What do ghostbusting and game development have in common? More than you might think, it turns out. But there is one thing that comes to mind first and foremost: teamwork. Available to star in Dreams from today until February 28, 2022, Ghostbusters: Afterlife in Dreams is the result of an 18-week collaboration between Media Molecule, Sony Pictures and the Dreams community.
After being contacted via social media, the creators of the award-winning community Impy ** Guillaume Chevrier ** (alias [SlurmMacKenzie] and ** Alfred Nilsson ** (alias [byvsen]) soon met in a meeting with Mm’s director of operations and strategic initiatives, Gemma Abdeen, to discuss an opportunity.
“Like, what is it?” Nilsson found himself thinking. “It could literally be anything. Then when Gem told me what the project was and what I was going to do, I got really excited and jumped on it. Chevrier nods.” Same with me. I think it was the first call with Gem where she told me it was a Ghostbusters project, and I was really excited.
Chevrier would work on the gameplay design and Nilsson would work on the animations. A short brief had already been prepared by Mm and Sony Pictures. The game is expected to be 60 seconds long, as the cast of Sony Pictures’ Ghostbusters: Afterlife would set their own scores that fans could try to beat.
Chevrier laid the groundwork for the controls, including creating a version of Ghostbusters’ iconic proton beam that the player could shoot in first-person view, and set up much of the underlying logic for destructive environments. Media Molecule lead designer Richard Franke then came on board to lead and help the team make some of the decisions that define the game (as well as do a bit of environmental modeling, which Martin Nebelong, Mm’s Dreams specialist, would refine with lighting and effects).
“We asked ourselves, ‘What is the basic experience of a member of the Ghostbusters team? ”, Says Franke. “For me that was the most important thing: we have to make the player feel like a member of the Ghostbusters team. Before you do anything else, you must be feeling good about this ghost capture.
The first version Chevrier was working on featured fast and furious ghostbusting. “You could catch the ghosts very quickly,” he said. “It was more like they were jumping and you had to catch them when they appeared. But you couldn’t feel the beam – so there were a lot of iterations where we tried to make the ghost move in a way. which makes it look like you’ve got them in your proton stream, and you’re trying to fight against them.
The team spent time watching and referencing the original Ghostbusters movie, breaking down the behaviors of ghosts and how the heroes interacted with them. “There’s the iconic scene with Slimer in the hotel ballroom,” Franke says, “and I was like, okay, that’s the scene we want to emulate.”
They would need to have ghosts that fly without realizing it, and then into a phase of behavior where they are aware and avoid being caught – before a ‘capture phase’, where they are locked in a struggle with it. the proton beam. “The idea was that the ghost would have a bar that would go down when you shoot in the opposite direction. So, it almost became like a fishing game, in a way. Reduce the energy enough and you can more easily lure them into a trap.
At first, players had to manually throw the traps – but the team quickly realized that they could create a smoother, timed attack experience by having it happen automatically. The team based their work on the upcoming Ghostbusters movie: Afterlife.
“We had a super short clip from the new movie, where we could see some unfinished effects and the new ghosts,” says Chevrier. Nilsson nods, “That was probably my favorite part of it all, because you normally can’t see this stuff while it’s still in development. ”
Working on such a huge franchise, the collaboration took place in great secrecy. Nilsson had only watched a clip of the new enemies in action on a video call once before starting his first attempt at ghost animations. “So I had to memorize how ghosts move, like the Muncher with his six arms.” How did he handle it? “There was a lot of improvisation in the animation, trying to figure out how the ghost moved, but the clip helped – and it certainly helped watching it a second time later! The ghosts are all moving very chaotically, floating around, all over the place – it was really fun trying to nail that into the animation.
Interactions with ghosts would be a key part of helping the player feel like part of the Ghostbusters team; another let the player leave his mark on the world. “We really wanted to understand the extraordinary damage created by the proton pack,” says Franke. He recalls the comedy of the aftermath of that hotel ballroom scene: “They probably caused more damage than it costs to catch the ghost!” So we wanted to create a destructible environment in there.
