King Kong creators talk about game development

16 December 2005

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Posted by:Ferry

Question (GameDaily): Obviously creating the official game for the movie is a huge undertaking. What steps were needed to ensure that production stayed on course?

Xavier: The main challenge is to work in parallel with a movie and a universe that is created as you are developing the game. You have to anticipate, to wait for assets to be delivered, and make sure you validate on a regular basis the different choices you make to make sure you are on the right track… while making sure everything still fits in your planning.

Peter J made us feel comfortable because he really did not want the game to be a simple adaptation of the movie but he sees the game as a sister or a brother to the movie and an expansion to his universe. That means he accepted (and was suggesting) differences between the movie and the game in order to meet our constraints and make the best game possible. We also worked with Philippa Boyens (co scenarist) to make sure we were respecting characters and tone.

You need a lot of exchanges, and we were lucky to go to New Zealand five times to breathe some of Kong’s air!

Question: It must have been an incredible experience working with Peter Jackson. Do you have any interesting anecdotes you can share?

Michel Ancel: When we first met in Los Angeles, I discovered that Peter had just finished playing Beyond Good & Evil, our latest creation. He asked the people around him for a special pencil just to get an autograph on a copy of the game. It was an incredible situation.

Question: How crucial was Peter Jackson’s involvement in making the game?

Michel: To me, the crucial point was the fact that we needed to understand the world of Kong, from Peter’s point of view of course. We went several times in New Zealand and Peter was available for us and took a part of his precious time to share his vision of the movie. It was a month before the first film shots so it was very exciting; we had the real feeling of being part of Peter’s team.

Question: We understand that you had access to WETA’s assets from the film. How much did this help you in recreating Skull Island and the unique King Kong atmosphere?

Xavier: We received a huge quantity of 2D artworks. The amazing work that our artists did was to analyze these 2D artworks and turn them into 3D while capturing the magic and ambiance of this beautiful universe.

Chance: Beautiful and terrifying, I might add. My studio was wallpapered with WETA designs for three months! It kept me firmly rooted in Skull Island while creating the score. I take a lot of inspiration from visual cues, and there’s no question that WETA’s artistic vision seeped deeply into the score. One of the bass trombone players remarked after recording a particularly dark and creepy passage, “Man, you must have some dark dreams…”

Question: Recent reviews have been largely positive but the game’s length isn’t much over 6-7 hours, and some people might not be able to justify paying $49.99 or $59.99 (Xbox 360) for an experience that is over so quickly. Did you look into ways of lengthening the game or adding more options/replay incentive?

Xavier: We have many replay incentives. While replaying the levels, and performing better scores (be the best hunter) you can unlock some bonuses; go online and try to compete with others and you also can unlock an alternative ending to the game in New York City.