Interview | Rare Talks Viva Pi�ata on Nintendo DS & More

Cubed³'s Adam Riley: What was the reason for bringing Viva Pi�ata from 360 to DS, rather than something like Perfect Dark?

Paul Machacek, Producer on Viva Pi�ata: Pocket Paradise: We are very keen to build the VP franchise, feel that there's a very good fit with the DS demographic, really wanted to see how you could interact with your garden and Pi�ata using a touch screen and knew that VP is a big game to play through, so being able to carry it and pick-up-and-play it during lots of short periods of spare time people might have would work very well.

AR: It has been stated that the game was completed as far back as October 2007, hence there are no crossovers with the new 360 project. But if the game was finished way back then, why has it yet to be released?

PM: There are crossovers with VP2 as we have some extra new pi�ata species in Pocket Paradise. VP2 was in development at the same time as Pocket Paradise. The delay was down to the fact that we had a break out in October and a couple of pi�ata escaped and it's taken us this long to round them up again from our grounds here at Rare and push them back into their garden. One of the new Pi�ata has very long legs and is a fast runner and none of us are particularly athletic, so it took some time to catch it.

AR: How long did it actually take to finish development? And has a final European release date for the game been confirmed now?

PM: Apart from some brief ad-hoc prototyping that was done by a couple of people for about 6 weeks before development started, the team was on the game from the start of March 2007 until late October 2007. More recently some LOC work has been done to get various languages in and we've done some final testing (plus run around the Rare grounds re-catching belligerent escapee Pi�ata).

AR: Could you explain how the new Episodes and Sandbox modes work, as well as the new stylus control system?

PM : That's 3 very big questions all rolled up into one!

There are 12 episodes that act as training missions for new things that you need to learn to play the game. All of them are linked directly to the TV series, are represented by popular TV characters (like Hudson & Fergie) and all contain scenes from the TV series. The first 4 Episodes are how you start the game and teach basic techniques in a very simple way, and when completed they unlock the Main Garden and the Playground modes. Periodically, as you progress through the Main Garden game you are offered up another episode to teach you a new skill (like fertilising plants) which you will need soon. These are optional Episodes, and you can go back and play any Episode later whether you've played through it already or not.

The Sandbox is a simple, no-pressured, version of the Main Garden that is a Beach themed space where you can easily access and play with the Pi�ata you've already unlocked. It's already terraformed so that you don't have to start from basics, though you can change the terraforming yourself at any time. You can simply call up any Pi�ata you've already unlocked, though there are restrictions on what you can do. It's a great space for young children to play with any Pi�ata casually, especially the 4 main TV characters from the 1st 4 Episodes which are available as soon as the Playground is unlocked. It's also a great simple space for more hardcore players to quickly call up Pi�atas that they've unlocked in the Main Garden, so that it becomes a "Trophy Room" to show friends what great species you've managed to find.

The touch interface works very well as you can simply touch the screen to scroll around the garden, move objects around, direct Pi�ata to go places or interact with objects or other Pi�ata, draw directly into the ground with your tools when terraforming and highlight any Pi�ata or object in the garden to be given direct, context sensitive information about it on the top screen without having to look any further. The touch interface is very simple, intuitive, direct and works very well.

AR: Will all of the Pi�atas from the original title be making a comeback? And how many new Pi�atas can we expect to see?

PM: All Pi�atas from VP1 are in Pocket Paradise and we also have 7 new species as well. That's a total of 70 Pi�ata species in the game.

AR: Is Pocket Paradise as open-ended as its predecessor, or is it more goal-oriented?

PM: We've maintained that same open-ended feel of VP1, and whilst there are goals to get, it' still a sandbox experience that you can continue to tinker with and do other things in. Many different people find completely different ways to play with it or get something else out of it.

AR: The original game's use of the Xbox 360 Achievement system was a great way to reward progress in an open-ended environment. Does Pocket Paradise feature anything of a similar nature? (If not, please explain why).

PM: We have a huge array of awards, trophies and certificates in Pocket Paradise and you'll not be wanting for things to do *smiles*

AR: What limitations did you run into and how did you get around them to refine the experience? And given the restraints of the DS hardware in general, what kind of limits can players expect to see in terms of garden size and number of simultaneously deployed objects?

