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Vicarious Visions on Skylanders SWAP-Force - Work began prior to Skylanders release

by rawmeatcowboy
09 October 2013
GN Version 4.0
The following info comes from an NWR interview with Vicarious Visions’ Jeremy Russo...

- development began on this year’s Skylanders: Swap Force before the first game came out
- Vicarious Visions took on Skylanders work after having their Guitar Hero game canned and their DJ Hero 3D project shelved

“We initially split it into two groups. We had engineers figuring out how it (combining character parts) would actually work.”

- the proof of concept was a mound of clay with an audio jack connecting two parts

“Separately, we had designers and artists focusing on the game concept, like what this would actually mean to the player. That was a lot of fun, but it was all just theory at that point. We knew we had something magical but we just weren’t making that connection between the hardware and the software at that point.”

- Engineer Brent Gibson took apart a bunch of Skylanders and made a three-piece creation using Spyro’s head, Prism Break’s torso, and Voodood’s legs
- Gibson used magnets to swap the pieces between characters
- Gibson was working so hard that he cut his hand while slicing figurines and had to go to the hospital
- the decision to go with two-part characters was made about a quarter of the way through development

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