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Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo Feature
Mark Simons
25/07/2003
We talk to David Braben about this game based on the wonderful cartoons...
Over the last few years no matter if you are young or old you will have become familiar with Wallace and Gromit. These loveable characters and their animated world have captivated TV and film viewers with their antics and uniqueness. As yet they have yet to make an impact in the gaming world but if any Wallace and Gromit offering is ever going to make that transition then this will have more chance than most. The development team, which has taken on the responsibility for this task, is none other than David â“ Elite - Braben's own Frontier Development.
We met up with David to find out more about this project.
Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo is set in an immersive 3D world, where the player is cast as Gromit and is challenged to solve puzzles and locate keys in order to rescue the young animals. Machine parts, located throughout the game's many testing levels, must also be gathered so that the ever-inventive Wallace can create a marvellous contraption with which to deal the final knockout blow to the dastardly Feathers and his vile plans. Amongst the game's many challenges, players will rescue young animals from the clutches of mischievous monkeys and thwart Feathers McGraw's twisted and diabolical plan for total zoo domination.
A cutesy story and game that on the surface seems a strange direction for David's team but one he was were eager to take on. âWe've always loved Wallace and Gromit. Even before the possibility of doing a Wallace and Gromit game came along, many of the team had some sort of Wallace and Gromit related item on or near their desks. Due to a stroke of luck, both Aardman and Frontier are represented by the same agency, Marjacq, and Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, got to see some of Frontier's animation technology and gave the go-ahead to use it with Wallace and Gromit, which was an excellent opportunity."
Billed as a platform adventure it will feature new storylines and characters as well as the ever popular and much missed 'stars' featured in previous Wallace and Gromit adventures. The Frontier team has created the game and concept, which was presented to Aardman who loved the direction the team took. It is also, more importantly, worth noting that Aardman, and Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, have been involved every step of the way and, of course, they have the final say on how their characters are presented.
Because all the cast are familiar to many people, their movements and foibles are also known so it would appear that the team has to stick to many guidelines but this could not be a bad thing!
"It took a long time to get the exact movements and behaviours of Wallace and Gromit just right, particularly the subtleties of Gromit's eyebrows. Some of the problems were quite surprising - for example Wallace is almost never seen walking in the films, other than from the waist up. We spent a long time in development with Gromit on all-fours, only occasionally standing up on two legs, but for sound game-play reasons we changed this as it was interfering with the way the game played."
It could be too easy to merely create some nice images, get the right ambience and leave it at that. The fact that Wallace and Gromit are so well loved could mean that capturing the essence of the cast would be sufficient but, as we have seen with other games that rely on a big brand name, gamers and are not easily fooled.
The game starts off with Wallace and Gromit discovering that their nemesis, Feathers the Penguin, is running his criminal empire from within the confines of West Wallaby Zoo. Feathers has imprisoned all of the baby animals and is forcing their parents to manufacture diamonds for him, for fear of what might happen to their babies. And so Wallace and Gromit must save the animals from a life of crime and foil Feathers' dastardly plan, using a giant 'Trojan Penguin' that they make in their basement and wheel up outside the zoo. Feathers, being the ego-maniac that he is, falls for the ploy, and has it taken inside the zoo, and from this point on Wallace and Gromit go about thwarting his dastardly plans.
Essentially it is a mixture of puzzles and platforming action. Fast reactions are not required.
Wallace is the hapless inventor, and Gromit is the brains of the outfit. In the films, Wallace is forever getting into trouble, and Gromit helping him out and not much has changed. In the game, the player controls Gromit throughout, and Wallace mends things and comes up with 'helpful' suggestions. Gromit can whistle for Wallace whenever he needs help.
David continued on pertaining to the game theme: "Wallace and Gromit have adopted a Polar Bear cub, Archie, and as it is his birthday, they arrive at the zoo to bring his present - but find it is closed. Once they are inside (after having made the Trojan Penguin), they set about rescuing animal babies, which is the main theme of the game. Once each baby is rescued, then it's parents will help our duo in their quest for Feathers and rescuing Archie - to get to the next section of the game.
Sharp and critical eyes will inspect this game a little closer and so both the technical and innovative parts must be flawless. The transformation from plasticine models to polygonal stars is not an easy process as was explained. "In order to achieve the smooth, plasticine look of the characters, we have had to use some fancy lighting techniques. We also use our pretty advanced animation system, where all the animations are processed and blended in real-time, which makes for smooth, natural motion. This, together with our automatic level of detail reduction system, enables us to use quite high numbers of polygons in the models. Wallace, for example, has 13,000 polygons in the in-game Playstation 2 model."
"We have tried to cater for a wide range of abilities. There are many sub-games, for example, that the player does not need to complete, but if they do, then they get 'Zoo Tokens' which are then used to unlock videos, also on the DVD."
"Gromit has many different moves available to discover (80 different animations in total - though this includes all his various runs, jumps, climbing moves, and idle animations). The ones that are needed are pretty easy to control. Many of the others are there for the flamboyant player to show off with - ranging from running up a wall to do a back flip, to break-dancing on one hand. We don't expect everyone to find all the moves - but it will be a pleasant surprise for those that do."
The worlds are quite large, and very detailed, as perhaps you can see from the screenshots. Lighting has a huge effect on the organic, vibrant look to the locations. Dozens of lights are used in places to give that rich look, and within the locations there are many things to discover. These range from the sub-games I've already mentioned, to whole hidden 'bonus' sections to be discovered by exploring the locations fully.
The game is full of parodies from start to finish. The most obvious one is Feathers as a sort of James Bond villain, with his over-the-top control room, and his ridiculously big chair, and his use of Archie as a sort of white cat - though preposterously, Archie is as big a Feathers!
Wallace and Gromit, taking into account the subject matter and game genre, looks to be pixel perfect!
Feature by Derek dela Fuente.
