Maui Mallard Interview with Jon Williams
This interview was fortunate enough to be the final part of my Maui Mallard project, which became a kind of trilogy as a result. The first interview with lead artist John Fiorito was released by me in October 2020, and in early January 2021, I released a large-scale interview with the rest of the Maui team in the first and second parts.
In the mid-90s, Jon Williams coded the SNES version of Maui Mallard and the canceled sequel to the game. My name is still Max Nasikan. And this time I managed to find a British ex-Eurocom programmer, and he was able to tell me many secrets of that unusual port, and what is most incredible, Jon sent me the full script of Maui Mallard 2 and playable versions of its four demo levels. So let's go…
Русский перевод (Russian translation) интервью доступен здесь
СONTENTS
SNES version
Canceled sequel
SNES version
Nice to meet you, Jon. Finding your contacts turned out to be the most difficult thing. Only a Polish blogger, who interviewed you three years ago, could help me. Therefore, I am very glad that I did find you.
Hi Max. I’ve received a mail from Grzegorz telling me you’d like to make contact regarding Maui Mallard. I took a look at your two web pages and the memories came flooding back ;-) I’d be happy to answer any questions that may help. It was a very long time ago so I may not be able to remember everything.
Let's talk about the SNES version first. I have a few questions for you about it that Matt Sneap could not answer for me. I just could not get in touch with the rest of the Eurocom team.
I’ve found a couple of folders (physical ones - not PC folders) with some Maui information from many years ago. Most of it is design stuff and feedback from Disney so I’ll need to go through and see if there’s anything that might help answer your questions. I’m pretty sure that most of the answers will come down to the way the game was developed between Eurocom and Disney...
Do you know at least an approximate date of completion of the build for the SNES version? For example, Cary Hara, the programmer of the Disney Interactive team, has a screenshot with the date of the last revision of the build for the release in Europe on Mega Drive. It's September 22, 1995. I suspect that both Genesis and SNES versions of the game were ready at about the same time. Is it so?
I’ve looked through all of my documentation and can’t give you a clear answer about the original release of the SNES version. I remember that Disney marketing caused problems at the end of the project regarding the usage of Donald Duck in the game. I think there were also delays caused when Disney decided to license the game direct to Nintendo for release in Japan and America. I can definitely say that we finished the game on time in 1995 as we then went on to start Maui 2.
However, from my diary of 1996 (unfortunately I didn’t make many entries that year) and some of the faxes I’ve still got, I can say that we continued to work on Maui in 1996 alongside Maui 2 (and Hercules) to get submissions into Nintendo. The Japanese version was a major headache as we had to create an all-new font and I believe there were other changes they requested to suit the Japanese market. I can’t remember what they were but it was quite usual in later games to have to change things for a Japanese version.
I have records showing we submitted new Japanese and US versions with copyright message changes on the 8th August 1996 and again with registration area changes on the 19th of August. The Japanese version was still being submitted in October but that’s the last note I have for the submissions.
My original source code shows I started work on the game on the 9th September 1994 – at least that’s definite 😉, I was a freelance programmer (originally working from home) at the time although I’d already written a few games for Eurocom. I have a number of source code archives for the game and it looks as if we were originally doing two versions of the game for the SNES: PAL for Europe and NTSC for the USA.
The first archive I have is dated 2nd October 1995 so I’m sure that’s when the game was officially finished. I think Disney only released the PAL version and then asked us to write a Japanese version and revise the NTSC code so it could be released by Nintendo – which is why we continued to work on the game alongside Maui 2.
The final build I have is 29th October 1996 so I guess that’s when we finally submitted the Japanese version. Midway through the project, I moved up to Derby so I could work in-house at Eurocom. We automated the build process and the ROM binaries were assembled to disk where they were uploaded to Disney… that’s why I don’t have copies of the final binaries.
In the original game, there were a number of sprites and even individual characters that were not included in the SNES version. There were no ordinary enemies at several levels: the spitting head of a ghost and a green monster from the waiter's tray (although his black silhouette was in the first level cut-scene) on the first level, Amazons and torch jugglers in the bonus level. As I understand it, some of these animations were not created in Creative Capers, but later (after the expiration of the contract with CC) by the Disney Interactive animators themselves. In particular, Oliver Wade was doing this for several months. Do you know the exact reason for not including these sprites in the SNES version?
