jimmcq
06-17-2008, 03:40 PM
Earlier today fansites Perfect-Rare.nl, MundoRare.com, and PinataIsland.info got a chance to ask a few questions of Paul Machacek from the Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise team. This chat was moderated by George K. of Rare. The transcript is below:
George K.: And so, without further ado, may I present Mr Paul Machacek. Paul has been with Rare for 20 years and has specialsied in our handhled department. *however* he was not responsible for Spider-Man on the Game Boy. So you can put away your pitchforks.
Paul Machacek: Hi all. pleased to meet everyone, and thank you all for coming and spending your time with us.
Perfect-Rare: Is this DS version the one most true to the PDA game as Viva Pinata was started?
Paul Machacek: VP, long before it was known as VP, went through a number of quite different iterations, platforms etc. Yes, this is a handheld version, but is close to VP1 more than anything. VP on DS is much more full than anything was going to be on a cell phone.
PinataIsland.info: How close is Pocket Paradise to the original Viva Pinata game for the Xbox 360? Disregarding the new features and stylus input-method, does the underlying gameplay feel like something totally familiar or is it a fresh new experience?
Paul Machacek: No, it's very much based on VP1 and the main mechanic is the same. lots of changes obviously though.
MundoRare: Are there any significant changes in the behaviour, appearance, or any other aspect of any of the pinata species that we all already know? I read how you recently commented on the Taffly, for example
Paul Machacek: There are some behavioral differences, and some changes to the ways that they come in/out of your garden. But nothing significant that you'd notice. Some of the very subtle things pinata have done before have been modified or reduced as we felt they would not be noticed by the player. There's also a maximum of 3 visiting pinata around your garden at any one time simply to keep things within the limits of the hardware.
Perfect-Rare: Ive heard there are some clips of the Viva Pinata cartoon in this DS game. Does Rare own the rights of the cartoon or do you have to license those clips?
Paul Machacek: No, all clips are owned by Microsoft, so we have free access to them. MS co-own the cartoon series so we had no issues here. BTW, there's quite a few clips taken from the TV series in VP:PP :-)
PinataIsland.info: I've heard that Leafos has been removed from Pocket Paradise. Are there any other features from the original Xbox 360 game that have been canned?
Paul Machacek: Yes, we removed the helpers for a couple of reasons, but really so that we didn't have to make further limitations to the gameplay elsewhere. Taking helpers out reduced the number of models we had to render, the chances that lots of characters/pinata would all end up in the same place on screen and also reduced routing problems for the AI around a busy garden. You'll also notice that the characters we did keep route differently too now. The doctor flies a heicopter and Willy Builder tunnels in/out to avoid routing issues.
MundoRare: Have you designed Pocket Paradise in mind for people who have or havent played the original? What are your expectations and hopes as to which of those groups will buy the game?
Paul Machacek: we want everyone to buy it... it's been designed for novices and has a very easy entry with the episodes as training places. we keep the info simple, and give direct easy access to info at all times. we tried to make sure that anyone could pick it up & play it.
Perfect-Rare: How many people of the DS team are/were working on the DS version of Viva Pinata?
Paul Machacek: about 13-14 (can't remember exact number).
PinataIsland.info: How does the Playground mode in Pocket Paradise compare to the Just for Fun mode in Trouble in Paradise for the Xbox 360?
Paul Machacek: They have the same ethos, you can just play in a fun area. Specifically on the DS we eliminated all barriers to entry so that it auto-terraforms and gives you plants and pinata immediately, and you can easily call up others that you have already gained in the main game. There are lots of new features in TiP and you can play with those in their mode.
MundoRare: Can you explain us with some detail how the Episodes mode will work? I wonder if it's some kind of 'challenging' mode.
Paul Machacek: The Episodes (of which there are 12) are all training modes that provide a guided challenge. However, although the 1st 4 are really very easy (to draw the player in and teach them basic control skills) the Episodes get progressively harder as you go further through. The first 4 must be played before the rest of the game opens up, but the other 8 (which appear periodically as you reach relevant stages in the main garden) are optional. Any episode that has been unlocked, whether you play it or not, can be returned to and played again to confirm the advice you were taught.
Perfect-Rare: What was the biggest problem youve encountered while developing Viva Pinata for DS? Was it something you have become proud of now the 'problem' has been solved?
