Dipper and Mabel Pines are spreading their adventurous investigations to Nintendo’s handheld 3DS system, with publisher Ubisoft announcing that its using the same graphics engine behind the visually dazzling Rayman Legends and Child Of Light to power a new game, Gravity Falls: Legend Of The Gnome Gemulets. Players will play as both of the Pines siblings, with Dipper acting as a short-ranged melee character and Mabel fighting from a distance, using her beloved grappling hook to traverse levels based on the show’s locations. Creator Alex Hirsch is said to be involved with the development of the game, although long-time fans of the series will know that you’re not supposed to trust anyone in Gravity Falls, especially when it comes to the “involvement” of creators in licensed video game adaptations of their works.
While success stories like Rocksteady’s Arkham games and smaller efforts like Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (which featured art from Paul Robertson, who provided the character designs for Gravity Falls’ video game-themed “Fight Fighters”) have proven that “licensed game” doesn’t immediately translate to “eventual landfill filler” anymore, it remains to be seen if Ubisoft’s game can capture the elements that make Gravity Falls such a treat. In any case, we might get a new chiptunes-style remix of the show’s amazing theme song out of the deal, which seems like a pretty fair trade.