Wallace & Gromit is an arcade platform adventure where the player has to liberate the zoo from the evil clutches of the maniacal Feathers.

Feathers wants to make diamonds. Lots of diamonds. And he'll stop at nothing to achieve his dream.

The diabolical penguin has incarcerated all the baby animals in order to persuade their parents to do his bidding and manufacture gems from the coal being mined using the incredible diamond-o-matic. Wallace & Gromit have smelled the fishy presence of Feathers and developed an elaborate plan to infiltrate his domain. And so the indomitable duo has to construct the integral part of their scheme, the Trojan Penguin. When the giant wooden bird is placed at the zoo gates Feathers' narcissistic personality embraces the 30-foot tribute and makes it the zoo centerpiece. Unbeknownst to Feathers, Wallace & Gromit reside in the Trojan Penguin complete with resplendent standard lamp and armchair. At night the pair can start their amazing adventure.

Key Features

• Charge through the game as the resourceful and adventurous Gromit, with Wallace never far behind to offer hilarious if sometimes dubious hints.
• Race through five enormous action packed levels (with 24 sub levels and mini arcade games) covering eight different 'animal houses' in the zoo.
• Bursting with inventions designed to challenge the mind and fill every level with fast paced fun including: the Porridge Gun, Coal Flinger, Banana Launcher and Knitting Machine.
• Build contraptions invented by Wallace to aid your journey such as 'Springy Boots', 'Mine Cart', 'Toboggan' and 'Gyrocopter'.
• Bamboozle your way past Feather's army of zookeepers, henchmen and mischievous monkeys!
• Take full advantage of the next generation consoles' capabilities using high poly count, multi-texturing, fogging, environment-mapping, specular lighting, shadowing and depth of field.
• Spot the parodies; dozens of scenes containing well known adaptations of movie/game elements to add to the humor.
• Master tons of special moves from Gromit, including head spins, back flips and the hysterical 'sneaking' moves.

GCM:	Please get us started by introducing yourself and telling us a bit about Frontier Developments.
David Braben:	My name is David Braben. I am the Chairman and founder of Frontier Developments. I’ve been in the games business for more than 20 years, starting with “Elite” in the early 1980s.

GCM:

Firstly, how did Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo’s development come about?

David Braben:

Frontier has the same agent as Aardman Animations, Jacqui Lyons of Marjacq. Because of this, Aardman and Nick Park, the creator of “Wallace and Gromit” got to see a demonstration of our animation, as used in another game we are doing, “Dog’s Life” and were impressed with what we saw. We then modeled both “Wallace” and “Gromit” in our animation system, and showed these early animations to Aardman. And so the electronic versions of the duo were born!

GCM:

What is the plot driving Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo?

David Braben:

“Feathers the Penguin” is a nasty piece of work. Following his dastardly deeds in the film “The Wrong Trousers” where he used Wallace and Gromit in his attempts to steal a large diamond, he was imprisoned in the local Zoo. “Project Zoo” is set a few years later, where Feathers has become a “Mr. Big” – operating a criminal empire from within the zoo (like in the film “The Italian Job”). He has imprisoned all the baby animals, and so their parents are working to Feathers plans. Wallace and Gromit discover this, so build a giant “Trojan Penguin” and hide inside it. Feathers (egomaniac that he is) takes it into the zoo, and from there on, Wallace and Gromit set about freeing those animals. Once the babies are free, then the adults will help Wallace and Gromit in their task…

GCM:

Please give us some sense of Project Zoo’s level design and the obstacles that Wallace and Gromit will be facing.

David Braben:

The levels are designed to feel open, with many things the player can do at any one time. There are numerous mini games and hidden bonus levels for the player to find, in addition to rescuing the animal babies – the main object of each level. There are other characters to meet too. Monkeys, for example can be distracted by shooting bananas at them. Either the monkey will catch the banana – or if the player shoots the monkey in the head then the monkey will be dazed for a while.

GCM:	What sort of tools and abilities will Gromit have at his disposal? Will Project Zoo feature some of Wallace’s odd gadgetry?
David Braben:	Yes. Gromit collects nuts, bolts and tools for Wallace to use to fix or make weird and wonderful devices to help overcome Feather’s plans. These range from various weapons to strange vehicles.

GCM:	What can you tell about the mini games in Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo and their role in the game as a whole? Will we be able to replay these mini games and will improving our performance have any affect on the main game or help to unlock further material?
David Braben:	Yes. The mini-games and bonus levels give the player “Zoo Tokens” to collect. These are used to unlock videos that are on the disc, including an interview with Nick Park about the game.

GCM:

When setting out to create Wallace and Gromit’s models and animations, did you find their uniquely expressive Claymation origins to be a help or hindrance?

David Braben:

Both! It was difficult to get the plastercine look –it needed very high numbers of polygons so that up close the characters still looked like they were made of plastercine. Wallace alone is 13,000 polygons for the in-game model. The characters also needed to be very flexible. This introduced quite a few problems too. For example when Wallace makes the “ooo” shape he has no teeth, but when he opens his mouth wide, he has plenty. To get the look right, we borrowed the mouth templates that Aardman used, and the model actually switches between the same mouth shapes that Aardman used.

GCM:	Graphics aside, what is being done to capture the “spirit” of Wallace and Gromit?
David Braben:	There is a great deal of humour in the dialogue of Wallace and Gromit, and we spent a long time making sure this was working, and in Gromit’s expressions in response to some of Wallace’s actions. Peter Sallis did a fantastic job of bringing the “real” voice of Wallace to the game.

GCM:	Finally, please tell us about Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo graphics engine. Will there be any noticeable differences between its various versions (Xbox, GCN, PS2)?
David Braben:	Yes there are quite a few differences. On Xbox, for example, we have implemented ‘reactive’ water, and on both Xbox and Gamecube, the textures are more detailed. Also we have real time ‘level of detail’ code on all platforms. On Xbox and Gamecube, this tends to use higher polygon counts for the models for the same viewing distance.

GCM:	Thanks for your time! Do you have anything final thoughts that you’d like to leave our readers with?
David Braben:	We’ve put a lot of effort into “Project Zoo”, as have Aardman and the publisher BAM! We’ve been very lucky to work with them and have enjoyed making it. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too!

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