More Sonic Boom talk from Big Red Button – original pitch, lots of freedom given, lots of contact with Sonic Team
Gamasutra has posted a new Sonic Boom interview with Big Red Button Entertainment director Bob Rafei. There’s a lot here – how SEGA approached the studio, freedom given to re-imagine the franchise, making Sonic more western-friendly, and more.
We’ve rounded up a number of Rafei’s comments below. Gamasutra has even more from the developer.
On the game’s original pitch…
Sega approached us with their bold plan for a local co-op Sonic title with emphasis on action and strong narrative. Given the possibility to try something different with one of the most iconic gaming characters and BRB team’s prior experience with third-person character action we saw a great match and jumped at the opportunity.
On how the team goes about working with a franchise with a passionate core fan base and a long history…
With respect and reverence. It would be irresponsible of us to be self-indulgent with our creative choices without conscious reflection on canon and what loyal fans expect. Sega is the brand holder and will have to live with this branch long after BRB, so we see ourselves more stewards and don’t look lightly on being given this opportunity to try a different creative path.
On how much freedom the team was given to re-imagine the franchise…
Fortunately, we were given a lot more freedom than I anticipated. Right from the start we worked closely with Sega, Iizuka-san, and Sonic Team to review initial BRB proposals to determine what worked, and more importantly, what was off-limits. They were very open to a lot of world, mechanic, enemy, villain and NPC proposals — with notes, of course, but ultimately pretty accepting to the possibilities.
Where I think we pushed outside of their comfort zones was proposed changes to the main canon characters. They were very openminded about a lot of things, like Knuckles’ new beefier size, and reined us in with other aspects. One such example was clothing for the characters. Looking back on it I’m glad for the pushback since our final outcome is in more accurate spirit of Sonic.
On how Sonic’s ups/downs as a franchise, which puts a lot of spotlight on the team, affects their approach…
It really hasn’t. It can’t. You start second guessing everything if it does. We can only approach it the only way we know how: to make games guided by our experience and intuition, a hefty dose of trial and error, and guidance from Sega.
One of the hardest things about game development is holding onto the original concept of your game idea which got you and your partners excited at the start. Development is a long-distance marathon, so to remain true to the original game vision, yet evolve it and allow it to take shape, you have to limit too much influence from external forces. For us, this meant being aware of this spotlight, but not letting it influence our decision making process.
On making Sonic more western-friendly…
I can only speak to it from my personal perspective. Kids’ pop culture today requires a healthy blend of story and humor — just take a look at TV shows like Phineas and Ferb, Adventure Time or Amazing World of Gumball, to name a few examples.
Story and humor are also necessary for a successful family/kids game today to be competitive. As a parent of kids ages 9 and 11, I can barely keep up with the sharp humor of these shows myself, so imagine the challenge a non-Western developer would have to try to capture this in their games.
From someone who is the product of a Western market perspective, I’ve also watched how my kids and their friends play games, from casual mobile “snacking” games to sit-down console experiences. What they want in a premium console experience is different than what our generation of gamers is used to. I think Sega recognizes this and would like to explore how to broaden Sonic’s fan base.
I personally think Sega deserves a lot credit to have this foresight and confidence to take this brave approach. I think this is the appropriate thinking when a franchise has been around as long as Sonic has. Look at experiments that take place with comic franchises. I personally think we’ll see more of this thinking with other legacy gaming brands.
On how much contact there is between Iizuka / Sonic Team…
Lots. SOA, SOJ, Sonic Team and Iizuka-san have been instrumental in helping us define the guardrails of how far we should roam away from canon. He and Sonic Team know this franchise better than one out there so their feedback has been incredibly valuable.
Yes, there are challenges (that come with any game development, mind you) and the occasional cultural divide where the feedback can get lost in translation, but I believe the relationship is very strong.
A lot of the questions we have are very subjective, so I empathize with Iizuka-san for tolerating our more wacky ideas. To his and Sonic Team’s credit, they have remained very accepting and found a lot of solutions we both can live with. But again, we also know that we’re guest in their house, so we’re making sure not to leave a big mess when done!
On who Sonic Boom’s audience is…
Kids 6-11 and shared local play experiences with friends or families. We set out to make Boom simply fun by finding the right balance of accessibility for new fans, yet have enough challenge, depth and player expression for established fans or more seasoned gamers. Boom’s gameplay encourages working together to defeat enemies.
Our goal was to build on the characters’ personalities by building on each character’s play mechanics, as well as fun characteristics through banter and story. We developed common pickup and play controls for seamless play experience no matter which character is selected. Our goal was to allow player expression via character selection and abilities in navigation and combat.
On prototyping Sonic’s movements and actions…
My experience has been failing fast is the best path towards success. This doesn’t mean rushing to keyboard either, a well-thought-out light GDD (5-10 pages max) needs to outline game objectives, pillars, and end goal of what you want final game to be; then work out what constitutes successful completion of pre-production period — a playable five-minute level with essential character navigation, and one full combat combo move, as an oversimplified example.
The pre-production period is the most important part of development where we did many rapid prototypes for Boom. We worked on defining Sonic’s movements from day one. We started with what essentially looked like an “i” proxy character model representative of Sonic’s height, animated with a little run cycle gate, jump, etc. to work out initial timing for his movement rates, jump parabolas, double jump timing, ledge grab, etc. We wanted to focus on basic movements first without opening up what we anticipated would be a long discussion of his and team’s final character models. Clearly whoever would see this “i-man” did not assume it was intended to be a final Sonic model so distractions were minimized allowing us to hone in on basic locomotion.
Then, after a few weeks when we outgrew i-man we started animating an articulated simple mannequin/proxy vaguely resembling Sonic, which allowed further development of character’s feel but still deferring the discussion of final character model. Finalizing his model took far longer than I anticipated given subtle adjustments needed based on feedback not only from Sonic Team, but also the TV series, as the unifying goal became to have one common design to be used for both game and show.
This process was rinsed and repeated thousands of times over and continues through today. All was not smooth sailing, either, as early project assumptions proved a need for revisions mid-production — which ultimately, I’m happy to report, was the right call for our march toward quality.
