Maui Mallard Story: A Giant Interview with the Creators (part 1)
25 years ago, one of the most unique Disney games was released, where brutal Donald in a Hawaiian shirt blasted the living dead with a gun and then turned into a hurricane ninja with a staff. In December 1995, the original game appeared only in Europe on the Sega MegaDrive platform (also a completely different port for the SNES was released in Germany), and hardly anyone then could have expected that its fate would be so difficult and hazy…
In September 2020, Max Nasikan, creator of the one and only Maui Mallard fan community, had an extensive interview with John Fiorito, the game's lead artist. After the article was published, John shared it with his former colleagues. And thanks to them now we have the opportunity to tear down the already half-opened veil of secrecy.
I can't say that it was easy. Memories about events that took place a quarter of a century ago were collected bit by bit. Miraculously preserved concepts, slides and documents were fished from the far corners of dusty closets. And some of the answers could lead on the wrong trail. The more interesting it was to plunge into this investigation and put the whole puzzle together. The interview with a dozen MM creators stretched out over two long months, but the result was worth it. As the game's producer Craig Allen said: «Because the origin story must be told».
Русский перевод (Russian translation) интервью доступен здесь
PART 1
(This article)
Artists / Designers
• John Fiorito
• Joe Santos
• Kurt Dumas
Animators
• Sue Shakespeare (Creative Capers)
• Rodney Bills
• Oliver Wade
Programmer
PART 2
(Next article)
Music and sounds
Producers
Afterword
Artists / Designers
Artifacts inside:
• First version of the Game Design Document (July 1994) with descriptions of unrealized levels
• Original level concepts
• Scans of promo cards
John Fiorito
lead artist
This project began with a September interview with John. As it turned out, some facts from his story will be corrected here with the words of other creators, but more on that later. This time John has kindly agreed to answer a number of new questions.
Hello again John. I have new questions for you.
Hi, Max. I'm ready.
I have a question about the map of the island that you sent me. All levels of the game are represented on it by separate locations and are signed with the final names of the levels. However, among them there is a certain Temple of Shabuhm Shabuhm with a huge green resemblance of a flower bud or egg on the roof. At the same time, the Witch Doctor himself sits on a tower of a completely different location on the map. Was Temple of Shabuhm Shabuhm a level not included in the game or is it just Mojo Stronghold (whose name does not appear on the map)?
To answer your question, I believe the person who created the island map used their creative license to draw the temple, training grounds and witch doctor’s tower in the same style. We never planned levels for the additional locations, but I do like the consistency in the architecture.
It was not in vain that I asked you about the Temple of Shabuhm Shabuhm location on the map. Craig sent me the Game Design Document. Guess what I saw there?
According to that document, the 5th level was supposed to be... Temple of Shabuhm Shabuhm! It was for him that the Amazon Warriors with shields were created. Moreover, another previous level called Luau did not enter the final game either. That is, it did not enter in its original form, since the unicycle bonus level was originally part of it.
I am not sure exactly but can make a good guess. I do know that neither level was ever put into production with the game team. My guess is that we did not have enough time or people to complete them and that they were removed from the final design. If you remember from our earlier conversation, the team took a six-month hiatus to work on Lion King, so maybe we had to reduce the size of Maui Mallard in order to ship on time? Meanwhile, the character designs and animation for the enemies WERE put into production so we repurposed them as characters in the bonus stages. Patrick Gilmore or Craig Allen may know more details.
Why on the last sublevel with the boss in Ninja Training Grounds the scenery (ruins) were merged with the background (clouds) in one layer? That is, the effect of image depth has completely disappeared. In the PC version, the color scheme is much better there (at least, you can visually separate the clouds from the bricks of the temple), but they were still merged into one layer. While on the rest of the sublevels the clouds move independently. Could this be a mistake?
If the background layer in Ninja Training Grounds was removed, we probably used it somewhere else, maybe to allow us to color all of the other ninja’s that Maui fought, or for vfx in the foreground, etc. Just a guess but we would never leave extra memory on the table.
Why in the original game for Sega in two levels (The Sacrifice of Maui and The Test of Duckhood) the left edge of the image was cut off to the very indicator of lives? The strangest thing is that the rising lava in the second sublevel of the volcano extends beyond the edges of this boundary both on the left and below (I attached the screenshot). There is no such thing in the PC version of the game. Could this be some kind of hardware limitation of the Sega console? I have noticed a similar cut of the picture on the left before in a couple of Earthworm Jim levels.
If you ever want to apply as a game tester, let me know because you are asking about bugs in the various versions of the game. My guess is that they result from different television screen resolutions. Additionally, the development budget was probably close to zero and since the game functioned, it was shipped with the bugs.
The raw version of the game that was released in Europe on Megadrive, among many other differences from the Genesis / PC versions, contains one rather unusual one. So, The Sacrifice of Maui level originally had a green color in the color scheme, which was replaced in all sprites with yellow/orange in the final build for Genesis (released in Brazil in 1997) and the PC version based on it.
So, the sprites for defeating enemies and bosses and an umbrella in a glass of punch in all other levels were green. But in the final build of the game, it was in the level with the volcano that they turned out to be yellow/orange, being still green in the same level in the raw version for Megadrive. Don't you remember what could be the reason for such a disappearance of the green color from the palette of this level?
Just a guess: the sprite was originally used in Mojo Mansion stage 3 and colored green. We reused and recolored the sprite for the Volcano level but it may have been temporarily green before completing the color adjustments. So maybe the raw version was built from an unfinished version of the Genesis? Or maybe the raw version somehow references the green sprite from Mojo Mansion? Again, these are standard bugs we encounter during development and it was probably decided that it was not worth fixing because of cost.