Any sprites not included would have been down to the decision to allow Eurocom to finish the game independently from the Genesis one. We used to receive video playthroughs of the Genesis game and would often be surprised how major new content just suddenly appeared – it was clear that things were being worked on for quite some time before being shown to us so we were many weeks, maybe months behind in some areas.
I suspect that some bosses were different in both versions for the same reason. Disney Interactive themselves created the final look of them, and therefore Eurocom themselves created their animations from a verbal description or rough sketches. What do you think?
The original agreement was that we would follow the Genesis version and receive regular updates so we could keep up to date. We had the original Game Design Document but the Disney team made lots of changes along the way when they found things didn’t work – which is perfectly normal in games development. However, we’d sometimes not find out about the changes until they appeared in a later build or video playthrough, Disney finally agreed that we could produce a SNES version that was different from the Genesis while maintaining the overall flow and feel.
I’ve already found an internal note of mine pointing out to Mat that we’d never be able to get the SNES version completed on time if we had to rely on the builds and videos we were receiving of the lead Genesis version. We would often find major changes that we hadn’t been aware of meaning I’d have to rework code that I’d spent many hours working on. This eventually led to the decision to allow the two versions to differ where necessary while still using the same source assets.
We reached the stage where we had to go our separate ways but still relied on feedback and direction from Disney. Don’t forget, they were designing levels and features that were optimized for the Genesis hardware, and this sometimes caused problems for the SNES version.
Have you seen the latest look of the volcano boss created by the DI team during the development of the SNES version? At first, I was very surprised that these demons in both versions are SO VERY different in appearance. In the SNES version, he is not frightening at all, while in the Genesis version, the demon is a lot of fear. Programmer Cary Hara told me that he animated it programmatically with his tools. On this page of the Game Design Document (April 1995 version), the volcano boss has not yet been introduced. Therefore, I am interested in the question, did the Eurocom team see this demon at all or did they come up with it themselves from a verbal description?
I’m sure that the final Demon Boss would have been started after we’d taken more control of the SNES version. We would have had some sort of written design or maybe just talked about it on a conference call. I would think we just received sketches of the Demon and had to create our own version … but I don’t clearly remember. I’d (obviously) disagree with your comparison of the two – I also think the SNES version looks a lot nicer in your two images.
I would say it’s completely normal to see the written design change by the time it is in a released game. The designer would have outlined how he thought something would work but when it was playtested it might not have looked good or just didn’t feel right.
And what about the metal Spider Boss?
The metal spider you mention was delivered to Eurocom and we just worked out the best way to introduce it into the SNES while considering the technical restrictions of the console.
When I read the Game Design Doc sent to me by Craig, I discovered that the description of the battle with the Frog contains elements that were not in the final Genesis version, but they were implemented in the SNES version. Namely, how the Frog eats Muddrakes (they were not in the original game on the site with the boss). Which made me think that you followed the Design Document here, and the DI team later changed the gameplay a little at their discretion.
I remember seeing the Genesis version of the frog gameplay for the first time and wondering how we could possibly replicate it on the SNES. We implemented the system based on their original and I seem to remember them changing things later - which was too late for us to change.
Did you initially plan to implement the grab bars into this level, which are mentioned in the Game Design Doc? Or for some reason, you could not do it? Was it a hardware limitation on the console, or was it a deadline?
I think we started work on the frog boss after seeing the initial version on the Genesis and found out later that they had changed theirs … but it was too late for us to follow any changes they’d made. I could be wrong about that though.
According to level designer Joe Santos of the Genesis version of the game, he created a bonus level in the last moment from the tiles and sprites of the two canceled levels. Apparently, this is why Eurocom's bonus level version is so different. Am I right?
The bonus level was another example; we had to find a way to create a fun bonus level in the shortest possible time so I adapted the organ bounce routines to work on the stage graphics (that was in the original design for a completely different reason). I find it amazing how close the two versions were considering how difficult the development was.
Mat Sneap wrote to me the following: "I seem to remember Jon Williams and I working crazy hours to get it done. He fell asleep on his keyboard one night and managed to draw a line of random blocks across a level with his nose ... he honestly did that." Do you remember at what level this funny story happened?
I do remember that… I was so tired I fell asleep on the keyboard. The next day later we couldn’t understand why the level map had screwed up until we realized that I had held down the ‘Z’ key and it had auto-repeated until it reached the line limit! I have no idea what level it was though … We were working on many levels at the same time.
