Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor, also known as Looney Tunes: Cartoon Concerto in Europe and Australia, is a licensed Rhythm Game developed by Amaze Entertainment and published by Eidos Interactive for the Nintendo DS.
The plot, as explained in the tutorial: The Tazmanian Devil has destroyed some classic Looney Tunes cartoons. The powers that be are furious and want those cartoons remade. The cast is there, but for everything to work, you, the player, need to conduct the music with the DS stylus. This entails hitting "notes" (circles, with the occasional square) at the right time, earning points in the process. It shares much in common with Elite Beat Agents and the Japanese game that was based on, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan.
If you hit the notes at the right time, both the music and the cartoon go smoothly. If you don't, they both go wrong. (Strangely, this can lead to situations where bad but acceptable conducting comes closer to the original footage than good conducting.)
The music is all classical, though some are at least partially remade.
Tropes:
- Animated Actors: The Looney Tunes cast are portrayed as actors that film their performances instead of mere cartoons.
- Cutscene: While the player interacts with the touchscreen, 3D versions of the Looney Tunes perform on the top screen, with the quality of their performances dependent on the music.
- Funny Animal: All of the main Looney Tunes cast feature in the game, including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
- Harder Than Hard: The Looney difficulty level.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: From easiest to hardest, there's Apprentice, Conductor, Maestro, and Looney.
- Interface Screw: If you are doing really badly, the screen on which the notes appear dims.
- Life Meter: The audience approval thermometer; if the player performs badly and it bottoms out, it's a game over.
- No Fourth Wall: Some remakes of "Rabbit Fire" will end in what is effectively "Conductor Season" — yes, Elmer does shoot the upper screen — and that is an intentional ending!
- Non-Standard Game Over: You can fail if the Life Meter empties, and then the cartoon ends early.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: All the music tracks are classical music tracks.
- Re Make: Remaking the cartoons, at least visually, is the goal of this game.