So it turns out that you deliberately replaced green with yellow everywhere at the level of the volcano, right? Was this done so that the sprites (being green in other levels) match the overall illumination of the volcano and not contrast with it so clearly? Isn't the disappearance of green from the palette of this level a bug?
All sprites in the volcano level should be orange or red. We wanted everything to look like lava or fire. If there is a green sprite in the volcano level, it was not intended and therefore a bug. This is for the Genesis version, the game I worked on. We used the same animation and sprite in other levels and colored them green, so I can see how this bug occurred.
From recent correspondence with animator Rodney Bills, for whom Maui Mallard was the first game in the Creative Capers (however, he was not listed in the credits), I learned that he worked on animations of several skeleton ducks and a hypnotized Donald. Only one skeleton pirate was included in the final game, but Rodney assured me that he was creating animations for several skeletons. Also, Donald's animation under hypnosis is not present in any of the versions of the game.
It turns out that not all the animations originally created in Creative Capers ended up in the game. How many animations were not included in it? Which ones do you remember?
I cannot give you an exact answer about animations that were drawn but never implemented in the game. However, I do agree with Rodney that there is a good chance of other animation cycles not making it into the final game. Are you in touch with Oliver Wade? He was our animator at Disney Interactive and may remember better than me.
The character sprites you sent show Muddrake on a bike. But this animation was not in the original game, although it ended up in the SNES version. Initially, you answered me that Eurocom created all the content that was not in the Genesis version. However, there are no animators in the credits of the Eurocom version, except for the Creative Capers team
Could it be that some of the CC animations that were not included in the Genesis version for one reason or another were sent to Eurocom, and they themselves added them to the SNES version?
Yes, your theory about CC animation in the SNES version makes a lot of sense, and I cannot think of any reason why it could not be true. If there were various animations that did not make it into one game, they were available for use and the Eurocom team must have had enough bandwidth to use the Muddrake Bicyclist.
Thanks again, John.
It's my pleasure. I hope my answers were helpful.
Joe Santos
level designer
Hi, Joe. Can you tell us more about how the levels for Maui Mallard were designed? Which ones have you worked on?
Hi, Max. Back in those days levels were designed using pen, paper, and a lot of patience. (Really! I have some of my original maps on graph paper). As designers, we drew from years of experience playing games coupled with a firm understanding the mechanics / tools programmers (like Cary) made for us. I would rough out levels on a drafting board on large format graph paper laying out the contour lines (the areas where Maui would walk on), wall tiles to block movement, special tiles (like the ninja hooks) to layout pathing. We would then plot out where we would want the baddies to appear and finally place the collectibles. Once a level layout was blocked out, we would then implement what we made on paper to our PsyQ Dev Kits for the SEGA.
We used a mapping tool called TUME (The Universal Map Editor) to layout 16 x 16 tiles on the screen. It was a constant iterative process - layout pathing, then playtest, place some baddies, then playtest, place collectibles, then playtest. Rinse Repeat until it felt “Fun”. We would play each other’s levels to make sure. Once a level has been locked gameplay wise, it really was a ugly mass of lines, blocks, and tiles. We would submit to the art team and they would then work their awesome MAGIC.
I worked on Ninja Training Grounds, Muddrake Mayhem, Test of Duckhood, and did the bonus levels.
Levels in which games were some kind of reference for you during the level design of MM? Or what levels of other games of the time did you value highly in terms of level design? Have you personally been inspired by any of the Earthworm Jim levels or the levels from the Virgin games (Aladdin, Cool spot)?
Funny you ask! Like most of my colleagues at the time, I started out in the industry as a QA Tester to get my foot in the door. One of the first projects Patrick brought me onboard was Aladdin on the SEGA Genesis. So I got to meet and work with Industry luminaries like David Perry, David Bishop, William Anderson, Tom Tanaka, Seth Mendelsohn. Disney at the time worked on several Genesis titles including Aladdin, Jungle Book, The Lion King (all of which I tested on).
As John mentioned in your interview, EWJ was definitely looked at as a platformer quality bar (along with games like Gunstar Heroes, Contra HardCorp, Pitfall). I remember looking at Donkey Kong Country to research how Nintendo did the track system but we altered the gameplay to be more of a half pipe mechanic.
The Rooftops level on Aladdin was a personal favorite with a very interesting layout, as well as the first EWJ level.
My standard question for each of the creators. Do you have any materials on the game?
Ok Max... You're in luck - I just moved from SF to LA and I thought I still had this in a moving box somewhere. It might be the last hard copy of Patrick Gilmore, John Fiorito and Cary Hara's handy work. It's the v1.0 of the original Game Design Doc. (PG might have it on 5 1/4 disc or a stone tablet somewhere. The writing is top – Patrick is a master when it comes to the art of the story.
There's 100 pages in the Game Design Doc - I'll scan the first few pages that have artwork of Donald.
This is fantastic! These pages describe the 4 levels not included in the game. Thank you for scanning such a rarity. I hope to see all the pages of this document one day :)
And for reference - the artwork done initially for the game (before Creative Capers) was another small studio in Burbank called Little Gangster. Correction – Lil Gangster Entertainment. The images in the GD doc were using the initial designs of Maui I think that were done by Lil' Gangster. Which is why I referenced it.
The pages you have sent are incredibly interesting. For example, I understood from them that the mechanics of grasping and swinging on a stick, as well as bungee jumping, were not borrowed from Earthworm Jim, as I was firmly convinced up to that moment. This follows from the date your Game Design Doc was compiled (July 1994), since Earthworm Jim was released in the US only on October 12 of the same year.
Heh, swinging from a vine is a pretty old mechanic.
