Thrillville Interview
Exclusive Interview with Frontier's Michael Brookes
First off, thanks for asking us to do this interview with you.
Thanks.
Can you give us a description of what Thrillville is, in general?
Thrillville is a game set in a themepark, that allows you to interact with all the guests and attractions and offers a huge variety and quantity of high quality gameplay. Its been designed from the ground up for a console audience, and puts you in the role of park manager, assisting your Uncle Mortimer to run the parks. This you do by keeping your guests happy, deciding what rides and attractions to put where in your park, talking to and helping the guests, challenging them to play the various rides. You can build and ride rollercoasters (of course) but also build and race/play go-kart tracks and mini-golf courses. Most attractions are playable by you and up to 3 others, and these offer a wide range of gamplay - shooting, racing, video arcades, trampolines, bumper cars, soccer etc.. As well as having fun, you have overall management objectives for your parks, so you can change the price of rides, run marketing campaigns to attract more guests, and hire staff to help run the park. This being Thrillville, in order to train your staff, you have to show them how the job is done, via a dance game for the entertainer, a puzzle game for the mechanic and a gunk-busting groundskeeper game... There's also a party-play mode where you can dive straight into your favourite games, and a tourney mode that lets you construct your own tournaments against others.
What was your role in the creation of Thrillville?
I was the lead tester for Thrillville, I also do some of the community support work here at Frontier.
How will it differ from other theme park/roller coaster games?
I think the biggest difference is the level of interaction, not only with the rides and games, but you can talk to anybody in the park, find out what they think of the park, or even flirt with the cute guests.
With Thrillville we see a great focus on the interaction part of themepark-based games. Do you think the release of Thrillville marks the start of the next generation of this type of game, incorporating both the building and interaction aspects together?
Yes, I think that's a good point - we've seen sim/strategy games struggle, relatively speaking, on consoles as they need to cater to the needs of that audience and tailor their content to suit the controllers that are available. One of the seeds that Thrillville grew from was playing The Sims and getting very frustrated at having to WATCH them having fun - we wanted to get further into the game and TAKE PART ourselves. So Thrillville provides a whole new level of interaction, from the point of view INSIDE a park. Another strength is its accessibility, we've worked very hard on so that pretty much anybody can now build a coaster, and run a park. We're very proud of Thrillville and hope that it will both engage a whole new set of gamers with the magical world of theme parks, and engage a whole new set of theme-park fans with games. Thrillville is essentially a theme-park in a box.
What do you think is your favorite feature of Thrillville, and why?
A tricky question as there's so much to do! I think building your own race track and then challenging one of the park guests ranks as one of my favourites. You can even save the track and then challenge your friends in multiplayer, which is pretty cool.
What feature do you think players will like the most?
I think the general ambience is what players will notice first, you actually get a sense of being in the theme park. Beyond that, there is so much there that will appeal to different people, each person will find lots of different things to like about it.
Did you get your inspiration for this game from other theme park/roller coaster games? And if so, which ones?
Many of the people here are avid theme park enthusiasts anyway, plus many of us have played the various theme park games as well as worked on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and the expansions. The idea for doing a theme park game with a much more personal focus has been floating around for some time, and as mentioned above other gaming experiences played a part too, with us wanting to truly be able to participate rather than watch. The main goal was to create a game that was fun, easily accessible, and to recreate the magic of being in your own theme park.
Will the game challenge people of all different skill levels?
Although we've designed the game to be as accessible as possible, there a number of challenges that will keep people of all skill levels occupied on a wide variety of types of game. Try and catch the video of the turbo version of the 'Entertainer' training dance game being played in 'hard' mode to get a feeling...
We've heard that Thrillville will have 150 missions that you can complete, but what kind of "missions" are there in Thrillville?
The missions are the framework for your progression through the game – Thrillville is highly non-linear and you can pick and choose what you like to do to a large degree, and the missions are the framework for doing this. So some will have you building new coasters to a given specification, others have you making friends with some of your park guests. There's also the game missions which have you competing in the 20 plus mini games available. As the game progresses these missions become more and more indirect, so you have to increasingly use your ingenuity to complete them.
Will players be able to ride the rides?
Yes, of course. We have a great new 'cinematic camera' mode which can provide some excellent views of your coasters.
Do you think that the rides and scenery are realistic?
All the rides are based on real rides, but the emphasis is on making a fun game rather than a 100% accurate simulation.
Will the players be able to share their creations with other gamers?
On PSP players can share coaster tracks, race tracks and mini-golf designs. On PS2 and Xbox the fun is shared by playing multi-player games with others.
Does the game allow you to build at real places?
No, all the parks in 'Thrillville' that you run were created specifically for the game. Its not a game about re-creating existing parks.
Will the people have realistic bodies, emotions, and reactions?
In order to be able to create the large crowds that populate the park, we have a relatively low number of polygons per person, and so the look is cartoony but stylish. However each of the park guests have their own emotions and needs that become evident when you speak to them.
Will there be expansion packs or future additions for the game, or can you not be sure at the time?
It's too early to say at this stage but we hope the game isn't a one-off.
What differences exist between the different versions between the consoles? Are there any major differences, or just the expected differences?
On PSP we have wireless track sharing and multiplayer. The PSP also has a completely different set of missions to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions.
Will there ever be a PC version of Thrillville, or will it stick strictly to consoles?
While there isn't an immediate PC version planned, I wouldn't rule out a PC version in the future.
When will Thrillville be released?
Thrillville is out at the end of November.
Once again, thanks for doing this interview with us! Anything else you'd like to or been wanting to say?
Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Thrillville, I hope that people enjoy playing it as much as we did making it.