Paul Machacek: Lots of people will assume that putting lots of fully animated/rendered pinata's in the garden was the big challenge, actually, it was one of the easier things. The plants were time consuming and ate a lot of space on the game card and in the RAM. We simply couldn't get anywhere near the level of quality desired if we had used the models from VP1 in real-time so instead we identified all the different things each category of plant needed to do/show and pre-rendered every single frame of every plant/tree/weed etc. This was a painstaking process for our very talented animator, and again painstaking for the talented engineer that had me hassling him all the time about it. We needed the resolution to look good and yet needed to be able to squeeze it all into the hardware limitations. Trust me a lot of discussions were had over this. Terraforming was a 2nd issue where we really wanted you to draw straight into the floor and have a very fluid and random experience everytime. One thing that has been quoted from recent interviews is that the garden is 4 screens in size. This is actually wrong, it's 3*3 screens so a total of 9 screens overall. this is a really big area to store every modifiable pixel for and that caused big problems with the size of saved games and also the scroll speed. Then there was the overall issues of making sure that whatever combination of plants/pinata/objects/houses were in your garden the software never gave up. We wanted to make sure you could do anything and this is a big juggling act. We got there in the end and i'm very proud that the team tackled all the technical hurdles as well as they did to produce VP:PP.
PinataIsland.info: Getting back to Episodes, are they treated as goals within your main garden, or are they completely stand-alone?
Paul Machacek: Completing an episode does not give you anything extra in the game. Off the top of my head i can't remember if you get a certificate for doing them all or anything, but their prime purpose is to train and also link straight to the TV series in a way that wasn't easy to do in the main game. The Episodes actually changed focus throughout development and early on they were supposed to be a game mode on their own which you would play through. But time and other constraints prevented this. However, once all opened you could just give them to a younger child and they can play back through all 12 of them and have lots of fun with a TV character based experience that they can simply interact with.
MundoRare: Does the player need to (or is able to) use the DS microphone for anything in the game? For some reason, some people had complaints against it on Diddy Kong Racing DS, and maybe that dissuaded you to experiment with it.
Paul Machacek: We experimented a lot on DKR DS, as many others were doing in the early days of DS development. In VP:PP we had a very clear focus to take what was an already fabulous game and only do what was right for it. It an idea didn't fit perfectly with our goal then we didn't go there. It's a very good, unified experience as a result and i love it. So, no, there's no mic usage here.
Perfect-Rare: Why have you, or the management, chosen THQ as publisher? Back in the GBA days all of your games were really hard to find. Arent you concerned Viva Pinata will be hard to find?
Paul Machacek: It was handled by Microsoft.
PinataIsland.info: A little while ago there was some discussion about the possibility of Pocket Paradise integrating with the Pinata Vision feature of Trouble in Paradise. Can you tell us a little more of the story behind that?
Paul Machacek: At no point during development was such a feature ever considered. A brief discussion was had about what the VP2 team were doing with their game, and obviously they've got the Live Vision thing, but nothing was ever implemented into the DS.
George K.: I think what Paul means is that when Justin Cook came out and mentioned that feature, I think he was speaking on behalf of the X360 team, not the DS team
Paul Machacek: VP:PP was completed (except for Localisation) in October 2007 and i'm not aware that VP2's Live Vision camera technology was even being worked on then. i certainly wasn't aware of it until earlier this year.
MundoRare: How is the music in the DS game and who is behind it?
Paul Machacek: The music and sound effects in the game are a mix of things from VP1, the TV series and some new stuff for VP:PP. However, you may have noticed that we're still a little media shy and i believe that the game is a whole team effort so i'd rather not highlight any one person. After all, noone ever asks who designed a really great graphic. One way or another, probably almost half the development staff at Rare have had a hand in the VP franchise at some point, so it's really a big team thing.
Perfect-Rare: You said you had experimented with the DS during development of DKRDS. What was the one thing you didnt want to use and what did you feel had to be in your next DS game?
Paul Machacek: DKR was our first DS game, and whilst very experienced on a lot of different platforms including previous handhelds, the DS offered new challenges with it's alternate hardware. We played a lot with all the hardware DKR. But on VP we only included items that seemed like a perfect fit for the title. We weren't saying "well, we have this mic so what shall we use it for", rather instead we said "this is a great feature for the game, can we do it with the hardware". I guess we didn't think of anything compelling to use the mic for.
PinataIsland.info: Will the wild-card pinatas make a return? If so, are they obtained solely through a minuscule random chance?
