Spyro the Dragon: Attack of the Rhynocs Developer Diary, Part 3

Oct 29, 2003

Spyro the Dragon: Attack of the Rhynocs is the third incarnation of the Spyro series on the Game Boy Advance. Development has actually wrapped up on the title recently for the game's end of October release.

In anticipation of the game's arrival, we went to the game's developer for an inside look at what went into the team went into to breathe new life into the updated adventure.

Ryan Slemko, Lead Game Designer at Digital Eclipse wraps up the developer diary with the third and final entry of what it was like to bring this sequel to the Game Boy Advance.

After a major overhaul for Spyro: Season of Flame, our isometric engine and tools were firmly in place. We could now focus on game-play instead of wrestling with basic functionality. Still, after two Spyros for the Game Boy Advance, it was time take the series in a new direction. This wasn't going to be easy because Season of Flame had already pushed to the boundaries of GBA technical limits. If we were going to continue to surprise and entertain fans of the license, we were going to have to rely almost entirely on clever design rather than technical gimmickry. Though extremely pleased with Season of Flame, we made it our goal this time to hone in on the most important elements in Spyro's universe and really bring them to life, to flesh them out and give them actual significance within the story. Because of this, it seemed only natural to push our design nearer something of the role-playing genre. Although a true RPG would have been too aggressive an endeavor given the allotted development time, all of us knew this would be a great direction to head. The working title was 'Spyro: Quest' until Universal's marketing team deemed Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs a more easily marketable name.

We first tossed out the old portals that warped you to mostly unrelated realms, instead opting for a single giant Dragon Continent with subtle transitions between the different areas. We also broke with previously steadfast Spyro tradition and created puzzles that were completed across several lands, hoping to heighten the player's sense of being in a world and not just a collection of independent, self-contained levels. In place of the usual randomly generated themes, we based the lands on the personalities of each of Spyro's most famous friends and rivals, like Bianca's vaudevillian-magic 'Rabbit Habitat', and Hunter's exercise haven, the 'Cheetah Spot Spa'. This was done to give a clue as to the characters' origins and personalities without flooding players with undue quantities of text, something important to avoid with a game typically targeted at a younger audience. Our efforts to refine 'that-which-is-Spyro' even led us to do away with the multitudes of fodder-types, focusing exclusively on the sheep, the most famous of all Spyro fodder, giving them oodles of personality. (As an aside, wasn't it odd that Bianca, clearly a rabbit, never seemed to have any problem with Spyro running around toasting happy little fodder-bunnies?)

Like any role-playing game, we wanted our main character to undergo some significant development over time, something Spyro had never done in past adventures. Previously, most power-ups lasted a limited time, and Spyro crossed the finish line in pretty much the same condition as he started. In contrast, we introduced a wide variety of abilities to be collected, breath weapons and otherwise, all of them permanent once acquired, and all necessary or extremely useful in finishing the game. Among our favorite special abilities are the wind weapons, the most powerful of the three being a huge spectacular electrical tornado- not to be missed! In addition to collecting this spectrum of new abilities and in keeping with the traditional RPG model, Attack of the Rhynocs was given a new, slightly more elaborate inventory system. We couldn't bear the thought of forcing players to collect yet another batch of one hundred mostly identical cute things, so a huge number of unique artifacts were created, each with their own colorful description, and each useful in some way or another. It's actually an inordinate amount of fun to sift through the journal now, simply to catch up on what crazy things you've picked up along the way. Among our favorite additions to the game are the various creatures that inhabit the lands. While lending added flavor to each of the themes, they are also extremely useful and fun. Learning how to make use of these creatures in combination with Spyro's newfound abilities is key to unlocking and traversing the terrain. This is a major step beyond previous Spyros that based entry to new realms on whether or not you'd collected the minimum number of gems or identical cute things. The Walrus, though a bit tricky to use at first, makes almost everyone laugh when they first give it a go, and that's a great feeling for us. One of my personal favorite changes was the obliteration of the 'Game Over' screen. I strongly feel that a limited number of lives is a relic of arcade history and that regularly forcing people through a bunch of menu screens is simply not fun. Unlimited lives is not a new concept, but there was a surprising amount of resistance to it, especially from within the team. People thought it would make the game too easy or take away strategy, but to the contrary, it quickly proved a welcome change.

Another of my favorite aspects of the game is, as mentioned, the fact that access to lands is now based almost entirely on the player's skill and acquired abilities. Although progress through the game is vaguely similar to the way Spyro games previously unfolded, the points at which new areas are opened up are now almost invisible. The result is exploration that feels extremely open ended, with a story that is not and does not feel entirely linear, without ever leaving the player wondering what there is to do next. So, in the end, we're all thrilled with how Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs turned out. We finally got to give Spyro and his universe the treatment we always wanted to. The game is full of big and little surprises, and in many ways, we feel this game delivers a complexity and lushness previously unseen in this license's products. We sincerely hope fans will feel the same! - Ryan Slemko Art Director and Lead Designer on 'Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs' at Digital Eclipse Software Incorporated.