Why in the SNES version the speed run of the ninja (the so-called teleport in the Genesis version) was not implemented? Was this due to hardware limitations of the console itself, or was this animation simply not sent to the Eurocom team?
We did receive the animations. The speed run was probably not incorporated into the SNES version as we had a limit on the number of sprites on a line.
The original Genesis game has a debug menu, which appears by alternately entering two passwords (first IMCARY and then MAUIMM). As I recently learned from the page of this site, the SNES version also has a debug menu, but it is hidden so that you can get into it only with the help of cheating devices like Game Genie or Pro Action Replay. Why did you hide this menu so that the average player could not get into it with a normal password entry?
If my memory serves me correctly, we weren’t allowed any developer debug menu to be accessible in the SNES submission – different manufacturers had their own rules. The menu wasn’t ‘hidden’ in the final release version, it was disabled at build time. The cheat devices hack into part of the code that restricts the number of selectable items on the menu screen and just by chance it allows access. To be clear – this is a hack … not a cheat.
When I checked the code I was reminded that we enabled a number of additional passwords for certain cheats – this comes from the code:
QVRBLP ninja
CNFJTS mudrake
ZPWGRK luau
NFXDQH duckhood
PHMBTT sacrifice
SXGDLJ duckman
MDVCBQ zombies
HRTGDV stronghold
PLBVRQ cheat1 CHEAT_NO_DEATH
JVBKCD cheat2 CHEAT_NO_BOTTOM
BTBMPH cheat3 CHEAT_MAX_POWER
DCVQMQ cheat4 CHEAT_NINJA
TGVDRH cheat5 CHEAT_CONTINUES
PZWRRK cheat6 CHEAT_LIVES
FXFQHD cheat7 CHEAT_COMPLETE
NB:
CHEAT_NO_DEATH_FLAG ; No loss of life @ zero power
CHEAT_NO_BOTTOM_FLAG ; No loss of life if we fall through map
CHEAT_MAX_POWER_FLAG ; Maximum weapons enabled at all times
CHEAT_NINJA_FLAG ; Immediate maximum Ninja power
CHEAT_CONTINUES_FLAG ; infinite continues
CHEAT_LIVES_FLAG ; Infinite lives
CHEAT_EXIT_FLAG ; Allow 'completion' of stage with Select + Y + A
Unlike the passwords of the SNES version, which were complete gibberish that cannot be remembered, in the original Genesis game, the player was treated more humanely – the passwords there were abbreviations of phrases that convey the essence of the level itself. Even for non-English speaking players like me, they're pretty easy to understand. Did you know at that time the passwords for the levels of the original game that the DI team came up with?
As far as the passwords go, I didn’t actually come up with them but I honestly can’t see the problem. It was quite the norm at the time to use random/obscure passwords in games. Most players would have these written up and pinned to their walls by the console (I know I did). Just because the Genesis version did it in a particular way it doesn’t mean it’s right 😉
What caused the Maui ninja's headband and belt to change color in the SNES version? What was this change indicative of?
Looking at the code, I’ve found the following which gives some pointers to the Ninja Belt system … I have to be honest and say I had completely forgotten the details 😉
The belt system was linked to the Ninja combos so you could perform better combos as your belt improved.
_______________________
Ninja power segments
_______________________
Levels of Ninja power that give certain belts - the mark value is the low value of the belt.
white_belt equ 0
red_belt equ 1
yellow_belt equ 2
orange_belt equ 3
green_belt equ 4
blue_belt equ 5
brown_belt equ 6
black_belt equ 7
white_mark equ 0
red_mark equ 125
yellow_mark equ 250
orange_mark equ 375
green_mark equ 500
blue_mark equ 675
brown_mark equ 800
black_mark equ 900
Minimum levels at which a combo segment is allowed
combo_mark_1 equ white_belt ; 1st swish always allowed
combo_mark_2 equ red_belt ; 1st combo @ this value
combo_mark_3 equ yellow_belt ; 2nd combo @ this value
combo_mark_4 equ orange_belt ; 3rd combo @ this value
combo_mark_5 equ green_belt ; 4th combo @ this value
This snippet is from the code relating to generating combo moves:
The COMBO attack is formed from 4 extra phases tacked onto the end of the default standing attack swipe. The extra phases can only be added when Maui's belt grade increases. The player has to tap the combo buttons during a segment to make the combo continue to the next segment.