Paul Machacek: If i tell you everything then i'll spoil your fun with the game when you get it ;-)
MundoRare: Another question with DKRDS as a reference. That one featured online Wi-Fi, but VPPP doesn't. Gary Richards recently said that you were "not sure the younger kids go online", but from my point of view both games may aim to the same kind of young audience, right?
Paul Machacek: I can't comment on what Gary was reported to have said. The main reason we left it out was that we had gone through a lot of technical problems with extensive Wifi communications on DKR and they would have been exacerbated by everything else we were trying to do with the system on VP. We pushed the hardware very very hard on VP and the wireless considerations would have made our job harder. Multiplayer gardening was discussed, but it would have complicated many areas of the design and function of the game and we were trying to produce something that was already very complicated in a short space of time. I think there's more than enough game there for our 1st attempt at it.
Perfect-Rare: If I understand correctly, you have completed VP:PP in October last year. Does localization take a whole year? And does this mean a sequel or another project is already in development?
Paul Machacek: I've been on a long skiing holiday since October. no, not really. We are working on something else, but of course you wouldn't expect me to discuss that here now would you ;-)
PinataIsland.info: Does Pocket Paradise take place in the same location of Pinata Island as the original Xbox 360 game? From the screenshots, there appears to be some sandy beach there.
Paul Machacek: The sandy beach you've seen is exclusive to our Playground mode which is a sandbox environment. We then took that theme a bit literally when deciding where to set it, but we knew we wanted to differentiate it from the main garden. The main garden is a similar setting to that in VP1, but clearly looks different due to our camera and terraforming limitations.
MundoRare: Some previews have said that the encyclopedia have gotten some nice improvements. Can you comment on the changes of this feature and its significance for the game?
Paul Machacek: As we do with any game, we looked at the platform and the audience and made a number of decisions to suit. We had a touch screen so this was a big obvious change. We were aware that a very wide demographic would find VP:PP appealing so wanted to make sure that it was very easy to get into and play, but with huge amounts of depth and gameplay for those that wanted a big experience. The touch screen and 2nd screen gave us ways to directly show the player everything they really needed to know in as simple a way as possible, and a very simple direct way to dig deeper (pun intended) if they needed to find out more. Every single icon you see in the game, on either screen is touchable.Yes, the top screen can't be touched directly, but you can swap screens around using a swap icon and then all the icons that were on the journal screen are on the touch screen and you can touch them. For instance, touch a pretztail in the garden and it's next/remaining requirements are shown immediately on the top screen. swap the screens over so that the journal appears on the bottom screen and then touch the requirement for the bunnycomb (via its icon) and you get taken to the encyclopedia page about bunnycombs so that you can see how to get one. from there you'll see a carrot is a bunnycomb requirement, so just touch the carrot icon and it takes you to another page that tells you how to get a carrot etc. At any time there is a single "return to garden" icon that takes you straight back to what you were doing. simple!
Perfect-Rare: Was your idea from the beginning to create a handheld version of Viva Pinata? Has it ever crossed your mind to create a Party Animals DS version?
Paul Machacek: no and no.
PinataIsland.info: Does Pocket Paradise have the same space limitations as the original Xbox 360 game? Does your garden become "too full" at the same rate or are there different hardware limitations to contend with?
Paul Machacek: it's a completely different set of numbers being juggled on a different platform with different limitations. The only time i run out of space is when i physically can't find somewhere in the garden to place something. The system we have written just about fits in the limitations we had after an awful lot of talented work by my great team. Actually the fact that we have a fixed view from a screen that acts like a scrollable window allowed us to avoid a situation when the player could try to view everything by directly controlling the camera view. This made it easier for us to do what we wanted to without apparent limitations.
MundoRare: I have read that there are also some changes regarding the romance candy and that you are not able to use it so easily. Is that right? And, if so, why?
Paul Machacek: Complex question as the same reasoning was behind a bunch of decisions in VP:PP..... A number of things have been taken out of shops so that you spend less time in shops, more time in the garden, increase the apparent value of those things and give greater meaning to some of the things that the player does. We removed the romancing mini-games for various reasons, but altered some of the other requirements to get a good ballance of things to do in the game, getting progressively harder as you play. Because of our understanding that many younger people were likely to play (because of the platform) we didn't want it to be too hard for them to get through it so you can shortcut the romance requirements process with romance sweets. but then if these sweets are freely available it becomes too easy. So we took them out of shops and the only way to get them is to do the Pinata Central challenges and win them as prizes for successful challenge completions. Pinata Central has a clear goal with this (as a way, the only way, to get romance sweets) but you'll never have too many so you use them wisely.
