C3 Exclusive Interview | Lego Star Wars Developer Traveller's Tales

Jonathan Smith, Development Director at TT Games: Hi! And thanks very much for your interest!

C3: Please can you tell our readers a little bit about what you have previously worked on and how large the team is working on Lego Star Wars II?

JS: Traveller's Tales has a history going back 15 years, with success on a wide variety of gaming formats, including Sonic R on Sega Saturn, Toy Story on PS1, Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex on PS2, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe last year. We've had around 30 people on our LEGO Star Wars II team: that includes everyone who worked on the first game, with some new people too.

C3: How important was it for you to be faithful to the storylines from the original Star Wars trilogy?

JS: We're all huge Star Wars fans, so of course we want to be true to those fantastic stories. But we also have the great privilege to work in a LEGO universe, which does play by slightly different rules. There are surprising and funny things which can happen in a LEGO re-telling of the story, without seeming out of kilter with the classic narratives we all love.

C3: Was it difficult to base the games on such a well known series of films, yet try to keep the content fresh and enjoyable at the same time?

JS: We're incredibly lucky to have this original LEGO view on the world, which we're bringing to life for the first time