From PSP to Wii Part 3: Design

So lets see, James told us about the dev cycle, Micah gave us a history of DJ, Norm showed you all the new pretty art, and Rocco brought it home with all the amazing tech we got in the game. It would seem like there’s not much left for me to tell.

I could start by introducing myself: the name is Glen McKnight, and I was the Lead Designer for DJ: Root of Evil for the Wii. Now you could say, “The games been made already, what’s there left for design to do?” This was definitely one of the first thoughts that crossed our minds. But then again we are designers, and we always have new ideas. But more importantly - you guys had ideas.

Doing it for the Fans.

And boy did you have a lot to say about DJ2 for the PSP. One thing to know about Backbone, player feedback is incredibly important to us and what we create. The way you play, interact, and experience the game is what it’s all about. For us, we wanted to make everything richer, fuller, and just more fun for all the players. This led us to the Review Matrix. We took a wall in our office and put up all the feedback into categories, such as combat, platforming, story, and many more. We categorized comments into good or bad, and said: “How can we give players more of this?” or “What are we going to do about this comment?” From there we went back and looked at every level through your eyes to see what we could improve upon and change. Here began our quest to make this the game both returning fans and new players would fall in love with. My partner in crime Marty Newcomb and I had a long road ahead of us! Let’s dig into some of those changes.

Man, it’s fun to shoot things.


First off, the most obvious and biggest change we had facing us was combat. For DJ, shooting things has always been a huge part of the fun for players. All the crazy weapons, all the wacky enemies, and now we had the Wii Remote. Rocco told you how the engineers had given us a great new way to kill things. Once we could point and shoot at things, we all got pretty excited. It seemed like we had found a home for DJ where he could really un-holster his guns. So much so, we wanted to make aiming and shooting a bigger part of the experience (if that is even possible?!). We started by working on enemies to make them run and dodge in more exciting ways. Then we added problems to solve with guns, such as root gates which open when you shoot all of its pods. Lob weapons got a whole new reticule system, allowing you to bounce that Flaming TP around a corner and right into a pack of baddies. And let’s not forget scythes combos that now harness the power of the Wii Remote. There is even a new system for collecting weapon parts! Suffice to say we went all in on improvements to combat.

Platforming: the lost art!


Give me a moment to say that I feel we are seeing fewer and fewer true platforming games. Sure games still have jumping, and they definitely are getting more realistic, but what about the floating platform? Players seem to agree, and we haven’t forgotten; we don’t care if your mom says a giant floating upside-down jack-in-the-box isn’t realistic. Jumping on them is still a great time as far as we’re concerned. With the Wii we had a chance to squeeze in even more jumping, ledge grabbing, scythe swinging, and hover spinning fun into the mix. We went back and poured over every level, looking for ways to improve, update, and even reuse great platforming moments from the original. So if you were wondering where to find that next fix of jumping, look no further.

Once upon a time…


Well this game isn’t quite a fairy tale, but people seem to agree DJ is an incredible character, and so is his gang of friends. Another thing we realized was how many opportunities we still had to tell the tale of the Root of Evil. We already had incredible cut-scenes to help move you through this absurd and wacky world. From a field trip to collect cocoons, leading you through a living toy cemetery, passing through a World of Waffles theme restaurant, then down along the River Styx that flows under the mall, there’s a lot of adventure to be had. But we wanted to get the gang more involved in all the moments in-between. So we included over a hundred new lines of VO that help talk you through the adventure from your buddies Seep, Stigmartha, Smith and Weston, and even Dead Guppy (although he doesn’t have a lot to say).

So there ya go. Marty and I had a lot to do, and let’s not forget how much you all had to do with it. It was an incredible experience, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We also couldn’t have done it without all the hard work from our team. I have to thank all the designers who made the PSP edition as incredible as it was; without their hard work this incredible new update wouldn’t have been possible. So get out there, grab a copy and start posting on forums. We will be watching, and your participation could help us make the next great adventure.