Perfect-Rare: Do you think sales of VP: PP will surpass the Xbox original? I hear a lot of people say VP would be a great game on a Nintendo platform, so VP: PP should be a hell of a hit, right?
Paul Machacek: Microsoft does not comment on rumour and speculation, haha. Who knows, we really hope everyone buys it. VP1 is a brilliant game that sold very well. VP2 is a great sequel to it. VP:PP is ona different platform with some different goals and aims because of that platform and audience. We hope they all sell well (obviously), and i'm certainly not going to attempt to predict the future anyway. Are you going to buy it?
PinataIsland.info: Was the development team able to re-use any underlying code from the original Xbox 360 game or did they have to start completely from scratch?
Paul Machacek: no and no (again). nothing software-wise was carried over at all, it wasn't possible. However, one reason we developed it in 8 months flat (apart from all the great support, help and assets we got from the VP1 team) was that fact that we had a team that was up-2-speed on DS development and carried many systems across from DKR. So we didn't start from scratch, and things appeared on screen very quickly because of code we already had from DKR.
MundoRare: Without the intention of spoiling us the new species (we have already seen some of them, though), can you hype us with anything regarding those seven new piatas?
Paul Machacek: yes, there are 7 new ones. Have you actually seen them? My wife started playing it 2 nights ago and she's already about 21% into it. She found the 1st of the 7 new Pinata's late last night and loved it when it appeared as it's so cute. Let's just say that not all of them will be easy to find and you may need some friends to get all of them. oh, just to clarify, there are 70 total species in VP:PP
Perfect-Rare: Is there a question you havnt been asked yet, which you think is very important to know about the development or about the final game people should know?
Paul Machacek: Yes, noone has asked me what it smells like with so many animals in the garden. ;-) There's nothing important to know about the development as the only thing that counts is the end experience for the players who (hopefully) enjoy it. I just want to find a way that as many people as possible can get to see this game as i'm so proud of it and all of those people throughout Rare that have contributed to it one way or the other. It's a favourite of mine and i want that message to get out there.
PinataIsland.info: it has been mentioned that each pinata species only has one color variant in Pocket Paradise. What about the Flutterscotch?
Paul Machacek: The Flutterscotch colours were evolves and not variants. We still have a whole lot of diffrerent Flutterscotches to get, don't worry about that.
MundoRare: All the three Pinata games developed by Rare are all about the classical 'gardening' simulation. Do you think Rare should extend the franchise to other areas for yourselves?
Paul Machacek: That's a crafty question. We have a very clear focus on what we're trying to achieve with VP and you'll see that in the Rare games. We want to build a succesful franchise. Any further games we may do will be evolutions (pun again intended) of the current games. However, i can't say what our future plans actually are, haha.
PinataIsland.info: As a broader question about the VP franchise as a whole, do you see this as something that will continue to grow beyond this September?
Paul Machacek: I sincerely hope so. Especially as September is when we launch the next 2 so we hope for huge growth then. I can't predict the future though. More than anything i would like to see these games succeed hugely as it gives us the scope to continue.
MundoRare: So we can take September as the official release date, then? Unless THQ has given a date recently, it was 'Fall' last time I checked, I think.
Paul Machacek: Well, September/October, i don't know, sometime in this thing called "fall" i suppose. haha
PinataIsland.info: How does the size of the Pocket Paradise team compare to the team that worked on the original Viva Pinata game?
Paul Machacek: sort of impossible to say. VP:PP was about 13-15 people (it varied slightly during development). VP1 was developed from a small prototype team early on up to a much larger team to deliver the original (and fabulous) content. Not sure exactly how big the VP1 team got, somewhere between 50-70 people i think. But we also have people outside teams that contribute engineering/asset help to teams in production so it's difficult to quantify really without a detailed spreadsheet with staffing stats on it. Which is a dull answer so i'll stop......
MundoRare: Apart from the whole VP1 team, has Gregg Mayles somehow been 'especially' involved in VPPP?
Paul Machacek: We were pretty much left alone by everyone during development, though we instigated occasional disccussions with the VP1 guys/gals over odd issues. These are team efforts. All of the new design changes made to VP:PP were done by members of the handheld team.
MundoRare: I wonder which are your fave pinata species!
Paul Machacek: My absolute favourite was something that i asked to include after getting inspiration from PinataIsland.info (http://PinataIsland.info). But i can't talk about that here. I love the way the Taffly's romance, lol. And the Tafflys do something extra, new, fun and comical in VP:PP. Ok, Taffly it is.
