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Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed
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Bringing the magic of Disney to modern platforms (Gamescom) - Disney: Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Interview with Purple Lamp
We caught up with game director Jason Mallett and designer Aleksandra Jarosz to talk all about the challenges and efforts that go into taking a beloved platformer, updating it, and launching it on the current era of gaming systems.
Audio transcription
"We're at Gamescom 2024, I'm at THQ Nordic's booth and I've been taking a look at Epic Mickey Rebrushed and I was looking forward to playing the new game, I was really familiar with the original and I spent a lot of time with Warren Spector talking about the game and the origins and Disney and whatever but that was many many years ago, so what I played felt great and looked great So thank you so much for joining us guys How did you work on the controls first and foremost, because that's what I remember being slightly difficult for nowadays players Yeah so obviously the original game only came out on the Wii and the Wii didn't have two analogue sticks Most modern platforms now have twin analogue sticks, so one of the first things we had to do was look at the camera the possibly infamous camera from the original game and we essentially built the whole game again from scratch with the original assets and part of that process too was to check that the new controls and the camera would all work with the same spaces so there were some adjustments needed here and there for that but generally we found that actually it really still works as it did all those years ago It works like that, but at the same time the reaction is better, the response of the controls is better and you also have new moves, so what can you tell us about both things like the button press being more responsive and the new moves that you can pull off Yeah, so we added three more moves, it's ground pound, sprint and dash So right now you have way more options to traverse through the level and also it gives you new strategies during combat so yeah, you can do way more now And you can do paint and thinner, which you could do before but you also tweaked that a little bit in terms of how enemies react and relate to paint Yeah, so now friendly enemies, when you shoot them with paint, they will make more friendly enemies for you so when they attack the actual enemies, they will apply paint damage to them as well and that leads to a little bit of some sandboxy gameplay where you can run into a group of eight enemies, paint two of them and then you can stand back and watch your friends make new friends Make new friends by painting them back Ok, what about the new stuff, not just in terms of what you guys tweaked or improved but the real new stuff that players are going to find here, which are many more collectibles and even areas Yeah, so I think the biggest new feature is the cinema so during the gameplay you are going through many projector levels and those are based on cartoons and we gave you the opportunity to replay them and revisit them in Mean Street and also from the main menu so I think that's the biggest new feature, right?
Yeah, so we added a brand new interior to Mean Street called the cinema which is based on the cinema in Disneyland and we went there and had a look for reference and obviously it displays all of these old cartoons in it so what better place to have these old side-scrolling levels replayable We also added two or double the amount of film reel collectibles to the projector levels which then goes hand in hand with the extra paths and secrets and hidden areas that we added to them as well and those aren't limited to just the projector levels also in the 3D levels, there's new secrets to find there's over three times as many concept art collectibles to find in the game again I say we rebuilt the game from scratch and every asset went through the classic pipeline so concept, feedback, 3D modelling, texturing and shader work to get the really beautiful game that you saw today There was an Austrian touch to some ferry wheel I saw Yeah, so in the European boat ride and this is not the only small additions we've added Being in Europe and Purple Lamp being based in Vienna one of our favourite places is the Prater which is like a permanent fixture in Vienna and there's this beautiful ferris wheel and in the European boat ride, maybe if you look around you'll be able to spot the ferris wheel and maybe there's some secrets behind it So as I said, I spent some time with Warren Spector back in the day both for Epic Mickey and the sequel Tell us a little bit more about how you guys collaborated or the feedback that he gave you for this specific project Yeah, so Warren was involved from the very beginning and he had a lot of faith in us as a studio We specialise in 3D platformers and at its heart, this game is a 3D platformer It's also a bit of an immersive sim as Warren likes to say and also kind of a third person shooter now as well and every single delivery went to Warren too and he gave us great feedback every single time We were at D23 with him a couple of weeks ago and he kept saying the game is a better version than his game which I don't necessarily agree with I just think it's 14 years later but it's been a real honour to work with him Also the original art director, Rolf Mohr was on it from the beginning with us helping go through all the concepts and really making sure that we could provide fresh eyes on a really original vision without compromising that vision It's in the best hands Anything else you'd like to add about the technical aspects in how you guys converted this version?
So you sort of tear it apart and then put it together on Unreal Engine and what about the cutscenes?
How did you work with the whole original assets?
Yes, so we were taking the original assets and build all the levels and making a small research about the spacing, about what we need and so on Also we were using the original 2D cutscenes that they're explaining a lot and giving some tutorialisation and we kept them and upgraded them There also was a short discussion about will we keep the mumbling sounds for the characters or will we make a voiceover but the truth is that the mumbling sounds fits more to our approach to make it as faithful as possible so we stick with that All that for the game to run and perform like is it 4K60 on the higher consoles?
4K60 FPS on PS5 and PC and it's releasing on all possible platforms you could think of except mobile so it's on PS4 and Xbox One PS5 and the Xbox Series consoles also on PC on Steam and GOG and it's also on Switch of course Right, and then can we expect Disney Epic Mickey 2 to be done by you, to be re-brushed?
So everybody at Purple Lamp is ready and it's something we would really love to do It was a real pleasure working on Epic Mickey and we can't say anything right now but it would be amazing if we got the opportunity once again to do that Something interesting, I always felt this game was full of purple actually Was that foreseeing that you guys would work on it?
Maybe, maybe it was Thank you so much for your time I enjoyed the game and looking forward to playing it later so enjoy the show, thank you Thank you"
Gamescom
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