I was far from the only one who compared Maui and Jim in this regard. They have quite a lot in common (I mean not plagiarism, but rather diverse gameplay), and the interval of a year between the releases of both games seemed to ordinary people like me to be quite an obvious reason for the similarity of the hook grasping mechanics.
Right... For sure we didn't want to give players 8-10 levels of straight platforming so we introduced play varients (we shrink Maui down to a quarter size, stick him on a bungee and have him cling to grab rails and shoot baddies, placed him underwater with the propulsion via shooting, vertical forced scroll through a volcano, etc)
But we definitely played a lot of platformer games of the era to keep abreast - similar to how game devs are doing today.
Also I have 3 postcards (front and backs) and the Maui Mallard launch button I think everyone at Disney Interactive got on launch day. I scanned them. Here you go!
Recently Craig Allen sent me a completely different Game Design Document. 10 Word documents from April 1995. There are 10 levels detailed there, among which 2 are not included in the game – The Temple Of Shabuhm Shabuhm and Luau. They are both depicted with inscriptions on the island map John sent in, and in your similar promo card with the redrawn map.
The developments from both were eventually included in the bonus level. Riding a unicycle in theatrical scenery was originally conceived as one of the sublevels of Luau. While the Amazon Warrior in the bonus level was supposed to be the guardian in The Temple Of Shabuhm Shabuhm.
What do you know about these canceled levels? Was there a level design for them (there are no decorations for them in Craig's document)? Or were they canceled even before the team started developing their level design?
You might have a newer version… I'd love to read! I think it might be the same base document. Regarding the levels - yes, I vaguely remember but we had to cut levels to hit dates back then - when you sent a Gold Master cartridge to manufacturing... that was it. There were no day 1 hot fixes and patching (or in this case updates or DLCs) so the team had to cut levels to hit our dates. To hit a holiday ship date you had to submit Gold Master by X months out for that narrow window. Patrick would be able to shed more light on this. But as for design - we never made any levels for those levels and I made the bonus levels last minute.
One of my favorite games as a kid was 720 (skateboard game) and California Games by Epyx. Both had half pipe mechanics. So instead of doing a super long cart track (ala Donkey Kong Country) we opted to do a mix of tracks and half pipes with varying levels. If you ever interview Patrick ask about the exploding rocks the duck statue crashes through. If I remember right, he animated the stones blowing out. He was so proud. Haha!
Since you worked on creating the bungee level, one more question for you. Did you come up with a mechanic in which Donald clung with his hands to a diagonally stretched rope and crawled along it to maximize the bungee stretch and further take off? Was it your idea?
Bungee level - lets see... we planned on doing a bungee level - I remember sitting in Cary's office while he was testing out the mechanic. I remember we wanted to shoot baddies along the sides. The grab rail was a Patrick / Cary combo I believe. Making it more of horizontal progression with different play areas to engage. I helped steer. Again - it was taking a cool mechanic and see what we could do with it.
How did you come up with the idea for mini Maui in Muddrake Mayhem level?
The idea for mini Maui derived from Army of Darkness if I remember right. We definitely watched a lot of movies and played a ton of games for inspiration.
In the credits of the SNES version you are listed as Level Design Support. In some stages of this version the level design was quite different from the original Genesis version. Did you take any part in the redesign of the levels for the SNES version?
Regarding levels, the Sega Genesis version was the original / lead platform. The SNES version was a port. Due to system processing differences and technical specs the SNES could not directly port the size / layout of our maps (as well as a few key mechanics). Cary would be better person to ask why – it's a bit foggy for me.
Thanks a lot, Joe!
I was glad to help.
Kurt Dumas
concept artist
Hi Kurt. I heard that your Maui Mallard concepts were a big influence on the level design. Can you answer a few questions?
Hi Max. I was only in the gaming industry for a few years and have since been working primarily in television animation with a few feature film projects along the way. It's not a surprise that this has remained popular with gamers and especially those just discovering it. It was quite remarkable for the time it was developed. I'm not sure how helpful I would be, it was so very long ago, but I'll try to fill in some of the blanks.
Do you have any concept art for Maui?
Most all original work was left with Disney Interactive when I left, but I kept decent copies of some of my development work on the game.
In that Game Design Document Craig sent me, there were concept arts for the levels of the game. He advised me to contact you for details of their creation. I have attached them below. Are they created by you? Do you still have these or other arts for the game? These images were saved by Craig in Word documents and therefore they are not particularly good in quality.
All of those are my designs except for the bottom right. I drew pretty much exclusively in blue Col-erase pencil so the images that have other colors are my drawings that were then painted by someone else. I'll see what I can find in my files.
I found some of the drawings in my blue line. I also found a few that the other guys didn't have. I'm having trouble with my scanner... the main problem is that it's not a very good one. I've tried fixing the resolution and lines that appear to be an aliasing issue but I'm foremost an artist and not a computer tech so we'll have to work with what we've got. This is about as good as I can get the digital images to transfer.
Do you have the originals of these three concepts? They are not in your letter. Are they drawn by you?
I did draw these three but I don’t think I have copies of the originals.
The two concepts you sent in belong to the same level - The Realm of The Dead. One of them is signed as Zombie Graveyard, but apparently, this is the first sub-level of Realm (the hanging mummies are taken from the reference by Michael Whelan).
The strangest thing is that another concept called Realm of The Dead in the Game Design Document that Craig gave me illustrates the Sacrifice of Maui level (volcano mouth). Did someone in the team mistaken your work with the tower as a concept for a level in a volcano, or did you not create any concept for a volcano at all and the team put a drawing with a tower in its place due to the lack of the necessary art?