Thanks Paul, George, and everyone else that made this happen for taking the time to answer our questions about Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise.
George K.: And so, without further ado, may I present Mr Paul Machacek. Paul has been with Rare for 20 years and has specialsied in our handhled department. *however* he was not responsible for Spider-Man on the Game Boy. So you can put away your pitchforks.
Paul Machacek: Hi all. pleased to meet everyone, and thank you all for coming and spending your time with us.
Perfect-Rare: Is this DS version the one most true to the PDA game as Viva Pinata was started?
Paul Machacek: VP, long before it was known as VP, went through a number of quite different iterations, platforms etc. Yes, this is a handheld version, but is close to VP1 more than anything. VP on DS is much more full than anything was going to be on a cell phone.
PinataIsland.info: How close is Pocket Paradise to the original Viva Pinata game for the Xbox 360? Disregarding the new features and stylus input-method, does the underlying gameplay feel like something totally familiar or is it a fresh new experience?
Paul Machacek: No, it's very much based on VP1 and the main mechanic is the same. lots of changes obviously though.
MundoRare: Are there any significant changes in the behaviour, appearance, or any other aspect of any of the pinata species that we all already know? I read how you recently commented on the Taffly, for example
Paul Machacek: There are some behavioral differences, and some changes to the ways that they come in/out of your garden. But nothing significant that you'd notice. Some of the very subtle things pinata have done before have been modified or reduced as we felt they would not be noticed by the player. There's also a maximum of 3 visiting pinata around your garden at any one time simply to keep things within the limits of the hardware.
Perfect-Rare: Ive heard there are some clips of the Viva Pinata cartoon in this DS game. Does Rare own the rights of the cartoon or do you have to license those clips?
Paul Machacek: No, all clips are owned by Microsoft, so we have free access to them. MS co-own the cartoon series so we had no issues here. BTW, there's quite a few clips taken from the TV series in VP:PP :-)
PinataIsland.info: I've heard that Leafos has been removed from Pocket Paradise. Are there any other features from the original Xbox 360 game that have been canned?
Paul Machacek: Yes, we removed the helpers for a couple of reasons, but really so that we didn't have to make further limitations to the gameplay elsewhere. Taking helpers out reduced the number of models we had to render, the chances that lots of characters/pinata would all end up in the same place on screen and also reduced routing problems for the AI around a busy garden. You'll also notice that the characters we did keep route differently too now. The doctor flies a heicopter and Willy Builder tunnels in/out to avoid routing issues.
MundoRare: Have you designed Pocket Paradise in mind for people who have or havent played the original? What are your expectations and hopes as to which of those groups will buy the game?
Paul Machacek: we want everyone to buy it... it's been designed for novices and has a very easy entry with the episodes as training places. we keep the info simple, and give direct easy access to info at all times. we tried to make sure that anyone could pick it up & play it.
Perfect-Rare: How many people of the DS team are/were working on the DS version of Viva Pinata?
Paul Machacek: about 13-14 (can't remember exact number).
PinataIsland.info: How does the Playground mode in Pocket Paradise compare to the Just for Fun mode in Trouble in Paradise for the Xbox 360?
Paul Machacek: They have the same ethos, you can just play in a fun area. Specifically on the DS we eliminated all barriers to entry so that it auto-terraforms and gives you plants and pinata immediately, and you can easily call up others that you have already gained in the main game. There are lots of new features in TiP and you can play with those in their mode.
MundoRare: Can you explain us with some detail how the Episodes mode will work? I wonder if it's some kind of 'challenging' mode.
Paul Machacek: The Episodes (of which there are 12) are all training modes that provide a guided challenge. However, although the 1st 4 are really very easy (to draw the player in and teach them basic control skills) the Episodes get progressively harder as you go further through. The first 4 must be played before the rest of the game opens up, but the other 8 (which appear periodically as you reach relevant stages in the main garden) are optional. Any episode that has been unlocked, whether you play it or not, can be returned to and played again to confirm the advice you were taught.
Perfect-Rare: What was the biggest problem youve encountered while developing Viva Pinata for DS? Was it something you have become proud of now the 'problem' has been solved?
