Disney Epic Mickey Conference Call with Warren Spector – Part 2

• (DigitalChumps): Many of us still define videogames by their value as a means for fun and escape—judged in part by their level of rampant creativity. Epic Mickey’s design seems to parallel this approach. Could you tell us a bit about how you balanced creativity and gameplay to produce such an enchanting game universe?

  • Thank you for describing it as an enchanting universe. The game is in part an homage to Disney’s creative history, but also to the creative process. The fact that Mickey has a brush and players get to use not a weapon, but an art tool is an homage to the artists at Disney. There’s a reason it’s sort of concept art brought to life as opposed to the usual “CG graphics”. The art style in the 2-D storytelling moments is inspired by animatics that they were going to use as guides for real, rendered 3-D art. But Spector stopped the idea where it was and said “no, let’s just put this on the screen, to expose the player to this work instead!”

• How open were Disney to letting Junction Point use their archives for this game?

  • Spector was amazed; they were absolutely, totally, completely open. He remembers a couple of situations where he wanted to, say, do an Alice in Wonderland world, but that a movie was coming, and everyone sort of mutually disagreed, but he was never really rejected. Early on he was working on using these sort of early Tinkerbelle ideas which were really strange and even sort of sexy, and someone along the line said “well, there’s this whole fairy thing going on at Disney”… so there was a mutual decision not to go there. But they were never completely told not to go there.

  • The amount of archival material they have was crazy. Most Hollywood studios never even thought about the value of all the concept art and stuff… they junked it. Disney kept it all! When he went into the Imagineering archives the first time, the guy said “I’m sorry we’ve only scanned 90,000 images so far.” 90,000 images; “are you kidding me?” Spector thought.

  • Constant surprises and things being found.

  • Tons of underground tunnels at the studio. The archives used to be stored in these tunnels. He asked one of the people if there are probably still things hidden down there, and the response was “oh yeah, for sure.”

• Mickey’s motivation in the story… what is it?

  • Deux Ex was called such thanks to Deus Ex Machina… God from the machine. But most videogames have terrible stories. He has made those to, but at least he tries not to.

  • In this game, Mickey gets trapped in this world where he doesn’t belong, and all he initially wants to do is escape and get back home. But over time, it becomes clear that there are all these characters that he’s forgotten, and he’s the reason that their lives are devastated. So the change in his goal is to then accept responsibility for this problem and set it right.

  • Mickey has an older brother, Oswald the lucky rabbit, who feels he is responsible for stealing the life and magic from his character. So Mickey then goes about righting those wrongs to redeem his brother. He “earns the right” to go home.

• Length?

  • No estimation necessary; the game isn’t linear. There is a map they haven’t shown; they call it “Ticket Booth”. If you just do the minimum necessary to get through it, you can literally get through it in five minutes. But you could spend an easy 45 minutes there if you did everything.

  • They’ve watched a lot of people play. Spector’s first playthrough took 26 hours. He’s a completionist and poked around and stuff.

  • Most people are taking around 15 hours.

  • Your play style really does matter though. In order to see, do, and collect everything in this game, they think you have to play through it at least three times.

  • Each play session is going to get shorter; you know things better, you’re more skilled. But you have to play differently each time to collect everything. If you’re solving a lot of problems, using paint, helping people, it will open a lot of doors… but it will close others still.

  • Players are already starting to figure out how to solve problems in ways they’ve never anticipated. There is one point where you either must free a trapped Gremlin or get a treasure. A player figured out how to do both (Spector has previously discussed this).

• Does the game feature any hidden Mickeys?

  • Yes.

• How significantly will players be able to lead the story of Disney Epic Mickey?

  • Every player is going to save Wasteland and redeem Oswald. So in that sense, the story is linear. That’s sort of Spector’s style: a linear story, but the paths to those choke points are very unique. How you play through it changes what you know about the world, what optional quests you encounter, etc.

• How many of the 2-D scrolling segments will be in the game?

  • Been shying away from an actual number, but it’s around 40. Inspired by lots and lots of cartoons by the way; not just the ones you’ve seen. They want players to discover things!

• Set difficulty levels or adaptive?

  • No way to adjust difficulty. For decades of making games, Spector has said that letting players decide how to solve problems is the best way to allow for a sort of difficulty adjustment. Offering players the variety of options to do things they way they want to sort of builds in this difficulty adjustment to him. He’s watched enough players play this game to believe that this really is true; it’s not just something he’s saying. People are finding their own fun in the world of Epic Mickey.

  • There are also some systems in place to help you if you’re stuck. For instance, you collect tickets in the game (among other things). You can hoard these for bragging rights, or you can buy your way past a problem or challenge at times (“I’ll give you 50 tickets to get out of my way”). You can also use the shops to buy quest items, if you just can’t find the last piece of X. Usually you can just go into a shop and buy it!

  • You can also buy health upgrades and such as well to make the game easier if you need to.

  • These things called guardians—these spirits—are attracted to you based on your play style. If you raise your hand, one of your guardians will streak off an create a trail to your next objective.

• Any of the game stages synchronized to music?

  • Some, yes; it wouldn’t be a Disney game if they didn’t do some of that. He worked on a Wing Commander game back in the 80s that changes tunes based on what you were doing. So for every place you visit in Epic Mickey, there is a set of themes that changes according to what you’re doing. Plenty of dynamic music!

  • But they also track your play style. If you are erasing everything, going as quickly as you can, etc, the music changes based on that also. Very cool.

• Touch on the composer?

  • Had an idea that there’s a “Disney sound”… something where you can close your eyes and listen to a Disney soundtrack and know that it’s a Disney soundtrack. He’s not enough of a musician to know what creates this, but he wanted this for Epic Mickey. He wanted “the Small World tune”, but “turned inside out.” Recognizable but different. Give me a “Mickey Mouse” theme that sounds “Disney-ish.”

  • Composer is best known for Pushing Daisies (television). He loved it!

  • The guy nailed it. It’s the best music he’s ever had in a game.

• Characters: Why was it so important to bring Oswald back?

  • First, the Disney family was part of bringing the character back. “We should get Walt’s first big star back in the family,” they said.

  • Spector has been watching those cartoons in scratchy horrible prints for years, and he’s an amazing character. It’s unfair that no one knows it. So he really thought he deserved better. It’s funny that he’s talking about it like he’s real, Spector thinks!

• What other key villains will Mickey face?

  • The Phantom Blot has been reinvented in this game. He was remade pretty dramatically.

  • Also, the mad doctor (from a cartoon from 1933… a pretty grisly one at that).

  • Plus, a version of Hook who’s pretty villainous, and others!

• No Wii MotionPlus support.

• What does the future hold for Disney Epic Mickey? Plans for a sequel or possibly a Donald Duck or Goofy spin-off?

  • People have often taken his comments like he’s planning a trilogy… but he always plans a trilogy. The world could support more games. So he did actually think through a three-story arc for all of this, but he always does this. If the games do happen, they almost never look like he originally planned. He just wants to create a world that is robust and rich enough that they want to live there for a while.

• Spector proclaims himself a “wordy bastard”; apologizes for not getting around to all the great questions.

Thanks again to Warren Spector and all involved for this great opportunity.