Good question.... It’s been 25 years and I honestly can’t remember every concept drawing I did for the game. I would bet I did more but just can’t seem to recall any others. It was interesting to see an image or two from the newer version of the game... and that some of my imagery made it into that game a well:)
I appreciated your hidden joke in the scenery of the MudDrake Mayhem level concept :) Playboy logo. In the colored version of the same concept I sent you earlier, the logo has been removed. Do you remember any other similar jokes while working on the game? I suspect there were quite a few of them.
I don’t remember specific jokes or funny images that put into the development work back then. Most often it wasn’t premeditated, meaning I didn’t purposefully plan to put a specific logo or ironic image anywhere, it would just strike me as I was drawing that it would be funny at the time. I don’t think we were trying to sneak them in so much as they just made the job more fun, but yes, I’d bet there were many more. I’m sure the Playboy logo was taken out for legal reasons.
Thanks a lot, Kurt!
Happy to help.
Animators
Artifacts inside:
• Never before seen sketches for the sequel of the game
• Full animation cycle of a pirate not included in the game
Important note: the overwhelming mass (over 90%) of videos and let's plays of the original Sega game on YouTube were passed and recorded with slowed down (incorrect) timing of all animations, because regular European ROMs with 50 fps are not suitable for correct emulation on a PC. The proper animation speed when emulating a Sega game on a PC is displayed only in two ROMs with 60 fps: a modified European Donald in Maui Mallard [f1] and a Brazilian Donald in Maui Mallard (Brazil) (canceled Genesis version for NTSC TVs). In the PC version of the game, animation speed and fps are correct by default.
Maui Mallard's animation was done by Creative Capers Entertainment, a third-party animation studio founded by Terry and Sue Shakespeare with David Molina in California. Previously, they worked at Don Bluth's studio on the feature-length cartoons "The Secret of NIMH", "American Tail", "Earth Before Time", as well as games Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair 2 and Space Ace by Bluth's studio.
Sue Shakespeare
animation producer and president of Creative Capers studio
Nice to meet you, Sue. The first thing that catches your eye in Maui Mallard is the amazing animation that makes you believe that you are playing an interactive cartoon. The Creative Capers team has done a great job. I am especially pleased to personally express my gratitude to you and the rest of the Capers animators.
Hi Max. It's so nice hearing from you. I had heard about your Maui Mallard expose... and interview with John Fiorito. I remember this project well, as we had developed the animation for it and did all of the animation art. It was a great project. We have such fond memories of working with all of the DI team.. including John Fiorito and Craig Allen, the Disney Interactive Producer.
Did I understand correctly from John's interview that Creative Capers not only created animations but also brought the final look of each character to life? That is, characters from the Disney Interactive team came to you in the form of scattered draft concepts, and you created their complete appearance. Right?
Yes... that is correct. Disney Interactive provided written stories, thoughts, ideas and then sketch concepts.... we created the animated characters looks and movement styles all the way through color concepts. Then we did 100% of the animation of the characters.
Do you or your colleagues from Creative Capers still have any materials for the game: sketches, celluloids, etc.?
I don't have any animation - but I may have some development art. At the time Disney would take back all of the animation art - so it is no doubt sitting in some Indiana Johnes style warehouse somewhere in Southern California :-)
I'll dig around and see what I can find. Believe it or not... we were using AMIGA computers back then to pencil test the work for they were the most powerful systems available for animation production. We then did the ink and paint in Silicon Graphics workstations using US Animation Ink & Paint software. US Animation then went on to become ToonBoom... which is now Harmony ToonBoom.
I do have a very cool piece of "art" hanging on the wall here at the studio. It is the Maui Mallard Software framed in a shadowbox. I walk by it everyday.
We do not have any of the pencil test animation, for Amiga's no longer exist... and I believe the ink & paint color work on the animation was done by the game programmer. That is because the drawings needed to be interpreted into pixel drawings (6 bit... not sure... Craig, Patrick, Oliver or John would know) Therefore no color footage exists of the full quality animation that was created.
It is amazing that technology has progressed so far since then. Today we would have all of the scenes stored on our server in both black & white sketch form and final color form and could show the scenes.
I do not have a scene list either. All of that information is gone. If Craig or anyone has a copy of a scene list I could go through it and provide more information on it.
Some of the animations in the game contrasted with the Disney style and were more in the spirit of Tex Avery. Namely, a flying jaw with ninja eyes when damaged or Donald's giant eyes when a column falls on it in the first level (or an idol in the final cut-scene). Didn't you think that this is not entirely typical for Donald?
We designed many of the animations to be specific and "unique" for Maui Mallard. We - the team - wanted him to have signature moves which would be different than Donald's. The concept that Donald Duck has this alter ego was new and fresh for this game.. we wanted Maui's actions to be more cartoony - action oriented and feel more broad in the spirit of Tex Avery. This also helped the animations to read better in the game. The animation was beautiful 2D drawn animation. I wish we had pencil test scenes that you could see. The quality was just like Disney TV show quality. The animation in the game is not as fluid or detailed as the animation was... which is due to the technology of the time.
In addition, Craig Allen - the Producer wanted Maui's action to be very "snappy"... so he could respond quickly to game player response. We developed a number of techniques to allow us to show a lot of action in just a few drawings. One example in particular is when Maui would pull his gun. In just two (or 3) drawings he could draw his gun and shoot... this was important so that the game player would feel an immediate response to their action. Another example is when he turned from side to side... we did it in just a couple of drawings and showed multiple images in a single drawing. This achieved the feeling of fluid action - but was done very quickly. In standard "fluid" animation this action would take 6-8 drawings. We achieved the same movement in just a total of 3.
These animation techniques were developed for Maui Mallard.
What animations in this game you especially pleased with? Are there any animations in the game that you now want to redo or improve?
