Boom Blox Bash Party - Q&A Feature

2008's Boom Blox was a standout title for Nintendo's Wii in a year when the console managed to spew out quite a lot of sludge, and much of the game's success was down to the hands on influence of legendary film director Steven Spielberg (what a nice man). Now, as the game prepares for its second bite of the apple with Bash Party, we discuss what's in store for the sequel with Senior Producer Amir Rahimi.

TVG: What are the headlining new features in Bash Party?

We find that a big part of the Boom Blox experience is playing the game in a social setting. People love to get together and play against each other in versus or play with each other in the co-operative modes. Even in the single-player we find that they get together and pass the Wii remote around; they do a lot of backseat driving.

So, with Bash Party, we really wanted to tee-off on that aspect. We're going to offer twice as much multiplayer content in Bash Party compared to the original Boom Blox, but we're not going to let up on the single-player content at all, so the game is going to be bigger - it's going to be huge. There's actually going to be over 400 levels in the game and there's going to be lots of different ways to play multiplayer. For example, this time around you can play on teams; you can team up against each other, and that adds a very cool new dynamic to the game.

In addition to that, we have all sorts of new block types and tools like the slingshot that allows you grab anything in the level, pull it back like an elastic band and see the thing go flying through the air. We also have greatly improved graphics. We've spent a lot of time on the graphics engine to make the game look visually stunning and as good as anything that's out there on the Wii.

TVG: The physics, in particular, seem to be well constructed. Is that something you've been working on a lot as well?

Yeah. On the original Boom Blox we spent a lot of time making sure that the physics were perfect; that they were true to life and also very fun to interact with. In Bash Party, we wanted to go beyond that and have fun with physics. That allows us to do all sorts of really fun things. For example, one of our new worlds has a pirate theme where you get to go underwater, so we've actually modelled what it feels like to play the game underwater. In our space theme you actually get to go into outer-space where you can experience Boom Blox in zero-g, which is very different.

Also, that idea of having fun with physics and doing crazy new things can be seen in the new block types. We have one called the push block, which is essentially like a force field - anything that enters it gets pushed in a certain direction. If you take a character and you have one of those push blocks pointing straight up, you can put the character right on top of the push block and it's just going to float up and down inside the push block. That allows us to do a lot of fun new things that we couldn't do before.

TVG: I unlocked a paintball bomb during my hands on, which is new I think. Have you put an added emphasis on those kinds of unlockable items?

Yeah, for sure. As you play through the game you'll unlock all sorts of fun new tools that you can then use in the create mode. We had that in the original Boom Blox but players had to play through the entire game in order to unlock everything. This time we're introducing a brand new feature called Boom Bucks, which is essentially an economy. As you play through the game, depending on what medals you get, you'll get varying amounts of Boom Bucks, which is a currency that you can then spend in the editor to unlock the stuff you really want.

It also allows you to purchase levels, so if you get stuck on a level then you can buy that level and then move on to the next one, or if you want to see a theme that's farther ahead then you can buy your way into that theme if you've saved up enough Boom Bucks.

TVG: The editor was in there last time, but I understand it's been improved this time around...

It's been greatly improved. The way it worked on the original Boom Blox is that we essentially built the game at the same time that we were building the editor so, as a dev team, we didn't have a whole lot of time to use the editor to create great content. We still ended up with a great editor but, from day one with Bash Party, we've been committed to having all our designers build the game out of the actual in-game editor, so that focused our attention on making that editor as robust as possible.

That's essentially what we're shipping to the player, so the player is going to get the same editor that, basically, our designers used to build the game. Now, there are a significant number of people out there who don't really use the editor - they just like the core game. Those people will greatly appreciate those improvements to the editor as well because of this new online feature that we have, which allows people do upload their creations and then share them with the world.

TVG: So you don't have to edit stuff but you can enjoy the user generated content, and that's all free is it?

It is. It's going to bring huge value to the consumer, not only because they'll be able to access content from other users, but EA has also committed to building levels. Our actual dev team and designers will build levels and distribute them post-launch for free. It's stuff that we could very easily charge for.

TVG: Is the way it's distributed not a concern for the Wii's lack of internal memory?

One of the brilliant thigs about Boom Blox is that the actual individual levels take up very little space.

TVG: I'm guessing that's because all you need to do is say where the blocks have to go, which actually takes up very little storage space, whereas the software used to interpret that information is already on the game disc...

