00:00Peggy 3
00:14When I was thinking about what people remember fondly about the game,
00:17at the time I think it was enjoying the thrills and getting the timing right when they played it.
00:23I think enjoying the game world and experiencing the fantasy world of Disney were a big part of it too.
00:30What they'll see in the 2013 version will be nothing like the old game in some sense,
00:34but I'm hoping that players can relive the same emotions when they play it.
00:39Taking something that was very iconic in the 16-bit era and thinking,
00:45well how can we take something that was really special, really worked well,
00:48was one of the most iconic games of its time,
00:51and actually try and explore that in new ways with the technology.
00:54You have to be very mindful of what made the original so successful and why people loved it.
00:59and try and bring that forward without it being just, you know, literally a one-for-one remake.
01:06There were a lot of unique games at the time in terms of graphics or the general atmosphere of the
01:10game.
01:11Even among those, this game made an impression that still lasts, and now it's being remade.
01:15The fact that we're bringing back something nostalgic that people remember fondly as a game they enjoyed years ago,
01:20to me is the epitome of Disney.
01:27The original game, it just had a lot going for it.
01:29I think even the name Castle of Illusion was something cool.
01:31You know, straight away Castle of Illusion says,
01:33Oh, what's that? What's inside that castle?
01:36Then you've got Mickey Mouse, biggest character in the world,
01:38so straight away you're like,
01:39Oh, that's awesome, we're going to play Mickey Mouse through this castle of illusion.
01:42And it innovated on all levels.
01:44Camera, control, platforming, and I think the core gamers absolutely loved it.
01:49So that, in essence, it's a very simple platformer, but it grabs the magic of Disney, the magic of Mickey.
01:55It was my first time making a game, so I came up with ideas I thought might be interesting and
01:59things I thought would help flesh out the fantasy world
02:02without being hesitant about how difficult or unconventional they might be.
02:06In that sense, I think that helped us make a unique game.
02:11First, the animation was unique in that it used a remarkable number of frames in the animation for its time.
02:16We tried to use as many techniques from film animation as we could.
02:20Also, we put a lot of energy into the backgrounds for its time, packing in as much as we could
02:24given the memory constraints.
02:25I think both efforts paid off in terms of the game's graphic quality.
02:29A Disney animation is always moving, from beginning to end.
02:33At the time we were making our game, if you didn't do something on the controller, nothing would move at
02:38all.
02:39So we thought, if we want to bring Disney animations to life, we need things moving on the screen all
02:44the time.
02:46These days you see it in almost all games, but at the time, we were one of the first games
02:50where your character would move even when you're not doing anything.
02:54The amount of memory or VRAM that we had to work with at the time was really tiny.
02:59You need memory to make good, rich animations.
03:02But the way VRAM had been used prior to that point wasn't very well suited for animations like that.
03:07So we worked with the programmers to rebuild the system from the ground up to let us focus more on
03:12the animations.
03:13Once we got the animations where we wanted them, we adjusted the character's movements pixel by pixel for a better
03:19feel when the player controls him.
03:25When we were told to make a Mickey Mouse game, I didn't want to make a game that was just
03:28about Mickey being cute.
03:30Our focus was on how we could include the Disney world view from their classic movies.
03:35So rather than Mickey Mouse alone, we drew inspiration from the various classic movies that Disney's produced.
03:45Games at the time were 8-bit or 16-bit, so there wasn't really a lot of room to work
03:49with.
03:50Most people in the industry weren't putting a lot of work into graphics or creating animations that conveyed a lot
03:56of character emotion.
03:56When we watched Disney movies and Mickey, it seemed like such a waste to take the fluid animations and beautiful
04:03backgrounds and turn them into pixelated graphics.
04:06So I think we put a lot more work into the graphics than any other title at the time.
04:11When we were making the Dragon Balls for the candy stage, we couldn't figure out what to use for the
04:16dragon's body.
04:17Someone from Sega's US office sent us some licorice as a suggestion.
04:21Most of the team hated it, but I couldn't stop eating it.
04:24I was holding one of the hollow ones in my mouth and breathing through it like a straw as I
04:28worked and ended up filling the whole room with the smell.
04:32When we were working on this game, I was focused on animations and recreating the world of Disney.
04:38And now, modern technology can deliver Disney visuals directly and cinematically rather than via blocky pixel graphics.
04:45The new game will be able to recreate the world of Disney movies on a level that we weren't able
04:49to reach.
04:50The world the game creates, and the game itself as well, will be that much closer to the world you
04:56see in the movies.
04:57People will be able to enjoy that as they play.
05:00The original game had this, and it's there in the remake as well.
05:03The essence of Disney, a positive world of dreams, peace and imagination.
05:09It's the epitome of Disney, and I hope everyone enjoys that in the new game too.
05:18We're very fortunate to be still working with the original producer of the game.
05:23I don't think many other studios have ever had that opportunity.
05:28Sega actually approached us about this a number of times, so I've seen prototypes and ideas from other developers as
05:34well.
05:35But with SSA's prototype, it took me back to when I was working on the original game.
05:39It reminded me of things I was feeling at the time, or what was going through my head as I
05:43was working on it.
05:45That's a wonderful thing, and it made me really want to work with them.
05:48The prototype we delivered was actually to be presented to the producer of the original game.
05:53There is nothing like that as a goal to motivate a team, and then to fly a lot of that
06:00team over to Japan and present live.
06:03I myself was quite nervous. I feared that the producer was very tough, very talented.
06:08She did the original game.
06:09We were there in the meeting, everything was quiet.
06:11She walks in, everybody's very nervous.
06:15It went phenomenally well.
06:17She was happy, she was laughing, she enjoyed what we did to Mickey.
06:21For us to change the mechanics, we have to be very cautious.
06:25We can't steer too far away from the feel of Mickey, and we can't go too retro, because there were
06:31technology constraints in those days on what you could do with Mickey.
06:34So we've analyzed the feel of Mickey, the jump heights, the inertia, the turn, on the edge of a cliff.
06:42And we've been able to just knock it out of the park, all the animations, and now we're challenged by
06:47the feel of Mickey.
06:48So we feel we can move from the retro to retro plus.
06:52We can do more of what I think the gamers in those days would have loved, because of our technology.
06:57It's more lifelike, it's more fun.
07:00Woohoo!
07:02The lighting effects are taken into account the candlelight in the background.
07:06So all of a sudden the personality, the core pillar of the game, Mickey, is brought to life.
07:11And that's something that we really want to do with Castle of Illusion, is try and modernize Mickey, but put
07:15him in the context of what we had before in the original game.
07:18And our challenge then is to try and improve the animations, the look and feel of Mickey, the characters around
07:25Mickey, the environments that he's in.
07:28And even the music score is a massive part of that whole Disney package.
07:35Primarily we're able to do a lot more with the sound effects, the mixing, the environmental effects.
07:40I mean these are all things that we've come to expect without realizing it.
07:46If a fan of the original picks up and plays the new Castle of Illusion, I think they're going to
07:49be really surprised.
07:51I think they're going to feel like this is Castle of Illusion and I think we've played a few little
07:55tricks on them along the way.
07:56And I think if they're looking out for those things that they remember, they're going to see them and a
08:01few extra as well.
08:03That's the thing I'm most nervous about, when people who've played the game before get their hands on the new
08:08game.
08:08What will they think? I can't wait to find out.
08:11It's expressed in a completely different way, but the essence is the same.
08:15So I hope the enjoyment they experience from it is the same.
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