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Curious George Interview

Business Home Internet With the successful release of the film adaptation of the Curious George book series, Namco and Monkey Bar Games have released a game to accompany the film. Curious George the game has proven to be an entertaining and engaging experience, as detailed in our review. To learn more about the studio behind the creation of the game and its development, AMN recently interviewed Monkey Bar Games / Vicious Cycle Software's president Eric Peterson.

Please tell the readers a little bit about you, Monkey Bar Games and Vicious Cycle Software and their backgrounds.

I am the President and co-founder of Vicious Cycle Software, Inc. Vicious Cycle came to be when the MicroProse studio in Chapel Hill was shut down in late 1999. When we opened the doors in early 2000, we were fortunate enough to employ a significant group of our fellow co-workers from that studio and then released our first title, Robotech: Battlecry on multiple platforms.

Within the last year, we created a few new divisions, Monkey Bar Games and Vicious Engine. Monkey Bars games are intended for people of all ages and demographics. The division has recently been creating products that are geared towards younger audiences and they incorporate popular licensed characters such as Dora the Explorer and Curious George.


Many of our readers might not be familiar with Monkey Bar Games and Vicious Cycle Software, what games have your studios developed?

I mentioned a few in the previous question, but let me recap the full list. We first released Robotech: Battlecry, then Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey, Robotech: Invasion, Spy vs. Spy, Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet and just last week Curious George hit the stores.


What input did Namco, the publisher of Curious George, have in the creation of the game? With that, what input did Universal Studios have in the creation of the game?

It goes without saying that all parties involved had significant input in the making of Curious George. One of the first steps with the design was to derive the gameplay from story elements from the actual movie script. In addition to that, we all felt that it was important to stay true to George as a character and as a license. He is after all an innocent, fun, energetic, mischievous and of course, a very curious little monkey.

Another important piece of the puzzle was to make sure that all the characters looked and sounded like their movie counterparts. Some of the films actors were called on to reprise their roles, while other voice talent was found and brought in to record for the remaining parts. We were also fortunate enough to have been given a significant amount of assets from the film, such as: pre-production stills, maquettes, both early and final footage, etc. All of these items aided the development team and allowed us to deliver an accurate movie-based game.

As stated earlier, this wouldnt have been possible without the cooperation and input from everyone involved. As the developer, we were very fortunate to have this level of participation from both our publisher and licensor.


How was the relationship between Namco and Monkey Bar Games? Are there plans currently in place for future collaborations between the two studios?

Overall, I feel the relationship is a strong one and we really bonded as a team during this product. Everyone from both companies worked extremely hard to create a fun and successful title for both children and fans of Curious George.

As far as other collaborations with Namco, we at Vicious Cycle/Monkey Bar Games look forward to possible future endeavors with them and their company. Working with Namco on Curious George was a fantastic experience and we would welcome the opportunity to work with them on a future project.

Did director Matthew O'Callaghan (director of the film) play any role in the creation of the game? If so what was his part? Did any of the artists or voice actors have input into the game or take lend talents to its development?

We didnt personally have any input with the director of the film, but that isnt to say it couldnt have been happening. Basically, we arent aware of his involvement, but he could have had input with Universal at that level of the games development.

We also didnt have any personal involvement with actual movie artists. But as mentioned earlier, we were able to utilize assets from the film and those images and animations inspired us to attain the accurate look and feel for the product.

Regarding the voice talent, we were very happy to have Frank Welker as Curious George and David Cross as Junior within the game. Namco gets the credit for this one; they procured the voice talent for the title and did a great job finding the right cast to fill in for actors that couldnt join the games cast.


How big was the development team on Curious George? Did the same team work on all of the versions or are were there different teams for each SKU?

The development team for Curious George consisted of approximately 30+ internal employees at Vicious Cycle/Monkey Bar Games. We also hired 10+ external contractors for our art and music outsourcing needs. The same team created all four SKUs simultaneously and we used our proprietary technology, the Vicious Engine, a cross-platform engine, to create and deliver the game.

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