Do too much damage in Ghostbusters: Afterlife In Dreams, and the damage bill is deducted from your final reward. This led to the idea of the in-game function of the Mini-Pufts that appear in the new movie, Franke says, “The scenes that we had seen of them, they were in a store and they were destroying the shelves – so felt logical that they would somehow increase your damage count, running and kicking fragile parts of the environment with their stocky little legs – animated with relish by Nilsson. “J ‘ had footage of them looping on my computer during the animation, “he said.” It was really fun to see how bouncy they were. And as, immediately, the puppet in Dreams started to move. the same way. “
With the ghost capture and the waves of Mini-Pufts, Ghostbusters: Afterlife in Dreams really started to take shape as a fast-paced, frenzied, tactical attack challenge – and started to reflect even more aspects of the story. by Ghostbusters.
“We wanted it to be a bit like pinball, in a way,” says Franke, “where you have your main thing, which is trying to keep the ball on the table, and that’s catching. ghosts. But then you have to hit against the targets, which is your extended objective – and then you have another extended objective, which is even harder to achieve. In fact, we’ve stacked them up so you don’t see any Mini-Puft as long as you don’t catch a ghost, so you have sort of gameplay acceleration in the span of a minute – then once you’ve shot a certain number of Mini-Pufts, the Terror Dog will begin to appear.
Saying too much about the appearance of the Terror Dog could spoil the fun (although Nilsson is incredibly proud of his work: “It was probably the most difficult to animate, as I had never animated a four-legged character before! “). But its inclusion in the game feels like a fitting tribute to the secrets and surprises of the pinball machines of the time. “It’s very meta, but there’s something great about people talking about this stuff,” Franke says. “That’s why the pinball machine was so exciting. “Did you see the thing that’s really hard to come by?” – much like old school video games. It’s good to give players things to look forward to and come back – every time they improve a bit their score will go up and they’ll see more exciting things happening.
The end result is a collaboration that pays homage to the past of the Ghostbusters series, as well as its present in Ghostbusters: Afterlife – as well as the power of Dreams, with the game itself developed in just 12 weeks. To its developers, the tonal similarities between the Ghostbusters franchise and Dreams itself – slapstick, a little quirky, but ultimately fun for everyone – made the collaboration feel (super) natural.
“I grew up with the Ghostbusters movies,” says Chevrier. “For me, it’s something that evokes good memories. It’s scary but fun, so you can watch it like a kid and you’ll be scared, but you won’t have too many nightmares – because that’s the funny side of goosebumps. Nilsson agrees, pointing out the over-the-top movements in the films and how that fits both Dreams’ puppet tools and his own style of cartoon animation. Franke also sees the similarities in perspective between the Ghostbusters franchise and Dreams. “We both have a similar silliness – like, our Halloween event has that kind of spooky Ghostbusters vibe,” he says. “So it’s definitely easy for us to integrate that into our content. But there’s another reason why he thinks it was a good game for a collaboration. “The right answer to say as a director,” he smiles, “is that we can adapt any brand! Because it’s just a matter of reach and being brand-friendly. Dreams allows us to create tailor-made gameplay suitable for any type of brand.
Beyond the versatility and power of the tools, however, the real shared strength at the heart of the Ghostbusters franchise and Dreams – and this project – is undoubtedly the community, and the collaboration, of the Sony team. Pictures at Media Molecule, and the talent pool for creators using Dreams. “You know, we’re just a small studio, in the big picture of the gaming industry,” Franke says. “So the community is very valuable to us as a resource. Working with the community is nice because they are very respectful, they are not full of cynicism – they are very happy to help, they are happy to be paid for their time making these games. I think that’s probably very scary of them, so it’s good to be there to encourage them and reassure them that they’re doing a good job.
And be sure to catch the next chapter of the original Ghostbusters universe exclusively in theaters starting in November! In Sony Pictures’ Ghostbusters: Afterlife, when a single mother and her two children arrive in a small town, they begin to discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters and the secret legacy left by their grandfather. From director Jason Reitman and producer Ivan Reitman, the film is written by Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman.