It is hard to remember all of the animations. We were very proud of all of them. We gave these animations the same attention and energy that we gave to feature animation. Everyone at Disney Interactive and Creative Capers treated the games as small movies. We put as much quality into them as was possible. The quality of the animation was reduced or simplified due to the technology of the time.
Patrick Gilmore helped us learn the importance of "conveying a lot - with a little" meaning achieving a lot of action with few drawings. We came from feature animation so this was something we needed to learn.Sue Shakespeare
We especially were pleased with the animations we created, like I explained above, in which we created a lot of action with only a few drawings. Patrick Gilmore - the first producer we worked with at Disney Interactive on Mickey Mania — helped us learn the importance of "conveying a lot - with a little"... meaning achieving a lot of action with few drawings. We came from feature animation so this was something we needed to learn. The three of us were also Key Members of the Dragon's Lair team at Don Bluth Studios, and in that case we were creating feature quality animation that was playing off a laser disk so the only limit on the number of drawings we could use was the length of the scene. We could be using 24 drawings per second (1 second = 24 frames) if we wanted to.. there was no limit on the numbers of drawings that could be used.
With Mickey Mania and Maui Mallard - that was not the case at all. We had limits on the numbers of drawings that could be used because of file sizes... and more importantly because of game play action. Patrick or Craig... or Oliver as well can explain more about this.
Did you take any part in the preparation of the sequel to Maui Mallard? John Fiorito said in a recent interview that the the project was canceled before DI contacted you again, but from the concepts of the late Ron Dias, which in the portfolio of his works are attributed to the co-project Disney Interactive and Capers, I tend to think that they were created precisely for the sequel of the game (snow caves and eastern temples have nothing to do with Hawaii). John may have forgotten or not even know it. In a saved version of your old site from 2000, I found an indication that you were working on Maui Mallard 2. Is it really true?
Yes... we were working on Maui Mallard 2. Craig Allen was consulting with us as the game was being designed, so it is possible John Fiorito was not aware Craig was discussing this with us. Our relationship with Disney Interactive was very strong and collaborative. We ended up producing more than 55 titles for Disney Interactive, and we were working with a number of producers at the same time. Sometimes, when a game was in the early planning stages, the producer would have us help with some design work or art direction to help formalize the design of the game and this would be used to help "sell" the studio executives on the project. So I think what happened was that we were doing early development on Maui Mallard 2 before the game had the official "green light".
Things were so busy at Disney Interactive in those days - they had so many titles in design and production at the same time, that I am not surprised if John doesn't quite remember this. It was a long time ago, and he has worked on so many terrific projects... it is probably difficult to remember all the details. I know it is for me:-)
Maui Mallard 2 was going to be an amazing game. I wish it could have been finished!
Back to Ron Dias. I still have questions about his strange concepts.
Know that Ron Dias was the background art director and painter, and tremendously talented at that, but he did not do the original conceptual designs and screen designs. Those were done by David Molina and Terry Shakespeare... our directors. They personally supervised this game... and executed the key art direction design on it. They also personally supervised all of the animation, David himself animated a number of scenes in the game because we wanted it to have a very powerful... broad and unique style.
I also have color copies of 3 or 4 Ron Dias backgrounds that you showed me in color. They are not high quality - they are photocopies. You have to remember that when we were making Maui Mallard we did not have big scanners or large servers. The 2D sketch drawings were shot in Amiga Computers for Pencil Tests. No other systems were available to shoot animation yet. It's amazing... it's only 25 years... but the technology is so much more advanced now.
I initially took the concepts of Ron Dias for the frames of the animated series. Indeed, in terms of the detailed elaboration of the backgrounds, they are much more similar to the frames of the Disney cartoon than to the concepts for a 16-bit game.
Could it be that Ron was working on the pilot for the upcoming Maui Mallard animated series at your studio? I just can't figure out how the snow caves and Eastern Asian temples from his drawings of Maui combine with the setting of the original game in Hawaii. This is clearly something else. According to my guesses, this is either a sequel to the game, or a pilot episode of the animated series.
I know it is confusing. My memory is a bit sketchy - but Maui Mallard was going to other locations in the Sequel. There may have been a mysterious cavern he went through that brought him to different worlds like those you see in the paintings.
I am 100% sure these paintings were done for the game. It is possible Craig Allen and the folks at Disney Interactive were showing this art to the folks at Disney Television at the time trying to gain synergy with them for a TV series.
I remember as we were working on the development for the new game... Craig did want special art. Ron Dias worked for me... 100% on the games. He was not working for the TV group at the time at all. When we set up scenes ... they were inspiration for the game producers such as Eurocom, etc.
Craig Allen is a terrific pitch professional. He can tell a story better than anybody, with more enthusiasm than anyone I've ever seen... other than Patrick Gilmore. They are both amazing at story telling. There was a lot of synergy at the time between Disney Interactive and the TV group.
To date... shows from the TV division would be presented to the other divisions within the Walt Disney company for other groups to consider working on .... bringing them to life in other areas such as publishing books, consumer products (toys, etc) and Interactive was the new exciting division doing great things within the Disney organization.
Disney Interactive shared concepts with other divisions to get their support for them. I remember this well because Creative Capers presented one of our original intellectual properties "Nightmare Ned" to Disney Interactive... and DI purchased it from us. Together we developed an award winning CD Rom Game ... and DI presented the property to Disney Television... who then took it on and developed it as a TV series that we (me, Terry and David) were the Executive Producers of.
So... this was the same time Maui Mallard was being developed for a sequel game... and possibly also a TV show.
On all of the Disney Games we would paint elaborate art direction paintings to help guide the game team. When you see the quality of the animation and the background paintings Ron Dias did... in comparison with the final look of the games... there was quite a difference. Ron's paintings were TV or feature film quality - and Disney Interactive wanted us to produce this level of development and art direction inspiration art... for it was helpful to the game teams. And... as you know... the level of art quality possible in games was increasing quickly.
