Sidhe Jackass Interview

By Tristan Clark

Tristan ventures into the offices of Sidhe Interactive to talk Jackass.

Add to Wishlist | Game Hub

I recently paid a visit to Sidhe Interactive in Wellington, to see how they were going with their latest PSP title. In case you hadn’t heard, the game they’re working on right now is an adaptation of Jackass, the TV series (as well as two feature-length movies) that focuses on a bunch of guys injuring themselves and each other in hilarious and/or disgusting ways. You know, just for the fun of it.

I was pretty curious to see how Sidhe would turn this into a fun videogame, and after a good amount of hands on time with a work in progress version, my questions had been thoroughly answered. And then they made me sign an NDA promising not to tell anyone about what I had just seen.

Not to be deterred, I talked to Mario Wynands, Managing Director (and co-founder) of Sidhe to get his take on the challenges of adapting the Jackass license for the PSP, how it was all progressing, and more!

So how did Sidhe actually get their hands on the Jackass license? According to Mario, there were a series of events that all seemed to happen pretty smoothly: ‘Red Mile Entertainment, a publisher based in San Francisco, decided to snap up the rights to make Jackass games some time before the second Jackass movie came out. At that stage, people assumed that Jackass was on its way out, but Red Mile ran a few surveys and found that it was still considered pretty popular and relevant, so they took a risk. And then the second movie came out and was quite successful, so it seems it paid off.’

Sidhe already had a working relationship with Red Mile, who had published their first PSP title GripShift in the US. Red Mile essentially asked a number of developers, including Sidhe, to come up with ideas for a potential Jackass game. ‘They asked us for our ideas, and we created a proposal for a game that we thought was pretty compelling – and it seems Red Mile thought the same thing, because we were later chosen to develop the game for the PSP.’

So why the PSP? And how exactly are you supposed to turn something like Jackass into a fun, compelling game experience? For Mario, these two questions are linked together. ‘In terms of plot, characterization, and so on, Jackass is extremely shallow. You don’t have the usual elements there that developers usually fall back on to fill out a game.’ Instead, Sidhe had to find a way to emphasize the things that Jackass did have. ‘Jackass is all about a group of likeable participants doing crazy things in everyday environments. There are three key phases in each segment of Jackass that we felt were important to capture.’ As an example, Mario cited a segment where the Jackass boys rolled down a steep slope in trash cans. ‘The first phase is the introduction, where a crazy idea is presented to the viewer. It builds up the anticipation, as people can’t believe someone is about to do something so stupid.

‘The second phase is the execution of the act, where the viewer is on the edge of their seat wondering whether it’ll all go horribly wrong and how injured the boys will be at the end. Finally, there’s the aftermath, where you get to see replays, and find out whether the stunt was a success or a failure.’ The key thing here, says Mario, is to make sure you feel the same things in the game as you would when watching Jackass on TV. This translates into a series of mini games that have a build up, the event itself, and a fully customizable replay system that can be saved and edited. The PSP is particularly suited for all of this because of its pick-up-and-play nature – you can easily get through a stunt or two on the bus ride home.

Obviously some of the stunts translate into a game better than others. So while you might not see the Jackass boys drinking horse semen, you can be sure that there’ll be plenty of opportunities to cause a lot of pain in other, more physical ways. To make sure these types of stunts are as impressive as possible, Sidhe have managed to incorporate a full set of rag doll physics into the game – no mean feat for a PSP game. ‘We feel that these physics are the best available on the PSP platform,’ says Mario. ‘They are firmly integrated into the gameplay, and really enhance every aspect of it.’ As a result, you can expect every crash to look bone-crunchingly unique.

As mentioned above, you’ll also be able to save your replays and edit the footage, giving you complete control over how your spectacular crash is seen. Taking further advantage of the PSP’s capabilities, you’ll be able to upload this footage for the world to see, and download replays made by others.

Every main cast member has lent their voice to the game, but have they had any involvement beyond voice overs? They definitely have, says Mario: ‘Johnny Knoxville and director Jeff Tremaine have both played the game a lot, offering advice on how to make it truer to the license. It’s been good to have their feedback.’ The cast also did a lot of improvisation during the recordings – so much so, that apparently over half the dialogue now in the game was made up on the spot.

Mario wasn’t ready to announce anything regarding a release date beyond saying that they are ‘about halfway there’ and that the game will come out ‘this year’. And while it has been confirmed that the game will be coming to ‘other consoles’, it’s still unknown at this stage what those other consoles are. If I were to guess, though, I’d say the PS2 was a safe bet. Multiplayer is another question mark; it’ll be in there apparently, but who knows whether it’ll support ad-hoc internet play or not.

So after Jackass is released - and after gamers have started uploading all of their nasty crashes onto the internet - what will Sidhe do next? While Mario wouldn’t be drawn into discussing any particulars, he did say that ‘It’s an interesting time for us. There are more platforms in the market than ever, which gives us a lot of options. As a result, we’re currently developing for a lot of different systems, including the Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3, PS2, and PSP; and we’re moving towards the Wii and the DS as well. But we want to worry less about what platform we’re developing for and spend more time focusing on the core concepts and creative aspects of the games we’re making.'

ADVERTISEMENT

NZGamer.com - Sidhe Jackass Interview Facebook