The International House of Mojo

Which Starwars universe worlds will we be visiting in this game?

The misty swamps of Naboo, the Gungan underwater City of Otoh Gunga, the deserts of Tatooine, the city of Theed, the skyscrapers of Coruscant are a few of the Episode I environments that racers visit. You might also unlock the rocky asteroid where the Millenium Falcon hid out in The Empire Strikes Back.

Will the music in this game be jazzed up cartooned style classic Starwars themes, or is it all written especially for the game?

Both. The composer, Peter McConnell, who has worked extensively with John Williams music over the years in many Star Wars games, is also a big fan of cartoon music (e.g., Bugs Bunny). We talked about what “super-deformed Star Wars music” would sound like, and that is what he delivered. Each track, the main menu, and even the credits have a uniquely composed piece of music based on music from the Star Wars films.

Who made the decision that Lucas Learning would be making this game and not, the more obvious choice of LucasArts?

The development team at Lucas Learning came up with the concept pitched it to senior management and George Lucas, and everyone thought it sounded like fun. Even though Star Wars Super Bombad Racing is not what you would call ‘educational’ software; it has been developed with LucasLearning’s mission in mind - to create high quality interactive experiences that are entertaining.

Has it been difficult to publicise this game as a LL game not an LEC? Did LucasArts teams help you in anyway?

This is Lucas Learning’s first purely entertainment game and as such, people tend to assume that it was made by LucasArts. Yes, it has been challenging as far as the press is concerned, however being associated with LucasArts is not such a bad thing. Lucas Learning shares some of LucasArts services such as QA and compatibility and we’ve had a few conversations with the Starfighter team about the ins and outs of developing for the PS2. A keen-eyed player may even spot a ship or two from Starfighter in Bombad, but the game is being developed and published by Lucas Learning.

What particular parts of the project have been difficult, which easy and which most enjoyable?

The hardest part has probably been keeping the team focused over the ups and downs of the almost two year long production cycle. The easiest and most enjoyable part has been playing the game over and over and over and over again. A lot of products that I’ve worked on have become tedious towards the end of the project. When you’ve worked on something that long and play it day after day, it can get somewhat boring. That isn’t happening with Bombad. That’s definitely the most enjoyable part of working on Star Wars Super Bombad Racing.

Many developers have had problems with the PS2 developer’s kits, protesting particularly about features such as anti-aliasing support in the hardware. Has this affected you? How easy has the PS2 been to develop for?

The PS2 does have some unique hardware features that we are still exploring. Some parts of development have been easier than we’ve expected and others have been harder. I think it will take a few more generations of games before developers really master the hardware.

Are there any plans to support handheld platforms such as the GameBoy Colour /GameBoy Advance /WonderSwan with this, or other future titles?

There are no announced plans at this time for handheld support of Bombad, but any platform where Bombad gameplay would be appropriate is possible, I suppose. At the moment, the game is going to come out on PS2, Dreamcast, PC, and Macintosh.