Are you familiar with these concepts for the sequel? Who created them? John in an interview attributed their authorship to Oliver Wade (apparently, John was not aware of your company's participation in the preparation of the sequel). Oliver himself told me in a recent reply that most likely they were created by Creative Capers. Were all of them created by you?
My memory is that we created these. We definitely designed the characters and did some animation, I am sharing some of the design sketches that show the progression through the design process. It is possible for the sequel that Oliver Wade did some designs. I cannot 100% remember anymore:-). I believe we did some animations for the sequel... a few scenes... but I do not have copies of any of those. Again, we were pencil testing animation on AMIGA computers and storing that information on video tapes... all of those materials were provided to Disney.... so I don't have them.
Also I have found a small stack of sketches that are from the design process for Maui Mallard 2. They are character sketches which show part of the design process. I will have those scanned and share them with you.
Here are the sketches I could find. All of the key production art went back to Disney 25 years ago. We kept these design sketches... not sure why... but I still have them. You will see various designs that were being worked on the sequel development. The storyline was going to different worlds... timelines.... etc. It's all kind of crazy looking back at it...
You will see notes on drawings... these would have been notes that Oliver or Craig gave us after we showed the first sketch concepts.
The more I see these... the more it does feel like they were being used to show to Disney Television for consideration as a TV series. But it would have been Disney Interactive presenting it... so it may be this art was for story development to a sequel game as well as showing what a TV show could be.
Craig would remember.
Almost two dozen drawings! Thank you so much Sue for these rarities!
I was glad to help!
Rodney Bills
animator from Creative Capers (not listed in the credits)
Hi Rodney. I accidentally saw my interview with John on your page and read that you worked on animations in the game as part of Creative Capers. Please tell us about your work on animation for the game.
Hi Max. Sure. My part was very small as it was one of the first projects I worked on at Capers, and so I only did a bit of animation
Do you remember which game characters you worked on? And what kind of animations did you do?
I worked on Donald getting hypnotized, some of the skeleton ducks, I also remember doing some ninja jumping Donald where he uses his staff, and some mudrakes. Mostly hits and idle cycles.
Did I understand correctly from your words that initially several skeleton ducks were drawn for the game at once? In the final game, there was only one skeleton with a torch (not counting the zombie duck). I admit that not all of the Creative Capers animations could be included in the final game. What's the animation with the hypnotized Donald? His transformation into a mini Maui?
This is the only skeleton from the game. Were there others?
There were more pirate skeletons than one. And the Donald getting hypnotized may never have made it into the game, but we didn’t necessarily know where a character would be placed in the game, just the action that the character needed to do. We would work from a neutral or zero pose then animate a hit or a walk or a climbing sequence or whatever.
Another animator may do the next action of that character.
It is really interesting. I managed to find this animation of a pirate that was not included in the game. Have you animated it?
He looks familiar, like I have seen him before but I didn’t animate him. That is possibly the work of several different animators. Each of those actions would have been a different assignment, so appear, walk cycle, saber jab, saber swing, shoot, etc. all come from, or go into, what would have been the character’s 0 pose which is his neutral stance.
It was 25 years ago, so I only have a vague recollection of which pirate, but I seem to recall a long rapier type sword, or it could be that it was the pirate with the torch, but pretty sure it was not either of the other 2 pirates you shared.
Thanks, Rodney.
You are welcome.
Oliver Wade
animator and additional art artist
Hi Oliver. I know from your 2011 interview that you also took part in the work on the sequel to the game. Tell us about it.
Hi Max. Yes, I was working on character designs and animation tests for Maui 2.
From my recollection, the MM2 pre-production was very loose and experimental. There were a few people at Disney Interactive and Creative Capers spending time on it, but it never went very far. I know I did a dozen or so sketches (which have been lost to time) and we had a few meetings with Creative Capers to discuss plans and begin a process for getting the game design up and running. These meetings never went farther than the early planning stages.
I don't believe any actual animation was done. At least I didn't do any.
I was surprised that in a 2011 interview you said that you were much more involved in making the sequel than the original game. And also you talked about ready-made animations for the sequel. Did the interviewer get it wrong?
Well, there you go. Memories fade over 9 (or 20 years). I think the point to take away from this is that while I did do some animation for the original game it was mostly small additional things (the hand prints in the wall in the first level, the piranha, the skull explosions when you killed an enemy, etc.). I was going to be much more involved with the second game but don't remember it getting that far. I believe what I should have said in that original interview was that a sequel was "being" created.
You said you did animations of handprints on the wall and skull explosions. These animations (but not only these) are not present in the SNES version, although there is a piranha in the Eurocom version. I got a guess why the appearance of some bosses in the SNES version was so radically different from the original Genesis game, and some enemies were simply absent there. The Eurocom team probably only had the original Creative Capers animations, but there were additional ones made by Disney Interactive animators, including you. To confirm or deny my guess, please answer these questions.
Did you animate the spitting head and the green monster from the waiter's tray in the first level? Have you created animations for the spider boss and the volcano boss? Or maybe you know who created the named animations, if they weren't made by you?
Just to give you some background, I was hired as an animator on the project with about 6 months or so to go before it was released. We were still working under the assumption that it would be released as a Genesis title. Most of the animation done by Creative Capers was already finished and their contract was complete. They still needed some animations to be done to add some polish. As I said, I remember doing animation of the hand prints, the piranha, and the death skull when someone got killed.
I know I did a bunch more than that (since I animated on it for several months) but I can't say for certain what else. I do believe I animated some of the final boss (with the big shield for a face) because the gameplay changed but it's all mushed together in my memories now. I also remember making the icons for all of the bullet types. I'm not sure who made the other boss animations.
