something that's high-quality and stands on its own merits.

"A dream for us is for someone to play the game having never even seen the show and just be like, 'What a cool game!' And get interested in the characters that way. If they watch the show, great. But we want each thing to be the best thing for its individual medium," Jones said.