Paul Machacek: Lots of people will assume that putting lots of fully animated/rendered pinata's in the garden was the big challenge, actually, it was one of the easier things. The plants were time consuming and ate a lot of space on the game card and in the RAM. We simply couldn't get anywhere near the level of quality desired if we had used the models from VP1 in real-time so instead we identified all the different things each category of plant needed to do/show and pre-rendered every single frame of every plant/tree/weed etc. This was a painstaking process for our very talented animator, and again painstaking for the talented engineer that had me hassling him all the time about it. We needed the resolution to look good and yet needed to be able to squeeze it all into the hardware limitations. Trust me a lot of discussions were had over this. Terraforming was a 2nd issue where we really wanted you to draw straight into the floor and have a very fluid and random experience everytime. One thing that has been quoted from recent interviews is that the garden is 4 screens in size. This is actually wrong, it's 3*3 screens so a total of 9 screens overall. this is a really big area to store every modifiable pixel for and that caused big problems with the size of saved games and also the scroll speed. Then there was the overall issues of making sure that whatever combination of plants/pinata/objects/houses were in your garden the software never gave up. We wanted to make sure you could do anything and this is a big juggling act. We got there in the end and i'm very proud that the team tackled all the technical hurdles as well as they did to produce VP:PP.
PinataIsland.info: Getting back to Episodes, are they treated as goals within your main garden, or are they completely stand-alone?
Paul Machacek: Completing an episode does not give you anything extra in the game. Off the top of my head i can't remember if you get a certificate for doing them all or anything, but their prime purpose is to train and also link straight to the TV series in a way that wasn't easy to do in the main game. The Episodes actually changed focus throughout development and early on they were supposed to be a game mode on their own which you would play through. But time and other constraints prevented this. However, once all opened you could just give them to a younger child and they can play back through all 12 of them and have lots of fun with a TV character based experience that they can simply interact with.
MundoRare: Does the player need to (or is able to) use the DS microphone for anything in the game? For some reason, some people had complaints against it on Diddy Kong Racing DS, and maybe that dissuaded you to experiment with it.
Paul Machacek: We experimented a lot on DKR DS, as many others were doing in the early days of DS development. In VP:PP we had a very clear focus to take what was an already fabulous game and only do what was right for it. It an idea didn't fit perfectly with our goal then we didn't go there. It's a very good, unified experience as a result and i love it. So, no, there's no mic usage here.
Perfect-Rare: Why have you, or the management, chosen THQ as publisher? Back in the GBA days all of your games were really hard to find. Arent you concerned Viva Pinata will be hard to find?
Paul Machacek: It was handled by Microsoft.
PinataIsland.info: A little while ago there was some discussion about the possibility of Pocket Paradise integrating with the Pinata Vision feature of Trouble in Paradise. Can you tell us a little more of the story behind that?
Paul Machacek: At no point during development was such a feature ever considered. A brief discussion was had about what the VP2 team were doing with their game, and obviously they've got the Live Vision thing, but nothing was ever implemented into the DS.
George K.: I think what Paul means is that when Justin Cook came out and mentioned that feature, I think he was speaking on behalf of the X360 team, not the DS team
Paul Machacek: VP:PP was completed (except for Localisation) in October 2007 and i'm not aware that VP2's Live Vision camera technology was even being worked on then. i certainly wasn't aware of it until earlier this year.
MundoRare: How is the music in the DS game and who is behind it?
Paul Machacek: The music and sound effects in the game are a mix of things from VP1, the TV series and some new stuff for VP:PP. However, you may have noticed that we're still a little media shy and i believe that the game is a whole team effort so i'd rather not highlight any one person. After all, noone ever asks who designed a really great graphic. One way or another, probably almost half the development staff at Rare have had a hand in the VP franchise at some point, so it's really a big team thing.
Perfect-Rare: You said you had experimented with the DS during development of DKRDS. What was the one thing you didnt want to use and what did you feel had to be in your next DS game?
Paul Machacek: DKR was our first DS game, and whilst very experienced on a lot of different platforms including previous handhelds, the DS offered new challenges with it's alternate hardware. We played a lot with all the hardware DKR. But on VP we only included items that seemed like a perfect fit for the title. We weren't saying "well, we have this mic so what shall we use it for", rather instead we said "this is a great feature for the game, can we do it with the hardware". I guess we didn't think of anything compelling to use the mic for.
PinataIsland.info: Will the wild-card pinatas make a return? If so, are they obtained solely through a minuscule random chance?
Paul Machacek: If i tell you everything then i'll spoil your fun with the game when you get it ;-)
MundoRare: Another question with DKRDS as a reference. That one featured online Wi-Fi, but VPPP doesn't. Gary Richards recently said that you were "not sure the younger kids go online", but from my point of view both games may aim to the same kind of young audience, right?