In your 2011 interview, you sent the interviewer the character concepts for the sequel, which I received from John for my interview this September. However, there was one character among yours that was not among those sent by John. This is the sea monkey on the right. In the picture from a 2011 interview, it is interspersed with characters from other model sheets (a carnivorous plant and a dead WWII marine). Which gave me the idea that you have a separate model sheet with sea monkeys, where this one was taken from. Is it so?
That's the only model sheet of that I have. There was another sheet with 3 other characters I believe but no more sea monkeys, that i am aware of.
Thanks anyway. Craig Allen sent me a 90-slide sequel pitch that he found in his box. Other characters included a sea monkey riding a fish and a sea monkey queen. Sue also found some sketches of characters for the sequel with notes from you and Craig.
Awesome, glad you got those. I think everything I had was in one folder and I have shared all of that. I'm not even sure where that folder is anymore since I moved.
Thanks, Oliver.
Hope I was able to help.
Programmer
Cary Hara was the only programmer for the original game. He kindly agreed to answer my questions and was even able to reveal some of the secrets of Maui Mallard's creation.
Cary Hara
Programmer
Hi Cary. In MM, I was particularly impressed by the physics of the bungee and the swinging up and down platforms from Ninja Training Grounds. The higher the drop height was, the more they stretched / fell. I can't remember anything like that in other 16-bit games. I guess it was a sheer programming nightmare. Can you tell us more about how you achieved this effect?
Hi Max. If remember correctly, it was just using normal damped spring physics integrated every tick (1/60th of a second). I think it was fudged a bit for feel. I'll see if I can find the code. The Sega Genesis version was written in 100% 68000 assembly language. The PC version was mostly written in C with the renderering done in assembly.
Was your work on MM more difficult than in previous game projects? Was it the hardest to code for you out of any Disney Interactive game you've worked on? If there was another game that was more difficult in terms of programming, which one?
Maui was the first console title I did significant work on. All my prior game programming experience was on Apple II and PC. Maui was written in 100% 68000 assembly language (not counting the Z-80 assembly for the sound processor) and I had previously only written in 6502 and 80x86 (16-bit) assembly language. Luckily for me, Adrian Stephens, who was contracting at Disney had started working on a Lion King prototype for console before the deal was made with Virgin Interactive / Westwood for Lion King. We licensed Tume (The Universal Map Editor) which was was used for many Virgin titles as our map editor and Adrian created the original code that Maui evolved off of.
From a coding standpoint, the development tools for console were not as advanced as those on PC. Specifically, the assemble, link and build process was very slow to get testables versions available for the content producers and testers. We were fortunate enough that shotly after we went into production, Psygnosis developed third party tools that made the cycle much easier and probably cut months off of our development time.
Strict memory budgeting requirements are much more stringent on console as well. Cost of goods on a cartridge's ROM size drove a lot of coding as well as design decisions. We used data compression wherever we could.
Maui was definitely not the hardest project I worked on. I was one of three programmers brought on to finish the original Coaster game for PC. The sole/original programmer unfortunately had a motorcycle accident and couldn't complete the game. We had only a handful of weeks to finish a shippable project on code none of us worked on.
What turned out to be the most difficult part of your work on Maui Mallard? Have you ever faced any problems while working on this game that you had to solve for the first time ever?
The most difficult part of Maui was getting it to fit in the budgeted ROM size and keep it locked at 60hz (NTSC). I think the most interesting part of Maui was creating a "composite sprite" animation editor for many of the bosses. Basically trying to make large boss characters animated using staticically textured sprites that animate mostly without using flip cards.
In the original game for Sega, one of the two passwords that open the debug menu was IMCARY, which of course meant "I'm Cary". For some reason, in the PC version of the game, the letter M was replaced with B (IBCARY). Do you know why it was changed?
I have absolutely no memory of why we changed the passwords. I'm sure someone told me to change them, so I did.
The game is distinguished by a rather intricate acrobatics system. Unlike Earthworm Jim, MM requires a lot more precision and maneuvering while jumping. The ninja can only catch on the hook with the very end (knob) of the stick. Jumping off the hook also requires some skill, because in order for everything to work out as it should, you need to catch the moment a split second before the highest point of the amplitude of Donald's swing on his stick. Didn't you think that you or the team narrowed the hitboxes too much, thereby frightening off so many players of this complexity of acrobatics?
Sorry. Most of those decisions were done made by the designers and producers. The sprite animation information include things like frame counts as well as authored collision boxes which were used to figure out if the staff hit the hooks / enemies. There was a ton of iteration done on them and that is what we ended up with.
In the canceled Genesis version (released in 1997 in Brazil on the local Megadrive), as well as in the PC version based on it, all passwords to the levels, except for the second level (ININJA), were changed. As I already mentioned in my interview with John, on the Megadrive console in Europe they released a raw version with a bunch of bugs and flaws. And the passwords there were also different. For comparison: ILVMUD (EU) / MUDPIE (BR), ITSHOT (EU) / HTFOOT (BR), GETHIM (EU) / ZEFROG (BR), YOHOHO (EU) / ARRGGH (BR), UNDEAD (EU) / DKMPOZ ( BR), GDLUCK (EU) / NOCHNC (BR). Why did you decide to completely change the original passwords?
Again. I have no memory about the passwords. I literally made all builds of the game from my PC for both Sega Genesis and PC. Someone very well might have asked me to make an updated Genesis Bin while we were making the PC version with the latest version but I really don't remember.