For some reason, I was unable to launch any of your cheat codes, except for passwords for levels. These cheat codes must be entered in the usual password line, then press START, and then enter the level password again?
I’ve just tested a copy of Maui running in LaunchBox on Windows and entered the cheats in the usual way and they worked fine. You just enter the code and press B/START in the same way as you do for the level passwords. Each cheat sets a single bit in the cheat flag so you can enter a cheat then return to enter another code until you’ve set all the cheats you want. You can then enter a level password if you want.
I tried by setting the cheats that disable loss of life when energy falls to zero and also the ‘No Bottom’ cheat and started at the 1st level. If I repeatedly run into the spiders I take hits but don’t die when the energy falls to zero. Also, when I go down the lift to the lower level I can jump into the water and just bounce rather than die. I also checked that cheats worked if I used a level password after the cheats and that worked too.
NB: There’s no visual or audible indication that a password has been set – you just return to the menu screen.
Thanks, Jon!
Did you ever see the original design document for the game? My copy is Version 1.1 dated November 4th, 1994. I’ve also attached a few photocopies of faded faxes showing how we communicated with Disney – rather different from the email and Zoom of today! I hope the information is of interest …
Thank! Yes, I received this Design Document at the end of 2020 from Craig as 10 Word files. Your information was helpful.
I don’t mind answering any questions you have - it’s a shame Eurocom closed down as there was probably more information back in the old office.
Despite all the considerable work that the Eurocom team put into their version, there were several rather strange and illogical decisions:
Only in the SNES version did the rotation of the ninja with staff appear. The problem is that it did damage to enemies with a regular strike with a staff, but it took an extra second to swing and very quickly consumed a supply of yin-yang icons. That is, there was essentially no benefit from it. It would be more logical to make the rotation of the staff kill any enemy with one touch. Isn't that so?
For some reason, the ninja combo attacks in the SNES version also turned out to be useless, since the ninja enemies interrupted them immediately after the first hit. This made it impossible to fight hand-to-hand with other ninjas without harming yourself in any way other than from a sitting position. Why did it happen?
I really don’t know what to answer for your first two questions. I can’t remember how the Ninja moves evolved but we would have implemented them as intended and we had regular feedback from DI regarding all gameplay. I do remember that we would frequently implement features as designed only to find that the Genesis version had changed. You also need to remember that we only saw their updates many weeks after they’d been made. Also, we’d generally get their updates via VHS videotapes which didn’t make it easy to get the ‘feel’ of things.
In the SNES version, five original melodies were thrown out at once: the Boss theme, Ending - Part 1 (Hernae monologue before the kiss), the Flying Duckman theme, Continue, and Game Over themes. Instead, two alternative tracks were written: an introduction for the cut-scenes before each of the main levels (in the original game there was a melody from the level itself) and a new track for Flying Duckman. Do you know anything about the reasons for this replacement?
With the removal of the so-called Ending - Part 1 theme an illogical error occurred in the SNES version. The fact is that this fragment in the original game sounded in the final cut-scene, when the High Sorceress Hernae gives her long monologue, addressing Donald. And only after its completion, she kisses him to the opening notes of Mendelssohn's Wedding March, with which the next composition begins (Ending — Part 2). This musical insert hints to the player about the emergence of a love relationship between both characters.
Here is the original ending with two alternating tunes in the Genesis version.In the SNES version due to the lack of the first melody Wedding March starts playing from the very first seconds of the cut-scene when a stone idol falls on Donald's head. Long before the kiss with Hernae which completely ruins the logic of music. Why did it happen?
I also can’t help with the music-related queries as this was all handled by Steve Duckworth. It could have simply been a memory issue or maybe Steve wasn’t getting the original music files in good time? From my point of view, I was supplied with the music data and information on when and where to trigger it.
Eurocom was constantly working in ‘catch up’ mode having to wait for the Genesis assets to be supplied. That’s not a complaint or excuse - just a matter of fact about the way we had to develop the SNES version. I think both teams just worked ridiculous hours to get their version into submission by the deadline. I know I was working very long hours, 7 days a week for a few months trying to get the game completed.
The important thing to point out is that all of this happened 25 years ago and times were very different then. I really don’t remember the finer details of how things came about - just that Maui was an incredibly difficult project for both the Disney and Eurocom teams. Having said that, the end result is something that both teams were rightly proud of.