Paul Machacek: I can't comment on what Gary was reported to have said. The main reason we left it out was that we had gone through a lot of technical problems with extensive Wifi communications on DKR and they would have been exacerbated by everything else we were trying to do with the system on VP. We pushed the hardware very very hard on VP and the wireless considerations would have made our job harder. Multiplayer gardening was discussed, but it would have complicated many areas of the design and function of the game and we were trying to produce something that was already very complicated in a short space of time. I think there's more than enough game there for our 1st attempt at it.
Perfect-Rare: If I understand correctly, you have completed VP:PP in October last year. Does localization take a whole year? And does this mean a sequel or another project is already in development?
Paul Machacek: I've been on a long skiing holiday since October. no, not really. We are working on something else, but of course you wouldn't expect me to discuss that here now would you ;-)
PinataIsland.info: Does Pocket Paradise take place in the same location of Pinata Island as the original Xbox 360 game? From the screenshots, there appears to be some sandy beach there.
Paul Machacek: The sandy beach you've seen is exclusive to our Playground mode which is a sandbox environment. We then took that theme a bit literally when deciding where to set it, but we knew we wanted to differentiate it from the main garden. The main garden is a similar setting to that in VP1, but clearly looks different due to our camera and terraforming limitations.
MundoRare: Some previews have said that the encyclopedia have gotten some nice improvements. Can you comment on the changes of this feature and its significance for the game?
Paul Machacek: As we do with any game, we looked at the platform and the audience and made a number of decisions to suit. We had a touch screen so this was a big obvious change. We were aware that a very wide demographic would find VP:PP appealing so wanted to make sure that it was very easy to get into and play, but with huge amounts of depth and gameplay for those that wanted a big experience. The touch screen and 2nd screen gave us ways to directly show the player everything they really needed to know in as simple a way as possible, and a very simple direct way to dig deeper (pun intended) if they needed to find out more. Every single icon you see in the game, on either screen is touchable.Yes, the top screen can't be touched directly, but you can swap screens around using a swap icon and then all the icons that were on the journal screen are on the touch screen and you can touch them. For instance, touch a pretztail in the garden and it's next/remaining requirements are shown immediately on the top screen. swap the screens over so that the journal appears on the bottom screen and then touch the requirement for the bunnycomb (via its icon) and you get taken to the encyclopedia page about bunnycombs so that you can see how to get one. from there you'll see a carrot is a bunnycomb requirement, so just touch the carrot icon and it takes you to another page that tells you how to get a carrot etc. At any time there is a single "return to garden" icon that takes you straight back to what you were doing. simple!
Perfect-Rare: Was your idea from the beginning to create a handheld version of Viva Pinata? Has it ever crossed your mind to create a Party Animals DS version?
Paul Machacek: no and no.
PinataIsland.info: Does Pocket Paradise have the same space limitations as the original Xbox 360 game? Does your garden become "too full" at the same rate or are there different hardware limitations to contend with?
Paul Machacek: it's a completely different set of numbers being juggled on a different platform with different limitations. The only time i run out of space is when i physically can't find somewhere in the garden to place something. The system we have written just about fits in the limitations we had after an awful lot of talented work by my great team. Actually the fact that we have a fixed view from a screen that acts like a scrollable window allowed us to avoid a situation when the player could try to view everything by directly controlling the camera view. This made it easier for us to do what we wanted to without apparent limitations.
MundoRare: I have read that there are also some changes regarding the romance candy and that you are not able to use it so easily. Is that right? And, if so, why?
Paul Machacek: Complex question as the same reasoning was behind a bunch of decisions in VP:PP..... A number of things have been taken out of shops so that you spend less time in shops, more time in the garden, increase the apparent value of those things and give greater meaning to some of the things that the player does. We removed the romancing mini-games for various reasons, but altered some of the other requirements to get a good ballance of things to do in the game, getting progressively harder as you play. Because of our understanding that many younger people were likely to play (because of the platform) we didn't want it to be too hard for them to get through it so you can shortcut the romance requirements process with romance sweets. but then if these sweets are freely available it becomes too easy. So we took them out of shops and the only way to get them is to do the Pinata Central challenges and win them as prizes for successful challenge completions. Pinata Central has a clear goal with this (as a way, the only way, to get romance sweets) but you'll never have too many so you use them wisely.
Perfect-Rare: Do you think sales of VP: PP will surpass the Xbox original? I hear a lot of people say VP would be a great game on a Nintendo platform, so VP: PP should be a hell of a hit, right?
