Article/Interview with Ubisoft’s Greg Gobbi

> I had a great time playing Tonic for this cover story. I only wish I’d have had more time with the games. But this being the cover story, we waited till the last few days to get the most recent versions. So, in order to answer any remaining questions you may have, here’s the skinny from Team Tonic!
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> GR: After the success of Rayman across three platforms, what prompted the creation of Ed and Tonic Trouble before a sequel?
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> GREG: We wanted to do something totally different after Rayman. In the beginning, Tonic Trouble was like a new big bang in our brains: everything was to be created. A new universe, new characters, thousands of twisted ideas that we had when producing Rayman and that we did not put in Rayman because they did not fit with the spirit of the game. It was amazing. I suppose we felt like any creator on Day One: what will we create today? What about light? Ok, let’s go for light! Tomorrow will be Day 2. We needed to create something else before going on with Rayman. Nobody in the team felt like becoming civil workers, capitalizing all our life on our first success. I think that if we had made Rayman 2 just after Rayman, Rayman 2 would only have been a sequel instead of the really huge creation it is and we wouldn’t have made this amazing and totally twisted adventure game that Tonic Trouble is.
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> What was the inspiration behind Ed? How was that conceived and by who?
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> The original idea we had was about the evolution of the character during the storyline. We wanted Ed to be an absolute nobody, a wannabe, a loser at the beginning of the adventure and a maxi-mega-super-star-super hero, savoir of our souls at the end. Ed is an anti-hero (like all of us) that turns himself into a hero (like in all our wishes). Ed was originally “delivered” by Michel Ancel (the creator of Rayman) and received his education from all of us. To be honest, this guy did not receive what I would call a classical education. That may be why he is twisted, schizophrenic, completely clueless about reality and the way you should behave in society. We have included a psychological analysis of Ed from the doctor who attested that he could never join the Marines – you’ll find that on page 120.
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> How large of a team has Ubi allocated to the project?
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> Actually, quite a large team. This is due to the fact that Tonic Trouble is our first open-space 3D game. We had to make the engine. This was a big effort since we decided to make it modular, re-usable (for other games)\_ and scalable (for all platforms). This engine was reused (with few modifications) for Rayman 2, for instance. We also developed very powerful integration tools in order to offer a wide range of possibilities to level designers. The specific tools allow the teams of game designers and graphic designers to develop their maps and work themselves on the AI of characters and game situations. The flexibility of those tools  allow to de-multiply creativity. Before, designers used to order a character to engineers, engineers would program its behavior, which was integrated as such in the game. This did not allow the behavior to be rich enough. The development of our tools allows today to have 35 people looking for new ideas, developing them and evaluating the gameplay in real time. Let’s talk figures:
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> Developers: 60
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> Animators: 30
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> Level designers: 12
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> 3D artists: 12
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> Sound designer: 1
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> Musician:1
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> Sound effects: 2
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> Shifting gears from 2D hand drawn graphics to 3D, what has been your biggest challenge?
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> Keeping the expression and the emotion of the characters. Our characters are very cartoonish and fun. We decided that they would express their personalities through their actions (versus facial expression). So we kept this fun with the movements of the characters. Tonic Trouble is full of hilarious animations. We have bodybuilding guards dancing on the ice with a very nice pink tutu, we have boxing mushrooms, angry carrots, revolutionary corns…
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> What is your ultimate goal for Ed?
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> WE know Ed has strong potential as a character. Tonic Trouble is the first appearance of Ed. He is very impressive (you know, he is quite a shy guy) even if he knows that he is a good actor. We have the same hope: To win an Academy Award!
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> Do you think the PC demographic has come far enough to embrace a full-blown console platformer?
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> Actually, Rayman already proved this for Ubisfot. It was a massive success on Playstation, but also on PC, thanks to the great gameplay and a universal character. We are very confident that Tonic will set up a new reference on PC as well.
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> Was Tonic Trouble designed for PC and then shoehorned into the N64 or have both games taken their own course? Are they from the same team?
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> WE made the first PC version for a bundle market in March 98. Then we made a totally new game (new levels, more characters) for the N64 and for the PC retail version. So the N64 version has been absolutely designed for the N64, by a separate team: we just kept the twisted spirit of the game and pushed it to the limits of the console. The PC retail version has been made by taking the gameplay from the N64 version and the graphics from the bundle version.
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> Will TT64 use the new 4 meg memory pak?
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> We are currently looking at it. We will probably use it but I can not be absolutely positive yet.
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> Do you feel that you’ve been able to tap into the N64’s hidden strengths as rare and iguana have?
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> I think so. We received very good support from Nintendo of America. They believed in the title, as did Mr. Miyamoto. So they have been very available to help us. We received a lot of hints from them.
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> The opening cinema for the PC title is absolutely amazing. Who is responsible for this amazing footage and do you have any plans to take Ed (via CG) into any other forms of media? With the popularity of animated shows on Fox, MTV, and HBO, it seems a no-brainer. Ed’s pretty darn cool.
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> The opening cinema sequence was made in Montpelier (south of France) under the direction of Michel Ancel. WE received the ambition of taking our characters into other forms of media. We have some plans that I can not communicate now for Ed.
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> The music on PC is majestic and really adds to the game. Do you feel that you’ve been able to achieve at least good results comparatively on the N64?
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> Yes, the music on the N64 version is really good; we kept the same spirit. Of course, it is midi (compared to Dolby Surround for the PC). But we made our own midi bank with bizarre instruments that are not in the bank provided by Nintendo. For instance, we have a banjo, a coucou, a Theremin, and even a Mongolian jalopy. If you wonder what a Theremin is, listen to Tonic’s music.
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> What number will TT have to hit to spawn a sequel?
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> We have already begun the conception of another title around Ed and his universe. IT is not really a sequel but another adventure starring Ed, with a slightly different concept of gameplay.
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> Is seems that the PC version of TT, which is obviously the best PC platformer ever, could be rather easily done on the Dreamcast given that the DC audience would likely embrace the game to a much larger extent, do you have any plans for the title?
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> Well, Tonic Trouble is N64 exclusive for one year. That gives us some time to think about it.
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> On that note, is the DC capable of an even better version?
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> The first tries we made with Tonic Trouble on our DC kits were quite amazing.
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> And, finally, this is obviously a fantastic 3D engine. Will Ubsioft continue the tradition of supporting the ever-popular action/platform genre well into the future with this engine? I don’t suppose you could hint as to what may be coming next…
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> Of course. We are currently producing Rayman 2 and three Playmobil titles with the same engine, plus around 15 others next year. And you are right: nothing I can tell today.
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> Thanks for your time, and best of luck with Tonic Trouble!
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