Another really, really important thing to point out is that the Eurocom team beat the Disney team in the speed drinking competition at the Maui Luau wrap party ;-)
Haha! The last fact is curious …
Did you know that Disney made some baseball caps for Maui? I came across my very dusty cap a few weeks ago.
No, this is the first time I hear about a Maui cap from you. Can you send a photo, please?
The cap is from my garage. I couldn’t get a very good picture of the Maui cap but you’ll get an idea of what it’s like. It has been in storage for a very long time so it’s a big crumpled and dusty. I’ve never tried it on before and have just found out it must be a child’s size ;-) I don’t think they made very many of them. Maybe just for the developers?
Canceled sequel
Finally, let's move on to the most important thing. Mat Sneap and Craig Allen told me in a December interview that it was Eurocom who started to create Maui 2 for Playstation. Many animations were ready (according to Craig) and a demo of at least one level with an airplane graveyard was already created. Later, these developments formed the basis of Hercules, only thanks to which it came out by the time of the world premiere of the film itself.
Since you were the lead programmer on the SNES version of Maui and were in charge of design and production in Hercules, I'm guessing you were also the lead programmer (or something) in the canceled sequel to Maui Mallard. Am I right? Do you know anything about the location of that demo or any other material for the Maui sequel?
Yes, I started work on Maui 2 and got the project up and running before we moved onto Hercules. All of our demos for Disney were sent as physical CDs because of the strict limitations Sony put on the Playstation system. I do have a final archive of Maui 2 source code but I’m not sure f it’s complete. I could have a look but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope that it can be resurrected.
I do remember the early stages of Maui 2, we started putting a demo together using assets from the original Maui game along with some new maps and animations. I’ve found some source graphics that were used by our in-house utilities to create the test maps …. They’ll give you a feel for what was in the demo. I don’t think I still have any of the Eurocom editing tools that would allow completed maps to be viewed but will take a look.
I might also have some design documents from Disney but I’d have to search through my old disks. Sadly, our communications with Disney were mainly by phone and fax – I don’t have any emails from the Maui era.
AWESOME! Thank you very much. I would be glad if you manage to find something else. Now, these rarities are simply worth their weight in gold.
I also found a few old documents relating to Maui 2 … I’m not sure if they’re of any interest. Please bear in mind that they were written in 1995 / 1996 an many things changed with Eurocom’s production system when we moved on to Hercules.
Jon... This is... simply... INCREDIBLE! I have no words. Thank you VERY MUCH for these documents
To be honest, I’ve no idea at all what’s in the executable - just that it’s in the archive so would have been the last one built on my PC. There’s a good chance that it linked with Sony libraries which means it will only run on the official Sony development system. My Maui 2 archive contains all of the source code and object files that were present when we shelved the game - if I’m able to create a Sony PSX1 home brew environment on my PC I might be able to rebuild it. However, it might not be something I can do on a modern machine (I guess we were on Windows 95/98 at the time).
The demo would have only contained a few very small map sections along with animations and basic code. I doubt if it would have been very large at all.
Did I understand correctly that you also have other files in the folder for the sequel? Can you send them all in one archive? For example, I can open sprite files with anm. extension.
I think I have all of the source and data files that were present at the end of the project. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the tools programs that were used to create and edit the maps or animations. Our artists would have had the original material and just passed the ‘final’ data onto us for use in the game.
I’ve attached a zip containing all of the animations that were left in the project. I know that many (maybe all) of these were ones used in the original game – we were still using these to get the new game up and running. You can open these in VLC but as they’re only a few frames long they don’t last long on screen – you can set VLC to loop the animation and that allows you to see it repeated. I’m not sure if you will see too much as each animation is designed to link to the others in code.
Regarding the demo executable – I have looked through the code and I think the reason it doesn’t work is that we had our development systems setup for CD emulation so some data would have been loaded from a mapped folder on our hard drives. I doubt I there’s any way of getting anything working without rewriting the code so it will access the data differently.
Thanks again, Jon. All animations have opened in the VLC player. Among the already known sprites of the SNES version, there are also many new ones. Among them is a new playable character - muddrake named Mucky.
I know that I’d started work on the new Mucky character but cant really remember much about it. I had a quick look at the source code and it seems Mucky followed Maui around – I do seem to remember something about the player being able to send Mucky into places that Maui couldn’t reach.