Paul Machacek: Microsoft does not comment on rumour and speculation, haha. Who knows, we really hope everyone buys it. VP1 is a brilliant game that sold very well. VP2 is a great sequel to it. VP:PP is ona different platform with some different goals and aims because of that platform and audience. We hope they all sell well (obviously), and i'm certainly not going to attempt to predict the future anyway. Are you going to buy it?
PinataIsland.info: Was the development team able to re-use any underlying code from the original Xbox 360 game or did they have to start completely from scratch?
Paul Machacek: no and no (again). nothing software-wise was carried over at all, it wasn't possible. However, one reason we developed it in 8 months flat (apart from all the great support, help and assets we got from the VP1 team) was that fact that we had a team that was up-2-speed on DS development and carried many systems across from DKR. So we didn't start from scratch, and things appeared on screen very quickly because of code we already had from DKR.
MundoRare: Without the intention of spoiling us the new species (we have already seen some of them, though), can you hype us with anything regarding those seven new piatas?
Paul Machacek: yes, there are 7 new ones. Have you actually seen them? My wife started playing it 2 nights ago and she's already about 21% into it. She found the 1st of the 7 new Pinata's late last night and loved it when it appeared as it's so cute. Let's just say that not all of them will be easy to find and you may need some friends to get all of them. oh, just to clarify, there are 70 total species in VP:PP
Perfect-Rare: Is there a question you havnt been asked yet, which you think is very important to know about the development or about the final game people should know?
Paul Machacek: Yes, noone has asked me what it smells like with so many animals in the garden. ;-) There's nothing important to know about the development as the only thing that counts is the end experience for the players who (hopefully) enjoy it. I just want to find a way that as many people as possible can get to see this game as i'm so proud of it and all of those people throughout Rare that have contributed to it one way or the other. It's a favourite of mine and i want that message to get out there.
PinataIsland.info: it has been mentioned that each pinata species only has one color variant in Pocket Paradise. What about the Flutterscotch?
Paul Machacek: The Flutterscotch colours were evolves and not variants. We still have a whole lot of diffrerent Flutterscotches to get, don't worry about that.
MundoRare: All the three Pinata games developed by Rare are all about the classical 'gardening' simulation. Do you think Rare should extend the franchise to other areas for yourselves?
Paul Machacek: That's a crafty question. We have a very clear focus on what we're trying to achieve with VP and you'll see that in the Rare games. We want to build a succesful franchise. Any further games we may do will be evolutions (pun again intended) of the current games. However, i can't say what our future plans actually are, haha.
PinataIsland.info: As a broader question about the VP franchise as a whole, do you see this as something that will continue to grow beyond this September?
Paul Machacek: I sincerely hope so. Especially as September is when we launch the next 2 so we hope for huge growth then. I can't predict the future though. More than anything i would like to see these games succeed hugely as it gives us the scope to continue.
MundoRare: So we can take September as the official release date, then? Unless THQ has given a date recently, it was 'Fall' last time I checked, I think.
Paul Machacek: Well, September/October, i don't know, sometime in this thing called "fall" i suppose. haha
PinataIsland.info: How does the size of the Pocket Paradise team compare to the team that worked on the original Viva Pinata game?
Paul Machacek: sort of impossible to say. VP:PP was about 13-15 people (it varied slightly during development). VP1 was developed from a small prototype team early on up to a much larger team to deliver the original (and fabulous) content. Not sure exactly how big the VP1 team got, somewhere between 50-70 people i think. But we also have people outside teams that contribute engineering/asset help to teams in production so it's difficult to quantify really without a detailed spreadsheet with staffing stats on it. Which is a dull answer so i'll stop......
MundoRare: Apart from the whole VP1 team, has Gregg Mayles somehow been 'especially' involved in VPPP?
Paul Machacek: We were pretty much left alone by everyone during development, though we instigated occasional disccussions with the VP1 guys/gals over odd issues. These are team efforts. All of the new design changes made to VP:PP were done by members of the handheld team.
MundoRare: I wonder which are your fave pinata species!
Paul Machacek: My absolute favourite was something that i asked to include after getting inspiration from PinataIsland.info (http://PinataIsland.info). But i can't talk about that here. I love the way the Taffly's romance, lol. And the Tafflys do something extra, new, fun and comical in VP:PP. Ok, Taffly it is.
Thanks Paul, George, and everyone else that made this happen for taking the time to answer our questions about Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise.