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    John Blackburn & John Vignocchi Talk 'Inside Out' on Disney Infinity 3.0

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    gmanfromheck

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    Edited By gmanfromheck

    Inside Out is a movie from Pixar you'll want to have on your radar. Yesterday we had the chance to check out the movie and the upcoming play sets based on it for Disney Infinity 3.0 at Pixar. You've probably already heard and seen our mention of Star Wars coming to Disney Infinity. The Star Wars starter pack will have a slightly lower retail price this time around at $64.99. All discs and figures from 1.0 and 2.0 will work. Joining the Star Wars figures and play sets are the emotions from Inside Out.

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    The Inside Out play set will offer some variety in the Disney Infinity gameplay. All five emoitons--Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear--will be available. The game will be a quasi-sequel to the movie. Riley, the 11-year-old girl from the movie, falls asleep while watching TV and we see the emotions go through the different worlds in her mind. It'll be an action-platforming puzzle game with 2D side scrolling with 3D isometrics. There will be lots of opportunity for co-op play to get through the levels as the different emotions have different abilities.

    We talked to John Blackburn, SVP & GM for Disney Infinity, and John Vignocchi, VP of Production, about the game and Disney Infinity 3.0.

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    COMIC VINE: A lot of the Disney Infinity 3.0 news has been on the Star Wars play sets and figures. Where does Inside Out fit in with the release schedule?

    JOHN BLACKBURN: It’ll be at launch. When we launch in the fall, it’ll be there on the shelves.

    CV: So you buy the Star Wars starter pack and then pick up Inside Out figures, right?

    BLACKBURN: You can get the play set two-pack or any of the individual figures.

    JOHN VIGNOCCHI: Basically anything labeled “Disney Infinity 3.0” will be compatible with all the 1.0 stuff, 2.0 stuff, and all the new stuff that are on shelves this fall.

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    CV: Looking at the gameplay, where did the decision come to change it to a side-scrolling game?

    BLACKBURN: When we first saw the storyboards with Jonas Rivera, who’s the producer, and he walked us through it, our minds went to some of the old platformers where characters had different powers. You would move them through the levels.

    On the flip side, there’s not a whole lot of combat in this. Particularly if you’re working on a Pirates of the Caribbean or a Marvel thing, combat is at the heart of the gameplay. With Inside Out, it’s not really what the emotional journey is about. You’re not setting out to go defeat something. We wanted to start making a game that was a journey, a journey that Joy and Sadness take through there. That started becoming something more level-based. We had been primarily open-world mission-based but it didn’t make as much sense. We started saying, “Maybe Infinity can be more things than these open-world mission based games.” We think it actually strengthens the entire platform to say for each one of these properties, we can now do a gameplay genre that is more suitable to that property. Also, it expands what type of gameplay as a gamer you can expect from this. If you want a different experience than that open-world mission-based, you’ve got it. Both those things are very attractive.

    VIGNOCCHI: Yeah, to go back to the platform thing, we’d been talking since the beginning how “Disney Infinity is a platform.” That means a lot of different things. We want to create this open platform where we wouldn’t have to shoehorn in a particular property, franchise, film, or what have you, and make go exactly within this open-world action/adventure space. This is our first kind of dip of the toe into the waters of what it means to be a Disney Infinity play set and evolving that thinking as the platform evolves over time.

    CV: Since this is more linear, can you still choose where you go? In the movie we saw there are different “worlds.” Can you choose which one you want to go to first?

    BLACKBURN: What we do is, you’re actually in the “headquarters,” you go through it in a specific order so that we know what skills and gameplay mechanics we’ve taught you. Then you can go back to any of them once you’ve done it once. We do take you through a linear path to begin with. Actually you can choose one of four levels as you get to a new hub. We take you to the hubs in order.

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    CV: What about the decision with the co-op mode to have players share a screen instead of doing a split screen?

    BLACKBURN: Fundamentally, we had it both ways. We had it so you could go to split screen mode and we felt like it was a better experience for two people when they were on the same screen. So we have the side scroller levels and the 2D isometrics. We actually had some problems with some of the worlds where we allowed you to go far distances apart from each other. We thought it feels better when you’re both on the same screen. We wanted it to feel different and make you feel closer and make you have to take into account where your friend is at. You’ll have to talk and cooperate or compete. We said, look, on these ones where we’re letting you split, we got rid of the elements where we allowed you to do that and brought it back in about half way through development. So, we tried it both ways and liked it better this way.

    CV: I know in passed games if you reach a certain distance apart, you get stuck at the edge but it looks like the camera here pans out? Is there a limit?

    BLACKBURN: Yeah, we allow it to pan out to a certain distance and then we do lock you on screen. Now there are certain times where we’ll go ahead and teleport you. Like if I fall off the screen and die over here—there’s a bunch of cases like that but the idea was we wanted you to have to coordinate where you’re going to move.

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    This concept of playing together is really key to what we try to do. I have this top line belief that I’m kind of pitching to the team, when we play together, it’s more fun. In playing together, this gets to something where I think Disney is really key in my own memories. Disney is company that’s special to me in a way that a lot of other companies aren’t. I don’t remember when I was a kid…I mean, I love Nintendo as a gamer, but I don’t have family memories of Nintendo with my parents. I do have those memories with Disney. So when I went to the park the first time or watching The Wonderful World of Disney, I have those memories with my parents.

    We want this game to be good enough that, as a parent, you to want to play it with your child. If you like games and your child likes games, this is a place where you can make those memories too. We always think about this as we’re trying to build something where you’re playing together. There’s the concept of, “Will you speak to each other?” We watch kids play and we’ve had them play both versions. We like what happens with the interaction where we’re kind of forcing an interaction when we keep them on the same screen.

    CV: I’ve talked about how I play this with my daughter and we always play together.

    VIGNOCCHI: Yeah, we’ve talked about that a whole bunch. That’s the heart of this experience. We say it’s interactive moments and Disney memories. Growing up, let’s go back to the Super Nintendo era…

    CV: I go back to the Atari 2600 era...

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    VIGNOCCHI: Alright, that’s where I started too but when I start thinking about games that offer multiplayer and we start getting into some of the Super Nintendo era, you start getting into the four player Multitap, Bomberman, …the experience playing those with your friends was so much fun. Now, since we have all grown up gamers and a lot of people have kids now, they want to share those same gaming experience with their kids. Gaming is for everyone now. Making sure there’s that multiplayer experience inside of Infinity, to create those memories and bonds between friends and family is what’s critical for us.

    CV: The characters/emotions have different abilities. Will certain characters have more of an advantage on certain worlds or areas?

    BLACKBURN: Absolutely. But there’s also multiple paths through the world or multiple solutions to a problem. There’s maybe the slow way and the fast way to do it. That’s where we want you to have more of a connection to the figure you’re using but also one of the mechanics in the level is you can change out your figure in certain spots in the world so you can always get through.

    CV: Can you still change them on the fly?

    BLACKBURN: You can do it on the fly, we’d love you to do it on the fly, but at the same time, we don’t force you to do it on the fly. We allow you to swap out at a certain spot in the world.

    Check out the gameplay footage to get an idea of the different sorts of things you'll be able to do in the game.

    They definitely are mixing things up and not just giving us more of the same but with different characters.

    Inside Out is in theaters on June 19. Disney Infinity 3.0 is in stores this fall. We'll definitely have more coverage on 3.0 coming up.

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    Teerack

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    #1  Edited By Teerack

    I haven't seen Inside Out yet so idk if I think this is cool or not. Just glad they keep making Disney Infinity stuff.

    What I'm REALLY excited about is the leak that there will be a Star Wars Rebels set with figures for.

    • Ezra Bridger
    • Kanan Jarrus
    • Zeb Orrelios
    • Sabine Wren
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    ShadowSwordmaster

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    This is really cool to hear.

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    gmanfromheck

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    @teerack: I'll post a review for the movie sometime. It's not out for three weeks but I'll definitely post before then.

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    Teerack

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    @g_man said:

    @teerack: I'll post a review for the movie sometime. It's not out for three weeks but I'll definitely post before then.

    Rubbing your early access in my face.

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    #5  Edited By gmanfromheck
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    Avenging-X-Bolt

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    It looks like fun. The figure looks great,especially Disgust. You just want to tell her to quit that backsassing and to start makin sammiches

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    Mr. Kamikaze

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    Inside Out seemed like a weird choice for this game, but seeing the style they're going with I'm suddenly totally on board. It looks kinda adorable.

    I hope (and wonder if its even possible) to update the 1.0 and 2.0 characters in certain ways, be it movesets or skill trees. Especially the 1.0 figures who don't have special attacks. Don't know if that's doable, by storing all that data in the disc itself or something...or if the fact that all the character data is stored in the character itself would make that impossible.

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