In addition to the usual Maui Ninja in the black suit, there are also quite a few animations of the ninja in the red suit. And this is not an enemy at all, as it was at the Ninja Training Grounds level of the original game, because it has too many animations explicitly intended for player actions. In addition, the sprites of both the black and red ninjas in the files' names are signed the same - NM (which apparently means Ninja Maui).
Do you remember why Maui's ninja suit turned red? Should it be like this throughout the sequel's plot (for example, the team just didn't have time to repaint the sprites of the black suit) or did the color changed due to some conditions (as the color of the belt and headband changed in the SNES version)?
I don’t remember anything about the Ninja sprites… The fact there are lots of player type animations may not be too helpful as they’d still be needed if under computer AI control. If I could get the demo up and running on an emulator it might trigger some memories.
Good news! In the end I managed to get the Maui 2 project compiling on my old Windows XP machine and have attached a few screen grabs.
As I expected, the problem was that the old code was designed to work with the Sony PlayStation Development kits so all file loading was looking for special hardware. There was no way to get the original system working and no way to load from a CD image so I hacked the code to work with a ‘RAM disk’. This allowed me to include the map and sprite data into the executable. This would only allow one level to be compiled at any given time but I finally worked out how to disable all of the stuff that was a problem.
That’s the good news, the bad news is that there’s not really too much to see as we had only been working on the project for a few months before moving onto Hercules. The plan was to get the basics up and running on the PlayStation and then write out own internal tools to allow us to change the 2D maps to true 3D and then have a 2.5D engine. This is exactly what happened when we moved to Hercules and you can see how Maui 2 would have ended up by looking at that release.
The compiled executables do work but some of the joystick mappings are a bit odd in a Windows emulator. There are four separate ‘levels’ with the last one being a bit of a test bed level where we were experimenting with some things. You’re welcome to these executables if they’re of interest…
John, this is amazing news! I didn't expect to see so much surviving content from the sequel. Can you send me executables to run them on the PlayStation emulator?
Certainly. Here they are. A few points to note:
I could only test the final executables on my Windows 10 PC which has an Xbox controller attached via USB.
I used NO$PSX emulator to get the code working as this allowed me to check TTY output from the program (so I could see where it was failing). However, the controller mapping isn’t too good.
The executables also run fine on ePSXe which has a far better joystick mapping. The problem with this emulator is that the emulator screen was really small … there’s probably a way to resize it but I couldn’t work it out. I had to disable the ‘bugs’ from being fired by Maui as they weren’t working correctly and cause memory issues.
The Ninja_Mucky level allows you to do Ninja moves as per the SNES (climbing up passages, swinging from hooks). The use of these moves is a bit tricky but they do work. The Ninja_Mucky level also allows Mucky to be used to access an area to the right of the map … Maui can’t get there as he’s too tall. The plane level is really basic – just a graphics test really. It’s best to use scan mode to get around the plane and test levels (see below how to use this).
NB: The button(s) used along with the Dpad to scan around the map are also the ones that changed the type of bugs Maui fired … but the actual firing has been disabled.
The controllers mapped to their default state … these may be completely different to how they work on your PC but give an idea of what’s possible.
ePSXe:
Start = Pause .. short presses single step the game / long press to exit
Back = Not mapped
Y = Change to Ninja Maui
A = Jump
B = Call Mucky / Swap control with Mucky
X = Fire
DPad = Move (+use with LB / RB for scan mode)
Analog = Move (not scan mode)
LT = Force a death
RT = Lose energy
LB = Hold down and move the Dpad to scan Maui around the map (Slow)
RB = Hold down and move the Dpad to scan Maui around the map (Fast)
NO$PSX:
Start = Force a death
Back = Hold down and move the Dpad to scan Maui around the map
Y = Call Mucky / Swap control with Mucky
A = Change to Ninja Maui
B = Jump
X = Fire
DPad = Move (+use with LB / RB for scan mode)
Analog = Not mapped
LT = Not mapped
RT = Not mapped
LB = Not mapped
RB = Pause .. short presses single step the game / long press to exit.
Thank you so LOT, Jon! All four levels run fine on the ePSXe emulator. Was there no SFX or music at all??
The sound and music system was being written by the sound engineer but had been disabled in the archived code. I did try setting it back on but the size of the sound data in RAM meant the program wouldn’t run.
Did I understand correctly that Steve Duckworth (or someone else from Eurocom) has already written some new music for the sequel? Or did you use old tunes from the SNES version for the test levels? If there were new tracks, could you send them to me in a separate archive?
