Welcome
to Rayman 3
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Rayman 3 - Table of Contents:
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Rayman
3 - Interview
Interview with Michel Ancel and Ahmed Boukhelifa |
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Questions
and Answers to Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman, During
Rayman 1 and 2, I had the opportunity to share creative visions with
a lot of talented people. Céline Tellier, for one, who's now DA on Rayman
3, started out in charge of the background and environment graphics.
We had a lot of fun coming up with the unique visuals that went on to
become signatures of the Rayman universe. Then there was Michael Janod,
a game designer on Rayman 2. He was the guy who came up with the famous
"leg missile." He's now Lead Game Designer for Rayman 3. These people
and others had so many great ideas, so I felt really confident they
could carry forward the vision that made Rayman games so unique. As
for me, after Rayman 2, I was ready to explore new emotions, worlds,
characters, and gameplay that didn't exactly fit into the Rayman universe.
Though it was hard to leave the awesome Rayman team, I decided to start
a new project with a woman as the central character. So, my
role on Rayman 3 was mostly assisting the team here and there, like
with Rayman's new look. Then every so often we'd brainstorm ideas for
the characters and the world - that sort of thing. Other than that,
I was just going full throttle on my new project. To
Ahmed : What was your role in the creation of Rayman 3 ? I was
the Project Manager, which basically means I oversee the operations
and manage the 50 members of the development team. As Michel mentioned,
many people on the team had worked on previous Rayman projects, so they
had a lot of whacked-out ideas. That was one of my first and favorite
roles - to stimulate their imaginations. It worked out great because
we have every possible personality you could imagine - everything from
the comedic to the outright bizarre. I feel the key to making a great
Rayman game would be to cultivate this range of imagination to create
a visually dynamic universe. To
Ahmed: What's the basic story behind Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc? It all
begins with the red lums, which are these tiny creatures of positive
energy. One day, a single red lum beholds something so terrible it grows
black with fear and evil. This transformed Dark Lum spreads the evil
to other red lums, forming an army of cloaked soldiers called Hoodlums.
Soon Rayman and Globox discover the Hoodlum's plan, which is to taint
the Heart of the World. Unexpectedly, Globox saves the day by swallowing
the Chief of the dark lums… This accident provokes a strange addiction
to plum juice… On his journey, Rayman must travel to unknown lands forgotten
by time, survive cunning creature awaiting him at every turn, throughout
a strange and fantastic land. But, this time, to save the world he'll
have to take care of Globox's health first! This may
seem pretty straightforward, but the story unfolds in a very unpredictable
and fresh way. Unlike other platformers, Rayman 3 really draws from
its epic storyline and bizarre humor. That's all I can say without spoiling
the plot! To
Ahmed : The teaser video we've seen had a lot of strange hooded creatures.
Who are they and how does Rayman fit into this? These
are the Hoodlums - Dark Lums equipped in their combat suits. In the
game, they captured big, woolly creatures and knit their outfits from
them. The Hoodlums are an army, organized into various posts that specialize
in a specific area. Rayman has to contend with all sorts of these Hoodlums,
and will never know who he'll face next. It might a sniper - like the
one you saw in the video - who could take Rayman out from long range,
or it might be a grenadier, who's armed with his own explosive concoction
of plum juice based bombs.
Hoodlums
are really skilled at holing up in places and setting ambushes for Rayman.
You might be cruising along through a mysterious temple and get caught
by surprise, or even get attacked from the sky. We built each Hoodlum's
AI to think independently, so even when the Hoodlums are attacking in
an organized group, they'll still act for themselves and be pretty tough
to predict. I think this will be quite a challenge for the player… The Hoodlums
are pretty fanatic about stopping Rayman at all costs, but are also
kind of comedic in their own right. Sometimes they get a little too
excited about being evil and bumble around a bit, especially if they
get separated from their leader. To Ahmed:
What other kinds of creatures do you come across in the game? The world
of Rayman 3 is bursting at the seams with crazy creatures. Rayman's
best friend, Globox, will naturally be there and have an important role
in the game. Then there's Murphy and the musical Teensies. These Teensies
have appeared in previous Rayman games and will have a much bigger role
in this adventure.
