Making Mjolnir Out of a WiiMote

The local game development studio hit cult status with their debut title, 2008's Mushroom Men, before dipping their toes into the world of licensed games with 2009's chop-or-be-chopped kitchen sim, Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked!. Then they hit home a double whammy with the Wii versions of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II and Ghostbusters, with their ports getting the best reviews for any system.

Now, after letting players wield a proton back and a Lightsaber via the Wii Remote, the Austin developers have turned the console's trademark controller into Mjolnir, the original hammer of the god. Working closely with comic superstar Matt Fraction (Uncanny X-Men, The Invincible Iron Man and, you guessed it, Thor) they were charged by publisher Sega with tying the movie in with the classic Marvel Comics tale of Asgardian deities.

Red Fly’s creative director Craig Bolin talked to us about the perils and pleasures of licensed games, traveling deeper into the nine realms of Norse mythology, and the joy of swinging that hammer.

Austin Chronicle: If there are two genres of games that have a pretty rough track records, it's film tie-ins and comic adaptations. When you're developing a game like this, how much of a factor is that history of shovelware?
Craig Bolin: It’s certainly in our mind, but there is no reason that a movie tie in or comic adaptation necessarily has to be a bad game. There are time constraints and restrictions that come from the license but if the team plans and works within their means and keeps the main goals in mind they can still be successful. What is key is focusing upon the game first and making sure that it works as just that, a game first. If the gameplay would not work without the attached license we need to recalibrate.

AC: At the same time, there have been a couple of bar-raising comic games recently (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions) so people's expectations are raised now. Did that mean more pressure to reach those standards, or less pressure because people were less quick to judge?
CB: I think it opens up the idea to consumers that comic adaptations can be strong games, which helps us in the long run. Certainly having those games in the market makes developers re-examine their approach. I do think that the imaginative approach both games took, and the fact that they did not tie themselves to a specific movie or comic release showed both developers and publishers that it is time and budget constraints, not the nature of the comics licenses themselves, which cause issues.

ACYou're releasing on pretty much the same day as the film, so that means both were in production at the same time. How did that relationship work?
CB: It was exciting in that the film takes a different approach towards Asgard and the Asgardians than the comics, bringing them more in line with the Iron Man franchise, basically a more sci fi approach rather than the high fantasy of the comics. We were privileged to be able to help re-imagine the other parts of the Nine Worlds that were not part of the film, so we got to collaborate with Marvel and the filmmakers in creating a whole new version of Muspelhiem, Surtur, the Trolls, Vanahiem and more. All these interesting areas were open for reinterpretation and we got to play a big role in doing that, which was really fun for the team.

AC: The day the Wii shipped, a lot of people went "Where's the Lightsaber game?" Thor has the same appeal with Mjolnir – from a game design and interface point of view, how did the Wii Remote shape the gameplay?
CB: It’s crucial to develop your game for the platform it will be shipped on, so the Wii’s controls and typical demographic informed a lot of our game design decisions. Ideally, we wanted the player to feel like he held Mjolnir in his hands, to provide a one-to-one relationship between the player’s gestures and the action taking part onscreen. But we also wanted to avoid the “waggle fest” style of combat that dominated the first games released for the Wii. Players quickly tire of constantly waggling the Wii Remote, and it scrubs any strategy out of the combat itself. Instead we went for a system that combines button presses with gestures, reserving those gestures for the big moves and really key moments. So a player can build a combo by tapping the button and then gesture to execute a powerful finishing move.

AC: The game expands on the film, bringing in other parts of the nine realms. With the film franchise-ready, how did that affect the process of designing characters like Surtur, knowing that they might turn up in later movies?
CB: Essentially we had to duplicate the style and goals of the filmmakers, applying them to characters and worlds that are not part of the feature film. We received a world bible from Marvel that laid out their goals and provided details about the worlds which they had redesigned for the film. It was up to us to take that information and recreate characters like Surtur or worlds like Muspelheim.

Typically we would meet as a team, throw out a number of ideas and then develop those as visual concepts. We’d then review those concepts with Marvel and the filmmakers, sometimes we were spot on, other times we needed to get good feedback and go back to the drawing board for another pass. We’ve got a strong concept art team and a good relationship with Marvel that really helped us work through these problems quickly.

AC: Sega got Liquid Entertainment doing the PS3 and XBox 360 versions, and WayForward doing a totally separate game for the Nintendo DS: What, if any, was the working relationship with them like, and how much consultation/collaboration went on?
CB: We worked closely with Liquid and Marvel to develop the game’s storyline and the basic progression through the Nine Worlds. Otherwise we really headed off in our own direction. We would periodically review the other teams progress and consult with Sega about what was working well for them but generally we were focused upon the Wii platform. The needs and capabilities of next-gen system vs. the Wii are really quite different so we believe that it is crucial that any Wii product be developed as exactly that, a Wii game, not as a port of a next gen title. Everything from camera control to how the combat system works needs to take into account the system’s unique needs, so for instance since the Wii lacks a second stick for camera control we chose to go with an automated camera system similar to God of War, if we had tried to duplicate the player controlled camera of the next gen game we’d have gotten ourselves into a world of trouble.

Thor is available now for the Wii, PS3, XBox 360 and Nintendo DS.