The only music data in the archive is a copy of the original Maui title music. I don’t know if anything had actually been written before we moved onto Hercules. I doubt if there was.
I did not expect to see a one-armed pirate with a sword and a hook there (looks like a captain). In my Maui Mallard community, I published a post about this character, which is not included in any of the versions of Maui.
At the end of 2020, I was lucky enough to get my hands on all of his animation sprites created by the DI team for Genesis. Obviously, it did not make it into the original game because of the too large file size (there are quite a few frames). But only now I realized that this character was also animated by the Eurocom team for the SNES version of the first game. Do you remember why it was not included in your version of Maui then?
I have to admit that I just don’t remember. . I doubt if I could have got that huge animation into the SNES 😉 As you heard from Craig (Disney) and Mat (Eurocom), the delays in getting updated builds and assets of the Disney version meant Eurocom had to break loose and finish the SNES version in the best way possible. That’s the reason why there are so many differences between the two versions.
When we started work on Maui 2 we had a trip to Creative Capers in LA and discussed the new characters and animations we needed. You can see some of the new ones in the PlayStation as our artists literally grabbed the hand-drawn frames and turned them into animation files (they’re the black and white ones).
Do you know what level this background was for? You sent it to me earlier, along with the level tiles. And why was it not included in any of the levels you sent me?
It was a generic background image that was in every level directory. However, it was never enabled in the final code so I assume it was only for testing.
I received a Technical Specification Document for MM2 from you, which is scheduled to ship the final build of the sequel to Sony/Sega in mid-October 1996. This looks quite realistic, given the availability of a completely finished Game Design Doc (Level Gameplay Elements — Final Version) and a detailed Featurette Script for all cutscenes for February of the same year.
However, in the document that DI's sound designer Patrick Collins photographed for me, the date it was sent to Sega is August 1997 (for Sony, it still says October 1996). Interestingly, the Revised Street Date has been moved there to October 1997. That is, a whole year later than the finished game should go to the publisher in the person of Sony. Perhaps 1997 only appeared in the plans after freezing the sequel to work on Hercules. Is my guess correct? Although I doubt that Patrick Collins, who was not involved in the preparation of the sequel, could have received documents from the time when the entire Eurocom studio was moved to Hercules.
Do I understand correctly that in this case, it is better to rely on the data of the Technical Specification Doc? That is, the sequel was planned to be sent to publishers in October 1996, and around December of the same year (or a little earlier) was supposed to go on sale. Did you originally want to release MM2 at the end of 1996 or 1997?
I’m pretty sure that if the milestone document shows the target date as October 15th, 1996 then that’s when we were initially aiming for. I don’t recall seeing the DI documents but it’s interesting to see that it also shows ‘release to manufacturer’ as of late 1996. Maybe everything changed when we were asked to continue work on Maui 1 to produce the US and Japanese versions?
To be honest, I really can’t remember too much about it as so much was going on at the time. Eurocom moved into new offices and I made my move to Derby permanent and became a full-time employee rather than freelance. I do know that when we were given the Hercules contract we reorganized our internal project structure so Maui 2 could be continued at a later date. Unfortunately, we never did resume Maui 2 but moved onto the Tarzan game.
I have thoroughly reviewed the demos of the four levels you sent me. And after a 2020 interview about Maui Mallard's story, I have new questions for you. Here's what the producers of the sequel told me then about its preparation.
David Bergantino (assistant producer): «I seem to think we had a pretty solid vertical slice of the game done, with the key“ new mechanic ”being that you could jump into the background of the screen for mini-platform and puzzle sections.» Mat Sneap: «We had a demo up and running, it was 2.5d .... so simple 3d with lots of texture work ... to make it look like pixel art, but you were fixed to a limited depth in the screen.»
Unfortunately, there are no 2.5-D, textures or "pretty solid vertical slice of the game" in the available demos. There is standard 2D everywhere. It is also obvious to me that the demos at this stage of development could not serve as a basis for Hercules. This means that by the time you moved to Hercules, your team had done clearly more. Do you know anything about this? Were there later prototypes with 2,5-D and other improvements? Did you manage to do more than what is in the demo levels you sent?