That's exactly right [TVG gives itself a gold star]. What that means is that we'll not only be able to store a lot of levels on your Wii but also you'll be able to download the levels at a lightning fast speed. Additionally, the interface is also very accessible, so if you're playing a game mode that you like, you can download more of that game mode at the push of a button and, because the levels are so small, you'll get them in a few seconds.

TVG: Presumably that's only the case with Bash Party and you won't be able to do that with last year's Boom Blox...

That's correct.

TVG: Obviously a lot was made of Steven Spielberg's involvement in the first game - our very own editor referred to the original Boom Blox as "Certainly more Animaniacs than Schindler's List" - but now that the concept is out there, has Spielberg taken a back-seat on the production of this sequel?

Coming out of the original Boom Blox we didn't know what to expect for the sequel but we've found that, even before the original version hit the shelves, there was so much enthusiasm and passion for the game from Steven Spielberg as well as the dev team that we couldn't help but to start working on the sequel before there even was one; before they'd been any money spent on it.

The conversations; the brainstorming; the development just kept going. It almost didn't even stop. That's sort of testament to a) how fun the game is, but also b) how passionate and awesome the developers are, so he stayed very involved on the sequel to the point where, even when Spielberg was on vacation over the summer (after Boom Blox and Indiana Jones: The Crystal Skull), he would video conference in with us and check-in because he wanted to see how things were going. That's how involved he was in the process and he still shared plenty of awesome ideas that we've implemented.

TVG: Bash Party is coming out about early summer time, is that right?

Spring - I think late spring.

TVG: So it's going to be released under 12 months since the original Boom Blox?

Maybe a little bit more than 12 months. Depending on when the release date was, it's around 12 months.

TVG: That's obviously quite quick, but I would imagine the structure of the game lends itself quite well to sequels. Would you say there's been no skimping on the content even though it has been just a year?

There are a couple of things. Like you said, the structure really does lend itself to expansion, but also most commonly what you'll see is that a dev team will finish up work on a game and then all of them will go on vacation. Between the time the dev team stops working on the game, it goes through all the testing, then it goes into manufacturing, and then it comes out (while, in the meantime, everybody is on vacation) - that's months of time. Then everyone comes back and they start to ramp-up on the next idea.

We just sort of kept going, so the momentum was so great that it was really more than a year compared to every other development cycle that I've ever been on. I guess that's just a long-winded way of saying that we absolutely did not skimp - there's more than enough here to justify it being a sequel.

TVG: Can you go into some more detail about the new block types in Bash Party?

There's going to be plenty of new block types, tools, and game modes. One of the new block types is what we're calling the virus block. The way that the virus block works is that it goes together with the virus ball. The virus ball is an orange ball that you can throw to knock things over. It's probably not as effective as other balls at doing that but, when you throw a virus ball at a virus block, the virus block detonates and spreads goo onto other blocks and infects them with that property, creating more of these virus blocks. Also, if two virus blocks are touching then they also detonate, so it has this really interesting way of spreading throughout a structure.     

Another new block type that's going to be very cool is the fact that we are no longer bound by rectangles. We now have circular blocks and triangle shaped blocks and, although at the surface that seems pretty elementary, it actually opens up a whole new world of things you can do.

TVG: Like the way blocks topple down on each other, for example.

Exactly, or imagine the ability to send a block rolling, and that couldn't have happened on the first one. When you combine that with a ramp, for example, then you can just imagine the cool things you can do with these blocks.

TVG: In the first game there wasn't a huge emphasis on the story. Are you keeping that structure with Bash Party, where the characters add a bit of humour here and there, but there's no significant campaign storyline?

Yeah, that's exactly right, and that was the vision that Spielberg had initially. This wasn't a vehicle for him to tell some elaborate, amazing story. Like you said, it's a lot more Animaniacs than Schindler's List. What he wanted is that he didn't want the player to feel lonely. He wanted the characters there for humour; he wanted the characters to cheer you on when you did well; to be sad when you didn't, and they will have that sort of role again on Bash Party.

What we've done this time around is that they're actually blox now. Before, they weren't actually blox - if you hit them, then they'd disappear. Now, they're actually built-in to the levels, so you'll see levels with characters actually embedded in them. When you hit them they'll go flying and they'll knock into other blox, so you can actually use them in gameplay this time around. We've also done a lot of work on their animations, their voices, and their expressions so that when you do hit them with a ball or send them flying, it's a lot more satisfying.  

TVG would like to thank Amir Rahimi, Boom Blox Bash Party's Senior Producer, for taking the time out to speak with us about the game, which is due out on the Wii towards the end of the spring.