Interview | Playtonic’s Mark Stevenson on Project Ukulele & Rare Days

Mark Stevenson, Technical Art Director at Playtonic: So many it's hard to choose, it was just such an exciting time to be in game development with the transition from predominantly 2D into 3D. I think seeing and playing Super Mario 64 for the first time was an incredible revelation. In fact, Nintendo produced so many amazing revolutionary games during that period, a lot of which remain personal favourites of mine to this day - Ocarina of Time, Pilotwings and WaveRace 64 particularly standout. Working on the N64 was probably one of my favourite times in my career. It was incredibly hard work but the creativity and camaraderie on the teams and sense of opportunity to blaze a trail was utterly mind blowing and I think we produced some amazing games in that period that I feel immensely proud of and fortunate to have been involved with.

Cubed3: Going back further, to 1994, PlayStation was on the horizon and creating a lot of excitement with its next generation machine, but with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, there was worldwide astonishment at what was created on that hardware. Were you aware just how special a game you were making?

Mark: DKC was actually the first game I worked on. I'd been at Rare only a couple of weeks when through a chance encounter with Tim Stamper, where he saw my interest in character development, I found myself on the Donkey Kong Team. I was totally blown away by what I saw, so I'd have to say that I knew there and then how special this game was potentially going to be. For the rest of the team that had already been working with the tech and the game for a while I'm not so sure that they realised quite how special it was until the game was shown at the CES (a precursor to E3). Some of the team got to go along to the show and got to witness first-hand the response and disbelief that this was on the Super Nintendo and not a new console.

Cubed3: GoldenEye is perhaps the game - along with Super Mario 64 - that most defines the N64. When was the last time you played it, and what was that like?

Mark: Honestly, it was a long time ago. I've still got it somewhere along with my N64 and a whole host of consoles and computers and games I've collected over the years, dating right back to the Atari 2600 (VCS). I should probably find it out and play it, although I keep hoping we'll see a re-release or a re-master of the game one day.

Cubed3: Comparisons are forever drawn between Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. Which one is better and why?

Mark: I think despite the comparisons, they were quite distinct games at their heart. I can't really say that one is better than the other, but if I had to choose a personal favourite then I'd have to stay loyal to my roots and go with Banjo. I loved the exploration of Banjo and all the amazing and humorous worlds and characters of Banjo. It's a really massive challenge to create a new IP in what was pretty much a new genre and then have such success with it from the start, so I have to tip my hat to the team for the amazing job they did. I know a lot of it was inspirational to the work we did on DK64.

Cubed3: There was universal heartbreak amongst Rare and Nintendo fans when news of the acquisition to Microsoft first surfaced. What were the reasons behind the move?

Mark: I can't really speak as to the reasons why - that's a question for Tim and Chris Stamper. The industry was definitely going through a lot of changes at this time. Teams were getting bigger, development budgets were getting bigger, and I think acquisitions of development studios by large well-funded publishers were just very much a part of those times.

Cubed3: Having been with Nintendo for so long, it must have been strange to move to Microsoft. What did that feel like and what were the differences you noticed working with both, Nintendo and Microsoft?

Mark: I don't think there were any real differences, generally. Rare has always been run by Rare and developed the games it chose to. I think any changes that occurred over time were more down to changes in the industry - bigger teams, bigger budgets, new tech, and so on.

Cubed3: You left Rare in 2014 and went on to form part of Playtonic, subsequently going on to announce the exciting Project Ukulele. Can you tell us the challenges behind creating a new studio and also the story behind Project Ukulele's conception and your hopes for it?

Mark: We just wanted to replicate an environment matching our development experience at Rare during the SNES and N64 era that matches our personalities and creative strengths - it's that simple, and we think the games will reflect that process like they did before. It's now easier than ever to set up an independent studio, so we can concentrate on the important bit - making a great game!

Cubed3: Can you tell us what former Rare staff are working on the project? And how about other staff - is there anyone else involved that has an equally illustrious background?

Mark: At the minute all the staff working on actually developing the game are former Rare and all worked there during the Nintendo era of Rare - Gavin Price, Chris Sutherland, Jens Restemeier, Steve Mayles and Steven Hurst. We've also more recently added Andy Robinson to the company, who was previously a games journalist and the former editor of the CVG site. After such an overwhelming response since we went public, and the fact we want to involve our fans and community as much as possible in what we're doing, we felt it absolutely necessary to bring someone on board that can help deal with this level of community response and engagement. You can get more info on everyone and the games they've worked on by visiting our website http://www.playtonicgames.com.

Cubed3: There is obvious inspiration for the project, but other than Banjo-Kazooie, what games have helped shape the project so far, and can you tell us how long it's been in-progress?

Mark: Inspiration comes from all over the place. We're calling it a spiritual successor, but we're not looking to make a clone. A lot has happened in the time since Banjo originally launched - advances in hardware, tools, and so on. We've been working on it full-time for a few months and we'll be building Ukulele exactly how we built all our games at Rare - to be the best game it can be on current hardware.

Cubed3: Do you have plans to bring Project Ukulele to Nintendo formats, either as a port or system specific version (for 3DS, for instance)?

Mark: We'd like to bring Project Ukulele to as many gamers as possible, and on as many platforms as possible, which is a big part of why we're launching a Kickstarter campaign in May to try and make this a reality and, hopefully, launch on as many platforms as possible, Day One. We're developing the game in Unity, so this also makes it easier to port to different consoles and ideally we'd love to add platform specific features as well. Let's see how the Kickstarter goes!

Cubed: Are you still in contact with other ex-Rare staff? And what are your thoughts on the idea of FortuneFish's projects?

Mark: Yes, most definitely. We're all still in contact with both ex- and current Rare staff. I've worked with a lot of amazing and talented people over the years and it's great to see them all working across everything from mobile to console. I love to see what people are working on and I'd like to think that there's still that sense of intense friendly competition we had across the teams at Rare. Always trying to outdo each other, but always encouraged and inspired by each other, as well. Unfortunately, or fortunately from a fan's perspective, I'm not finding much time to actually play games at the minute as we're incredibly busy with Project Ukulele.

Cubed3: Would you ever team up with your former staff members to work on a future Rare Alumni project?

Mark: Wouldn't it amazing to get some of the original minds together? Those who made games like Jet Force Gemini and DKC and have an opportunity to make spiritual successors to those titles? I would love to see some of those games from the N64 days of Rare have another chance to shine and, even better, do so with the original masterminds behind them, giving the love and care that they deserve.

Cubed3: Finally, which Games on the Wii U are you most looking forward to this year?

Mark: It was Zelda, although recent news suggests this has been pushed to 2016 now! If we just said 'What upcoming games am I most looking forward to on Wii U' then It would definitely be Zelda and Project Ukulele, of course *winks*