Unlike the passwords of the SNES version, which were complete gibberish that cannot be remembered, in the original Sega game (both in the European and Brazilian / Genesis versions), 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 (I'm Russian), they're pretty easy to understand. Although with a pair of GDLUCK / NOCHNC (especially its second version) it was more difficult: Good luck / No chance. However, the meaning of two passwords is still a mystery to me: ILVMUD (I love mud?) and DKMPOZ.
You are correct: ILVMUD is "I love mud" and DKMPOZ is "Decompose".
In the Debug menu of the original game on Genesis, there was an item called Game Flow, which disappeared in a similar menu on the PC version of the game. What did it mean and what was it for?
I have to review the code if I can find it, but the Gameflow option I think let the designers restart the current level instead of progressing to the next.
Why on the last sublevel with the boss in Ninja Training Grounds the scenery (ruins) were merged with the background (clouds) in one layer? That is, the effect of image depth has completely disappeared. In the PC version, the color scheme is much better there (at least, you can visually separate the clouds from the bricks of the temple), but they were still merged into one layer. While on the rest of the sublevels the clouds move independently. Could this be a mistake?
The cloud merging was probably due to some hardware limitation since you only really had one true background plane.
Why in the original game for Sega in two levels (The Sacrifice of Maui and The Test of Duckhood) the left edge of the image was cut off to the very indicator of lives? The strangest thing is that the rising lava in the second sublevel of the volcano extends beyond the edges of this boundary both on the left and below (I attached the screenshot). There is no such thing in the PC version of the game. Could this be some kind of hardware limitation of the Sega console? I have noticed a similar cut of the picture on the left before in a couple of levels of the Earthworm Jim.
I'm fairly sure this was a PAL vs NTSC difference as well as the usage of vertical tile scrolling to make the dripping lava effect. We developed on NTSC and kind of just made it work on PAL and relied on QA to let us know issues.
Do I understand correctly that the versions for MegaDrive and Genesis (the same console for two different broadcast formats) are always produced from the same ROM file and should not differ in gameplay or in-game content?
The ROMS are basically the same game wise, but I think the ROM headers are slightly different for SCEA (NA) and SCEE (Europe).
Is it possible to determine by the contents / code of the ROM when it was created? And with what accuracy can this date be determined? On the Maui Mallard page from the Segaretro website, the months of creation of the European and Brazilian (that is, the final Genesis version for the States) ROMs are indicated.
These are September 1995 and November 1996, respectively. I'm wondering where the authors of that article got these from. It lists the months the original ROMs were created, not the release dates of the games themselves. In addition, to the left there are some program data, which makes me think that the authors of this section took the creation dates of the European and Brazilian versions directly from the code of the ROMs.
I am haunted by the question of when exactly the raw version was created, which was officially released in Europe instead of the final build of the game, which was supposed to be released in the USA for Genesis but came out in Brazil much later.
I dug up my backups and this is what I found there:
Megadrive: MauiEurp.bin 9/22/1995
MauiMlrd.bin 11/12/1996
Only code difference were header (Sega info).
PC (windows): Last code modification was 10/27/1996
I don't have full source control, so that was the snapshot of the stuff I had on my harddrive on my last backup. That is the target directory of where from Genesis I built the images. I don't remember what those other files were.
MauiMlrd.bin 11/12/1996…
Is this an NTSC ROM designed for Genesis? After all, it was November 1996 that was declared the month of the creation of the version that was released in 1997 on MegaDrive in Brazil (also the NTSC region).
It turns out that the final build of the game for Genesis was created even later than the PC version. And almost a year later than the release of the original game on the Megadrive console in Europe! Wow!
Yeah. I'm not exactly sure but letting you know what I found in the backup. I vaguely remember having to do a version for the Sega Channel (some kind of downloadable version) but I don't think it was ever used.
I'm also surprised that the PC version of the game came out so late. Various reputable (but unverified) sources, such as MobyGames, indicate that the PC version first came out in September 1996. It turns out that this is complete nonsense, and the Windows version could not appear on the shelves until the Novemver of 1996 (taking into account the time for printing runs and shipment).
I also found a stripped down Demo version for Windows with limited levels. (MenuDemo.exe).
It was probably the Ninja Training Grounds level demo that came with the PC version of Toy Story.
For sure.
The ROM of the game for the Sega emulator contains only 3MB of information. Is this really the amount of data that MM was crammed into on the Genesis cartridge? By the standards of 2020, this seems simply unthinkable!
Yeah. The Genesis version is 24 Mbit (3 MB) if I' remember correctly.
Recently I tried to describe how the Genesis used tiles, palettes and how character sprites were made up of multiple hardware sprites that were created by chopping up bitmaps to a couple of twenty something designers. I swear they thought I was making it all up.
Do you remember what was not included in the game due to lack of memory?
I don't remember much, but there were definitely lots of animations and even levels cut out for memory and just not working reasons.
Still, John missed something in the responses to my September interview. Although it is certainly impossible to remember all the details after a quarter of a century.
BTW. I think you probably figured it out, but after all these years, John Fiorito is still one of my best friends and we are still very close.
Yes, I have guessed your close friendship with John. I was much more surprised to realize that John had found himself a wife (Ruby Lee, interface designer) on the Maui Mallard team. I only realized this when comments began to appear under his interview post. It's nice to know that the project has become for many of you much more than just work in your portfolio.
Yeah. It was definitely a project of passion. Looking at the credits is pretty impressive seeing where everyone is now.
Thank you so much, Cary! You helped me a lot.
Thank you for doing all this. And thanks for bringing back a lot of good memories. I'm looking forward to seeing the article.
End of Part 1
With this global interview, I exceeded the VK article limit of 100K characters by a third, which is why I had to split it into two separate articles. Its continuation is waiting for you in PART 2.
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© Max Nasikan. December 2020.