Australia's Krome Studios has been hard at work turning Rare's original Viva Pinata Xbox 360 title into a party game, and from what we've played so far, it seems like they're on the right track. While our previous hands-ons have been mainly with individual minigames, we recently received some almost-complete code of Viva Pinata: Party Animals and have finally found out exactly how the party will play out.

Party Animals takes the world unveiled in the original Viva Pinata and expanded upon in the television show and turns it into a series of minigames for up to four players (both offline and online). This new game will feature eight characters to play as: TV show regulars Fergy Fudgehog, Paulie Pretztail, Franklin Fizzlybear, Hudson Horstachio, and their female equivalents of Francine Fudgehog, Petunia Pretztail, Florence Fizzlybear, and Hailey Horstachio. Each character has their own distinct personality, but there didn't seem to be any difference at all in how they controlled within the game.

Each Party Animals session is made up of a mixture of the game's 50 minigames and point-to-point races, with each race used as a way of going from one series of minigame challenges to another. Players can decide how long they want to play at the start by choosing one of three lengths--a medium length game, for example, consists of five races with two minigame challenges in between each race, while a long one has seven races and three challenges each. There's also a custom game option, so players can decide exactly how many races and minigames they want to play through.

From our extensive early plays, Viva Pinata: Party Animals looks like it will be a welcome addition to the Xbox 360's admittedly small family game line-up. The game is set for release in October in the US, with other territories to follow.