I think what happened was that we originally had to get something up and running on the PlayStation as it was our first project on the console. The technical document mentions developing the ‘scrolling’ levels on the PlayStation and the 3D engine on the Saturn. There’s no doubt that the source code I compiled into the recent executable was from around the time that we changed course and set up systems to create Hercules and Maui 2 in parallel … which actually resulted in us shelving Maui 2 in the hope we’d continue it once Hercules was completed.
I have to admit that I just can’t remember what sort of Maui 2 demos we supplied during the changeover period – we certainly sent some initial Hercules test levels that ‘showed movement in and out of the background’. I think everybody has their own memories of the Maui 2 development – mine are that we initially planned to do a game with a mix of 2D and 3D levels but this changed when we discussed concept approval with Sony early in 1996.
As a matter of interest, I’ve attached an early level overview document that appears to confirm the initial plan of mixing conventional 2D levels with 2.5D and 3D sections. I’m sure that’s why we started off developing the 2D engine while getting to grips with the tools, utilities, and engine needed for the 3D – which would have come later. All of this was completely altered by the move to Hercules … which definitely started off down the 2.5D / 3D route. I could be completely wrong about all of this though. I don’t have any other Maui 2 source code so I really can’t help any further regarding the demos.
Among the new sprites for the sequel you sent were several Maui and Ninja (Cold Shadow) animations that I did not find in the test levels. Or I didn't understand how to call them. I have attached them below. Could it be that not all of the animations you sent in were used in these demo levels?
I can’t remember those animations particularly. We might have had some that still needed implementing or maybe they just weren’t suitable. We did find that some of the animations from Creative Capers weren’t usable in the game as supplied. They were very much drawn from a 2D ‘cartoon’ perspective with lots of anticipation and flourish. I can remember having to be selective and remove frames just to get the ‘feel’ right within the game. There’s nothing worse than being locked into an animation that takes a few seconds to complete while a poison dart is coming at you! I know that I sometimes create sequences from different animations to perform a given move – don’t ask me what though as I can’t remember exactly.
In the Game Design documents that you sent, it says that Mucky must perform a variety of dances, with which he somehow must help Maui defeat enemies and bosses. Do you remember exactly how the dance mechanics were supposed to be used for battles?
I can’t remember anything about the Mucky dances, I think it was just an idea that never got firmed up.
Do you still have any docs left for the Maui sequel? Even from purely technical data, I can find out some information that is important to me or the article in general.
I’m afraid I have very few documents for Maui 2 … most of our contact with Disney was via the phone so I just made physical notes at the time. I’ve found a couple that were in an old archive but they’re not too interesting. One is a different/later document outlining the proposed levels (with slightly different detail), another is a draft copy of an internal animation tracking document and the third is a covering note that went with a very early demo.
Don’t take the proposed levels as being ‘final’ and what would have ended up in the game if we’d have continued. It’s usual to ‘over design’ at the draft stage knowing that it would be refined later.
I’ve also found a covering document for a ‘work in progress’ milestone demo that was sent to Disney in March 1996 – this is around the date of the final source files I used to recreate the recent builds. The document pretty much describes the features in the executables I sent to you and does say that they’re ‘test bed’ levels. According to my diary, a few weeks later we heard from Disney that they were having serious problems with the supply of animations and wouldn’t be able to do the ‘animated cartoon’. A week after that we had a conference call with Disney where we were told to put Maui 2 on the back burner and two days later (4th April 1996) we had confirmation that we would be working on Hercules.
I have a feeling the 3D tech demo some people remember is one that we put together to impress Disney in our pitch for the Hercules project (which was originally going to be done by DI in-house). I remember that we visited Disney and showed them some test 3D work we’d been playing with and I’m sure that included some Maui animations. Sadly, that would have been worked on separately from the initial development of the Maui 2 working environment and demos. Of course, I could be completely wrong about that.
Jon, you never cease to amaze me. From a couple of yesterday's documents, I found out new details of the gameplay in the MM2 levels. You have provided me with invaluable help. Thank you SO MUCH for participating in this interview!
You're welcome, Max! I look forward to seeing the article when it is released.
I did this interview with Jon back in early 2021, but I held this exclusive footage to first release my second article in Retro Gamer magazine (#226), where I told the story behind the creation of the Maui sequel. In our community you will find all playable demos of the four levels of MM2.
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© Max Nasikan. March 2022.
My previous interviews with Maui Mallard team:
1) Interview with lead artist John Fiorito (September 2020)
2) Giant interview with 12 creators of Maui (December 2020):
Part 1
Part 2