What is a game designer and an info designer, and how do you work together?

Benjamin
A game designer defines the game rules. He creates the different elements that go to make up the game - how an enemy attacks the player, how an obstacle works, and so on. The info designer translates what the game designer created into computer programming.

Yann
But, in practice, this process is much more empirical and incremental than that, because an idea that looks great on paper may turn out to be boring to play, or it could be far too specific to be usable in a lot of situations.

That's why, as soon as a game element has been programmed , we test it on a real level, we take note of all the problems we came up against, then we review the design accordingly and reprogram the character. We go through this operation again and again until we start getting behavior that's both fun and likely to be used in plenty of situations. During production, some characters are reprogrammed 5 or 6 times in this way.

Benjamin
Conversely, the ideas can come from graphic designers or programmers. For example, some characters were so appealing from a graphic point of view that we pulled out all the stops to get them into the game system.

Yann
At one time, we were looking for a platform gameplay which would push the player to really forge ahead, like we had in Rayman 2. With this end in view, I programmed balloon platforms which explode and throw Rayman up into the air. I presented them to the level designers. The component was adopted and we based several levels on this principle.

Benjamin
In short, the game design's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration! What makes for good game design isn't just writing up the original Bible on which it's based. Mostly, it's all the little decisions that are made throughout the production of the game.

Why did you decide to develop the gameplay around the enemies in Rayman 3?

Benjamin
When we began working on the project, we wondered about the things that were missing from Rayman 2. We found that there wasn't a great variety of enemies and this point needed to be improved.

What's more, one of the great novelties in Rayman 3 is the acquisition of new offensive powers. So we had to develop swarms of enemies to exploit these new powers to the full.

Yann
I must also admit that, at the start of the project, Half-Life was still fresh in my mind. In this game, the enemies seem highly intelligent, whereas the programming principles aren't very complicated. I really wanted to pick up on this principle, all the more so because it was likely to make for a richer gameplay and a sense of immersion unlike anything in previous platform games.

How did you go about creating all the enemies?

Benjamin
At the outset, we began by doing research into the enemy principles. We flew off in all kinds of directions. We had enemies that attack on contact, others that attack from a distance, offensive enemies, defensive enemies, and enemies who neutralize Rayman's fists and turn them back on himself. Broadly speaking, we had to produce between 25 and 30 different enemy principles. At the same time, Stéphane Zinetti created the graphic universe, using a fair number of our ideas.

Yann
Then came the difficult time to do the programming. Quite a few of our enemies were too complicated and didn't fit the technical specifications. Others didn't work all that well in the end when we showed them to the focus group. And then there was a small number that really worked well. At that time, we were really disillusioned.

So we adopted a somewhat Darwinian strategy. We ditched all the characters who really didn't work at all, and we simplified the others. To begin with, for example, the Hoodoo had three main actions:
- He protected another Hoodlum, by creating a protective screen.
- He sent out fireballs.
- He caught Rayman's fist and blocked it temporarily.
Having a character who attacks the player, neutralizes him and, at the same time, defends other enemies, was rather unclear. So we decided to make him a purely defensive character by keeping only the first action.

Benjamin
Fortunately, Stéphane and Stanislas, our lead animator, came to our aid. They both managed to come up with attitudes for certain enemies which made them fun to fight, and which gave us new ideas.

For example, we found the Hoodstormer game principle pretty good, but it wasn't revolutionary. So we were prepared to abandon it. Basically, this flying character could avoid straight shots but not curved shots. Stéphane had the idea of creating an ultra-fast character with a flush cannon. Stanislas's animation made him very lively and comic. Nicolas, an info designer, completely reprogrammed him and the character now works wonderfully well.

Yann
At one time, we were looking for a platform gameplay which would push the player to really forge ahead, like we had in Rayman 2. With this end in view, I programmed balloon platforms which explode and throw Rayman up into the air. I presented them to the level designers. The component was adopted and we based several levels on this principle.

Benjamin
In short, the game design's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration! What makes for good game design isn't just writing up the original Bible on which it's based. Mostly, it's all the little decisions that are made throughout the production of the game.

Why did you decide to develop the gameplay around the enemies in Rayman 3?

Benjamin
When we began working on the project, we wondered about the things that were missing from Rayman 2. We found that there wasn't a great variety of enemies and this point needed to be improved.

What's more, one of the great novelties in Rayman 3 is the acquisition of new offensive powers. So we had to develop swarms of enemies to exploit these new powers to the full.

Yann
I must also admit that, at the start of the project, Half-Life was still fresh in my mind. In this game, the enemies seem highly intelligent, whereas the programming principles aren't very complicated. I really wanted to pick up on this principle, all the more so because it was likely to make for a richer gameplay and a sense of immersion unlike anything in previous platform games.

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