Launching today in Europe — North American Stans face a slight delay until October 15th — to find out more, we spoke to Crows founder Crows Crows William Pugh via email to discuss Ultra Deluxe, the physical Justice for Stanley game, and perhaps the most important topic of gameplay, Banjo-Kazooie.
Nintendo Life: How many ideas had to be scrapped to make Ultra Deluxe viable?
William Pugh: It’s actually the opposite, we ended up adding it during development, so it skyrocketed as development continued, hence the millions of delays! There was also a lot of time to be spent porting the game from Source Engine to Unity, which made integrating the new content with the existing game logic… a unique challenging experience.
The response has generally been very positive, but is there anything about the finished release – omissions or inclusions, perhaps – that you regret?
All in all, it was fantastically done, and we as a studio and as a group of individuals who collaborated on this really benefited from the collective support of both the existing Stanley Parable community and new players. I don’t feel anything is ‘missing’ in the game, but we did have an extra feature in the “showcase hall” section of the new content which was a huge door, which would feature heavily in the game’s marketing, but upon closer inspection it just comes out cardboardy and completely non-interactive. We ended up cutting it back because it seemed to be the weakest of the ‘add-ons’ to that part of the game and the pacing just wasn’t good.
Note. The following will be major spoilers for the game, so skip to the next question if you haven’t played Ultra Deluxe yet!
Okay, let’s go! The Epilogue environment used to be an endless sea of buckets, Jim buttons, figurines, holes, epilogue menu items and achievement machines – but it was a real struggle to make it look believable while still meeting our performance goals, it would take a LOT more time to realize and on in the end we decided that the continuation of the desert from “Memory Zone / Skip Button” was more convincing. It also set up this weird contradiction of an Epilogue continuing the story from the earlier ending, which I won’t directly comment on, but it seemed consistent with the contradictions throughout the rest of the game.
Were there other ideas for the physical layout of the goods that you were not able to realize?
I think the obvious one is The Bucket, but I think our Bucket Guide more than makes up for it. I don’t think it would be ethical to massively increase the financial and environmental costs of the package when on average no person on the planet is more than 10 meters from a bin at any given time.
How heartbreaking was it to not include any physical reference to Brentilde Winkybunion’s excellent ending? We assume there was a problem with the license.
Yeah. Well done Gavin. [Editor’s note: I can’t take full credit here, as these questions were a joint effort with Alex.] I see you’ve done your homework and you mention my old fondness for Banjo-Kazooie.
I think the attitude of the studio is that Gruntilda said on film in the last scene of Banjo-Tooie: “You’re all going to be sorry! Just wait until Banjo-Threeie…” which constitutes a legally binding promise, and unless they crossed their fingers while typing that line of dialogue, there’s really no way they can get out of it. However, they didn’t put a time frame on it, so somewhere between 50 and 75 years (assuming copyright law doesn’t change) Banjo-Kazooie will fall into the public domain, so I’d like to think that eventually, no matter what , Gruntilda will have her revenge… Anyway – BUY THE STANLEY PARABLE: ULTRA DELUXE!!!
It’s hard to pick favourites, but is there a particular tune from the Stanley soundtrack that you love, or one that pops into your head at random from time to time?
The original music of the 2013 version is absolutely iconic, but I can’t help but be a huge fan of Tom Schley – Stanley’s new apartment it was one of the last songs to be added, but it’s so haunting and elevates the ending so it’s probably one of my favorite parts of the entire game. Epilogue is a fan favorite and for good reason, but The end is never the end is great, it combines mystery, playfulness and psychological horror games in one song. You can listen to them all here:
Will the CopyConductor 980 TX instructional audio tape be available on streaming services?
Eventually, but first we’ll let the people who bought it enjoy it in real life!
Back to Banjo-Kazooie, we read that it was your first love for the game. What would be your nickname in BK credits and why?
William “Pesto Panini” Pugh.
Crows Crows Crows celebrates its tenth anniversary next year. After running your own studio for the better part of a decade, what advice would you give yourself in 2015 if you could send a message back nine years?
The tip would come in the form of a USB with the source code for all the video games we released, it would make the whole thing a lot easier.
it would be unethical to massively increase the financial and environmental costs of parcels when on average no person on the planet is more than 10m from a bin at any given time
Is this the last chapter for Stanley? Is it time to put him to bed?
Never say never! But I know everyone involved has other exciting jobs to share with the world sooner or later! New game by Davey Wreden Wanderstop it looks very exciting and Crows Crows Crows has been working on a new project for a while now that is still not being talked about publicly.
Much of Ultra Deluxe’s new content is (in a way) an examination of franchise culture and the path to adding “MORE!” art that already stands on its own. I think the message is that it’s a bad thing and that it cheapens both the creator and the creation, except when we’ve done it. When we did, it was funny and scary.
(I’d like it noted here that I said poggers in an ironic self-aware way that suggests I’ve never said poggers out loud before in my life.)
Finally, go on, what’s Stanley’s last name?
Stanley is actually his last name, and his first name is a real mystery.
Thanks to William for his time (and for being a good sport with our banjo nonsense).
Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is now available on the Switch eShop, with a physical edition and various add-ons available to order from iam8bit’s website. They are being shipped to Europe now, and across the pond on October 15th. Producers donate 20% of net proceeds to a non-profit charity 350.org to combat climate change, so anyone looking to buy a Collector’s Edition Mini-Stan can feel good about that, too.
Our recommendation? Shop digital and shop physical too. It’s a really, really good game.