PM: The total viewable garden area is 6*6 screens in size (36 screens), but the outer "border" of screens is the no-mans land where Pi�atas can roam around as they visit you. The central 4*4 screens (16 screens in area) are fully terraformable and makes up the largest garden size of 3. The smallest garden (which you start with) is 3*3 screens in size. We've really worked very hard to remove all obstacles to what you can do and where so that you are never taken away from the experience, and you can pretty much play the game without being told that you can't do something. Believe it or not the plants growing system was a big and difficult challenge that took a lot of time by some very talented people to get right. The terraforming was also difficult as we want players to be able to "draw" straight into the ground, but then had to overcome the challenges that such a large amount of data provided (being able to save it out into 3 save game slots and having a good scroll speed). Lots of work went into getting all of the pretty Pi�ata rendered nicely so that you can have lots of them in the garden at once. It all works remarkably well.

AR: Does the game feature any online/multiplayer/co-operative features? And if no Wi-Fi has been used, can you please explain why a feature used so frequently by younger players in the games such as Spectrobes and Pok�mon was omitted?

PM: You can load Pi�ata, coins and other objects into a crate and ship it out to another garden saved in another save game slot on your own game card, or wirelessly connect locally to another DS unit and send the crate there. Pocket Paradise is already a very large game to play, with a huge amount of depth and we felt that there were already an awful lot of things to do without making the gaming larger and more complicated. There would have been technical challenges with implementing a traditional multiplayer experience and so, for this version of a Viva Pi�ata game, we decided that there was enough to do.

AR: What would you say makes Pocket Paradise a worthy investment for someone who has already spent a considerably amount of time with the original game?

PM: There are many new aspects to Pocket Paradise that aren't available in VP1. We have extra new Pi�atas, different awards and certificates to win and the ability (as an open ended game) to take it with you anywhere and play it anytime. The touch interface works fabulously well, and you can share the experience with others in your family very simply through multiple gardens on one game card or across several. We've had a huge amount of positive reaction from people familiar with the first game about what Pocket Paradise brings to the series in terms of gameplay and accessibility.

AR: Is it possible that a portable version of 'Trouble in Paradise' might arrive at some point in the future if sales of the first DS game are strong enough?

PM: We really want to build a strong and successful franchise, and if Pocket Paradise and Trouble in Paradise sell well for us then we would certainly have to consider what else we could do to build things further.

AR: Has the portable team changed much since it was deemed the 'GBA Team'? And has past experience with Nintendo formats helped with DS development in general?

PM: The handheld team had already done Diddy Kong Racing on DS and so hardware and systems were familiar going into the Pocket Paradise project. Things are always changing at Rare and we try to find the best ways to do things, and people have various interests as well, so people move around teams a little bit anyway between projects. We have a bunch of fairly experienced people, and today's handheld device is yesterday's console, so getting to grips with the hardware is a challenge, but we've done it many times over the years.

AR: There have been lots of requests to see the fantastic It's Mr Pants game return from our readers. Considering its core gameplay seems like it would lend itself perfectly to the DS touch/dual-screen set-up, will the team ever consider resurrecting the old GBA game? Maybe even working with Nintendo to revert back to the DK Coconut Crackers theme to increase sales?

PM: Actually, I'm the one who wrote It's Mr Pants, and I really like that game. Particularly Ultra Wipeout, Max's Muddle and the Marathon modes. I can't comment though on where Mr Pants or Mrs Pie may pop up next…

AR: The same goes for Rare's other GBA titles, to be honest, with fans eager to see SabreWulf, Grunty's Revenge and Banjo Pilot either upgraded on DS, or new versions made specifically for the system. To those yearning for games like this on DS, what would you say � is there any chance at all?

PM: There's always a chance *winks* Maybe we need to finish that long fabled KI3 first though, or re-invent Battletoads, haha!

AR: There has been talk of Rare already having another DS project lined up. Is there anything you can tell us about that yet, even just a hint towards a particular genre?

PM: I can't talk about "talk" *laughs*

AR: Shane Kim has previously said both Viva Pi�ata and Kameo would be perfectly suited to DS. Now VP has been made, is Kameo also on the cards?

PM: Along with KI3, Battletoads and all the other games you've just asked for *smiles wryly*

AR: And whatever happened to the version of Perfect Dark that the team had up-and-running back when the DS hardware was first released?

PM: Did we? *looks shifty*

AR: Were there any GBA projects that never reached the completion stage? And can you shed any light on the 'Gnomeman' project that has been mentioned in the past?

PM: Maybe, maybe not to both *chuckles evilly*

AR: Where do things stand on Rare creating games for the WiiWare service, as well as putting older games from Ultimate's Commodore 64 or Rare's non-DK NES/SNES/N64 games on the Virtual Console?

PM: You really were trawling through the rumour mill for these last few questions, weren't you! I seem to remember we have this little thing called the Xbox 360 to support *guffaws*