PALGN: Firstly can you please introduce yourself and your role on Drawn to Life?
JS: My name is Jeremiah Slaczka, and I was the Creative Director and Lead Designer on Drawn to Life. I am also one of the initial company founders of 5th Cell. My job was to come up with the idea for the game, design the game mechanics and oversee the development from a creative perspective, polishing and refining the game so it was an enjoyable experience for the end user.
PALGN: Can you give us a quick rundown on what Drawn to Life is about?
JS: Drawn to Life is about giving the player a hand in creating game content, including the main characters, level objects, village objects, weapons, and accessories. Beyond this, our desire was to create a game with purpose, not just a DS coloring book. We added an RPG-like village with an interesting cast of characters, and tied all the drawn objects to the level themes and story progression. You play as the Creator, who needs to restore a village back to life through drawing their requests.
Drawn to Life pulls from a variety of inspiring game genres. The main action takes place within detailed levels featuring a very accessible platform mechanic. The Village is a type of Sim with some RPG elements, and the Drawing Tool is a robust pixel editor / paint program, allowing unparalleled creative control on the DS. Each of these elements contributes to the total game experience, and because you can draw and redraw everything, we expect users to have fun with the game for a very long time.
That's right, you can create your own experiences.
PALGN: Are you happy with how Drawn to Life has been received both critically and commercially?
JS: Absolutely. A successful Original IP on a handheld platform is very rare, and thus far the reaction we’ve seen to Drawn to Life has been entirely positive. In Australia, we placed number 3 behind Halo3 and Zelda on the GfK charts. That’s mighty fine company to be in. Drawn to Life seems to be doing well in North America, and we’re in every brick and mortar store. Critically, we have a range of review scores, and overall we think most reviewers gave our game a fair shake. It’s difficult to create a game that is meant to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible and still appeal to the hardcore, but I think we did a great job.
PALGN: 5th Cell has worked on both licensed and original titles, does the development team have a preference?
JS: Our company was founded surrounding an excitement to work on original titles. However, licensed products have provided us with an additional opportunity to build our technology, staff and funds to pursue our dreams. Our team has a passion for working on original ideas, so it’s a safe bet that you’ll continue to see new, original content come from 5TH Cell for a long time.
PALGN: Do you envisage Drawn to Life becoming a franchise?
JS: We believe it already has the makings of a franchise. We have great ideas for a sequel, and the characters / universe could definitely be taken to other mediums. It’s a bit early to discuss exact plans, but hopefully we haven’t seen the end of the Raposa!
PALGN: What were some of the difficulties in developing a Nintendo DS game in comparison to a mobile game?
JS: There is a major difference in terms of scale. Mobile games have limited space for the graphics, code, sound, text and levels, so the scope of the game is so much smaller. The Nintendo DS, on the other hand, provides you with so much more space, but in order to compete on the AAA level, you need a larger staff and a far deeper game experience.
In terms of difficulty, we faced challenges almost every day. The biggest challenge was fitting everything we wanted into the development schedule. Some things had to be cut, and others just weren’t feasible in their original form and had to be scaled back a bit.
Your scribblings might not always look the best, but at least they're yours.
PALGN: At the moment 5th Cell is hiring for next generation original IP titles, when could we expect to hear about these games?
JS: Next Gen development is a longer process than handheld, so unfortunately we are not ready to talk about these titles at this time.
PALGN: User generated content is obviously really popular right now, do you feel it is important for developers to allow users to create their own content in games?
JS: It really depends on the game itself, but Drawn to Life’s core concept was based around self-expression and the freedom to draw what you want within the given constraints. In other games, it can feel more tacked on as an afterthought instead of something that really defines the game. We wanted the user to feel like they were populating an entire world with whatever they could dream up, and we really pulled that off.
PALGN: Drawn to Life offers players a lot of freedom but levels cannot be created, would this be something that the team would be looking at implementing in future Drawn to Life titles?
JS: Yes, user creation of the game levels is a direction that we could move in the future. It was a feature we cut early in Drawn to Life’s development for many reasons, but there’s a lot of potential to revisit this idea if there were to be a future Drawn to Life title.
PALGN: Drawn to Life allows players to share content locally, why was the decision made to not allow users to share their creations worldwide?
JS: Well, time was probably the most limiting factor. We had a schedule and couldn’t include all the features or content we would have liked. Nintendo WiFi is growing, and we’re in the process of exploring it for future titles. We’re happy that we got local trading to work, because we feel it’s important to allow users to share their content with friends
PALGN would like to thank 5th Cell for their time and of course Drew Taylor at THQ for helping to arrange the interview.
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