Naturally,
Hoodlums aren't the only enemies to watch out for. There's an egomaniacal
hunter and vicious swamp witch that are out to put the big hurt on Rayman
and Globox, to name a couple. Character Designer Stéphane Zinetti had
a blast brewing up scads of wild characters, so many that we wound up
having to take away his sketching tools. He came up with so many character
ideas, which was great, but poor Rayman was getting edged out of the
picture. To
Ahmed :Can you give us an idea of some of the locations featured in
Rayman 3? We wanted
to delve into the dark, unexplored realms of Rayman's world. So we came
up with a bunch of visually complex settings that vary greatly from
one area to the next. The game starts out at night in a forest filled
with these giant, luminescent mushrooms that sparkle in the dark. And
by the end of his quest, Rayman will have traveled through some crazy
stuff - shimmering temples, barren lands with bones shooting out of
burning sands, dark deadlands full of forgotten stone gods, and a Hoodlum
factory powered by strange machines. Those are just a few places Rayman
will have to get through. We wanted to get away from the same old desert,
beach and mountain that we've seen in platformers so many times before. To
Ahmed : You stress the combats when talking about rayman 3. What's new
here? There
is now more power for the player and more enemies acting together. The
idea is that the player has to face multiple enemies at the same time,
and from different elevations. You've got an array of abilities and
powers at your disposal, but you have to use them strategically to find
the best way to take out specific kinds of enemies.
To Ahmed:
It appears that Rayman has a new look. Why did you make this change,
and how did you arrive at it? The look
of the original Rayman was created to fit within a 2D world - pretty
basic and modular. Then as the power of consoles increased around the
time of Rayman 2, we adapted that to 3D. Now, with the flexibility of
next-gen consoles, we have the possibility to add more polygons, more
detail and in the end, more personality. Instead
of working from an existing model, we modeled the new Rayman completely
from scratch. We used more polygons for special parts like the face
and the hands, to allow Rayman to have a much wider range of facial
animations and expressions. Another new thing we explored was the SFX and super powers. It gave us the opportunity to give Rayman all kinds of dramatic expressions and play up his cartoonish edge. It's cool to see Rayman burst into a wild animation while he's using his new superpowers. To
Michel : What do you think of Rayman's « new look » ? I love it. I like his new cartoon feeling, and how it gets back to the show-off "I don't take myself seriously" feel he had in Rayman 1. I think we forgot that a little with Rayman 2 while we focused ourselves more on developing the universe. To Ahmed:
What kind of new audience are you trying to attract with this latest
Rayman game?
We think
the game will offer plenty of new things to current Rayman fans, but
will also appeal to anyone who likes to play at a frantic pace, in dynamic,
action-packed scenarios filled with off-the-wall comedy.
To Ahmed:
What was the biggest challenge for the Rayman 3 team? One of the challenges was working with an existing character. To keep the essence of the original while giving it a freshness that doesn't betray the long-time fans of the Rayman series. Some people have been waiting for this game for a long time, and are looking to play something completely new and incredible. Fortunately, Rayman's universe is already so rich with craziness that new and fun ideas emerged naturally. I guess the real challenge was deciding which ones to choose! To Ahmed : Where is the game developed and on which platform? The game
is currently being developed on PC, PS2 & Xbox in Montreuil by a team
of over 50 people. The GameCube version will be developed in Shanghai
by He Jun Xian's team (19 people). There is also a GBA version developed
in Montreal by Bertrand Helias's team (10 people). The game will be
launched in November 2002. To
Ahmed: What are you most excited about in Rayman 3 at this stage of
development? I'm probably most excited about all the surprises we've created in the game. Everyone on the team can't wait to see how players will react when they discover them. SOURCE: Ubisoft |