Buena Vista went straight to the leader in young adult titles – Traveller’s Tales – to create The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which is scheduled for release on November 14th. We were fortunate enough to grab a few minutes with Andy Burrows, who is both the designer and associate producer at Traveller’s.
In what ways (if any) will The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe appeal to gamers outside of its younger, core demographic?
Andy Burrows: The film and the books have a broad appeal and that was our aim for the game, as well. We love the Narnia stories and we feel as though we’ve created a game which can be enjoyed by players of any age. In fact, The Chronicles of Narnia books have sold more than 90 million copies to date so there’s a massive audience that is eager for the film and games.
There are a number of features that should appeal to gamers that are teens and older. The battles are massive and intense! Some of the battles in the game feature wave after wave after wave of enemies. They are gargantuan struggles where the stakes are continually raised. A couple of weeks ago we watched two grown men play through one of the later levels in the game called “The Great Battle.” Their excitement and enthusiasm drew a crowd in the Traveller’s Tales offices and their noise level kept rising. There were shouts of “switch to Lucy and heal us” and “just one more Minotaur.” Numerous times they were certain that they were on the brink of success only to be presented with another wave of enemies. When they finally won the battle and completed the level, they had a great sense of relief and accomplishment.
Even though the game, like the original C.S. Lewis source material and the upcoming film, features four children as the protagonists, we see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe game as more Frodo-ish and less Muggle-like. The game is rated Teen with a descriptor of Fantasy Violence by the ESRB.
There are also six bonus level battles that increase in difficulty and up the ante for combat. These aren’t required to complete the game, but they are required to unlock all of the bonus content.
Also, the way the characters progress over the course of the game and the game’s skill system which allows players to make choices about character abilities add depth to the game play. As new abilities are unlocked you have to determine which ones suit your style of play or would have the greatest immediate impact. Or you can choose to replay an earlier level to acquire the required coins to buy as much as possible. By the way, make sure you buy and use Lucy’s creature tames at some point. These are great fun to play and they also look cool.
Also, the drop-in/drop-out multi-player system is great for accommodating a friend, significant other or parent joining a game in-progress at any time.
We still enjoy playing the game as we are completing all of the localizations – and as much as we hate to admit it, we are slightly older than the core demographic.
How does The Chronicles of Narnia, the game, expand the storyline that will be featured in the movie?
Andy Burrows: The game follows the storyline of the movie very closely. Each level has an introductory FMV to establish the area and the plot of the level, and each is concluded with another piece of FMV that helps to tie the level in with the overall story.
Each level expands upon the storyline of the movie in some way. For example, the opening of the movie is set in London during World War II. This explosive introduction focuses on a scene from the film with a German air raid during the blitz, showing the bombers swooping over London and delivering heavy bombs. Our game takes this scene, shows the Pevensie children and allows the player to take control of the four heroes as they try to escape their war-torn house and get to the air raid shelter before it’s too late.
We used blueprints from the film studio to create an exact virtual replica of the Pevensie’s house. We also used assets that the studio provided us to re-create the interior of the house precisely, right down to the last wall painting. There were several rooms that were on the blueprints but which were not seen at all in the movie, so we had to design these from scratch. As we’d already built exact replicas of the rooms that could be seen in the movie, we knew exactly how these rooms should look in order for them to fit seamlessly with the overall theme of the level – The last thing that we wanted was for any of the rooms to look completely out of place. Plus, being able to design parts of the house from scratch gave us a degree of freedom to play around with neat game ideas that may not have fit into the game otherwise.
Having regular feedback from the C.S. Lewis Estate on the current state of the game was an invaluable tool. Their guidance meant that we never strayed into “non-Narnia” territory.
Also on hand to help was Andrew Adamson, director for Disney/Walden Media’s The Chronicles of Narnia film. One part of the film that we expanded upon in our game is the flight of the children through a network of underground tunnels, with the White Witch’s Wolves in hot pursuit. Our first vision of this level was to create a large underground cavern, effectively building something that the Badger or some other underground creature could have fashioned for themselves. However, to Andrew Adamson’s eye, the level didn’t resemble anything you would see in Narnia. Our artist went back to the drawing board and redesigned the level and what we ended up with was even more visually spectacular than the original version.
So, in short, our game follows the storyline of the movie closely while also expanding upon it where appropriate. From the outset of the project, our goal had been to make the game of the movie and I feel that we have achieved exactly that.
[Visit TeamXbox for the rest]
