Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue Designer Diary #1

It's over two years since Ty the Tasmanian Tiger first appeared on consoles and proved once and for all that boomerangs are not only fun, but also make great weapons. Ty's second adventure, subtitled Bush Rescue, is currently scheduled for release on all current-generation consoles later this month, and promises to offer more characters, more exploration and, crucially, more weapons to play with than its predecessor. In this exclusive designer diary, John Passfield, designer and script writer, and Steve Stamatiadis, designer and art director, discuss a number of the game's key features, which include blowing stuff up, time travel, blowing stuff up, a flying monkey from Sweden, and blowing stuff up.

Action, Adventure, and Marsupials

By John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis
Designer and script writer/designer and art director

When the team at Krome Studios began designing Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue, everyone involved in the project wanted to further build on the original Ty game while exploring new themes. Both John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis agree that it sounds cliché, but "bigger, better, and more entertaining" was the vision that Krome had in creating Ty 2: Bush Rescue…and needless to say, both John and Steve felt that was accomplished.

The Johnno character is based on Passfield, a dedicated follower of fashion.

John explains, "The first Ty game was really about technology and how it could be misused. Boss Cass had the biggest, baddest machines and was happy to use them to get what he wanted, even if it meant destroying the environment. With Ty 2: Bush Rescue we wanted the theme to be about using technology for good."

Of course, it wasn't so straightforward in the beginning. After the release of the first Ty game there was a shift toward darker-themed games, especially within the character action genre. Steve says, "We had a lot of discussion about whether we should go that way. In the end we all agreed that we should stay true to the spirit of Ty, which was bold, colorful, whimsical, and wholesome fun. Without a doubt, we all felt that we had created a special character in Ty, with an interesting storyline and lush world that could stand on its own (original) merits. But what we did do was up the action, adventure, and exploration elements players could engage in. When Ty saves his friends, he does it in a big, spectacular way, blowing up stuff as he goes."

And so Ty 2: Bush Rescue was born. This high-tech rescue team is part coast guard, part international rescue and it became the lynchpin of the story. One thing Krome took great pains to avoid was to shoehorn the gameplay into the story, or the story into the gameplay. Steve explains, "We have an overall story that runs through the game, but we don't force the game to fit that. We have two things that run separately and we merge them together to create an entertaining experience."

This happy chap is Bruno, the lead artist on Ty 2: Bush Rescue.

Originally, the game was designed as a time travel adventure, but Krome found that it was drifting too far from what Ty was. John explains, "We decided to do a major overhaul of the game around halfway into the development, which wasn't easy, but we were confident we could do it given the fact we had a seasoned team and strong technology to work from. For these reasons, coupled with Electronic Arts' backing, we really pushed the game, so that instead of just new levels, we totally reinvented the gameplay. The result is a much better game." Some of the time travel elements survived, though, and players can still find dinosaurs and a few time traveling insects from the far, far future in the "lost world" of the outback Never Never.