How a joke brought about Warren Spector learning something new about his own game.
“Inside the first game, we did what I call Choice and Consequence Lite,” says Warren Spector as he demos Epic Mickey 2’s newly announced Fort Wasteland level. “We didn’t wish to scare ‘normal’ people, so we lightened up a little. This time we aren’t doing that.”
Fort Wasteland is an oddly appropriate place to illustrate what Warren Spector promises to be a more lasting variety of player choice. This portion of the sport is a depressing and gloomy tackle Frontierland, the Old West-inspired chunk of Disneyland where saloons, steamboats, and simulated wilderness dominate the landscape.
If during your platforming adventures you spot a high point it’s worthwhile to reach and no option to get there, that you could reduce a tree and use it as a ramp to simply walk as much as that in the past inaccessible point. The sole problem? That tree is down for good. Make a habit of this and you’re effectively clear-cutting the yank West. You’ve become your individual Disney villain, and no amount of leaving that level and coming back to this can change things.
“We didn’t try this inside the first game,” says Spector. “We didn’t ever say, ‘You can’t undo this.’ We will let you get each of the thinner rewards, after which you are able to return and get all of the paint rewards within the same place.”
This gets me wondering: How do you stress-test a system like this? How do you ensure these permanent choices don’t eventually break the sport?
“Brutal testing!” Spector responds. “What you do is test the intense cases. In Deus Ex, I made people play through without ever using a weapon. I made them play through and kill absolutely everything that moved. Or get throughout the game without ever using a skill, or an augmentation. Whenever you do this, you’ll be pretty certain that anything within the middle is gonna work.”
“Publishers hate that,” jokes Spector. “It’s really scary, but persons are going to determine the way to do things which are impossible. In Deus Ex, we had such a lot of people understanding the way to get outside of the gameworld that we needed to put crates and ladders outside the maps in order that they could come back in.”
Back in relation to Epic Mickey 2, Spector remarks, “You could literally get throughout the game without ever using paint. Or, without ever using thinner.”
Half-jokingly, I immediately respond with, “How about both? Are you able to get through without using paint or thinner?”
“i don’t believe you’ll be able to,” Spector responds. But he sounds uncertain. It is a crazy idea, when you consider it. Paint and thinner are the yin and yang of Epic Mickey, your two most central tools for reshaping the Wasteland as you notice fit. Sure, you will get in the course of the game without using one. But both?
Here is exactly when Irvin Chavira chimes in. As a QA tester on Epic Mickey 2, Chavira has to damage the sport in order that it usually is fixed. If there’s anyone who knows the bounds of practicality in Epic Mickey 2, it’s him.
“That you may,” Chavira counters, matter-of-factly.
“Are you serious?!” Spector exclaims from around the table, practically spitting out the sandwich he’s been engaged on in between discussions in regards to the game.
“It won’t be one hundred pc, because a good way to get one hundred pc you must be certain decisions [involving paint and thinner]. But i believe you will get in the course of the core path without using either paint or thinner,” says Chavira.
“That is the great thing about these things!” remarks Specter, beaming from ear to ear. “When games are open-ended enough that the folks who work on them do not know if something’s possible, that’s pretty magical.”