A game that appeals to pet collectors

[Emberdione]

Have you seen Skylanders Spyro's Adventure?

http://www.skylanders.com/

I am a tad biased since I worked on it as a level designer and scripter, but it is a pretty awesome game. It's on all the consoles, but the Wii version is the best version. It was the one made by Toys for Bob and the others are ports done by another company.

The game is a pretty simple brawler/adventure game, in a similar style to the Lego Star Wars games. It has a ton of levels, it's multiplayer, and has fun modes like pvp and challenge levels.

So what makes it cool for pet collectors? The portal of power. The game comes with 3 toys, actual little figures, that you put on the portal of power, and that BECOMES the character you are playing in the game. There are 32 total characters, each with their own abilities and upgrades. When you level or upgrade them, it saves the characters progress, TO THE TOY. The toys are completely cross-platform so they work on other consoles.

Here they all are!



Here's the YouTube channel too: http://www.youtube.com/user/SkylandersG ... ture=watch

[Valiana]

I saw this game at Best Buy the other day and was curious about it. Looks pretty fun!

[Moritach]

Seems like an insane money sink Oo

[Doobjanka]

Looks kind of like League of Legends for kids. Lol.

[Emberdione]

Hehe it can be a money sink, if you collect them all. I can only defend it in that every single character is wildly different from all the rest. None of the powers are reused and we worked very hard to make them all feel different.

@Doob It's so LoL for kids, only a console game, lol. It plays alot like the Lego games.

It sold really well for Christmas and all the kids I know who got it, loved it.

[Zingela]

I believe I spoke with you at Blizzcon for a bit about Skylanders, and after getting around to trying it, I must say they've got something here.
It was a slow seller at first where I work, but now that Christmas has hit and more word of mouth is spreading we can't keep any of the figures in stock. I had a ton of people come in tonight asking for them--we've been out for a few weeks now.

I'll agree with the LEGO game comparison, it's the closest thing I can pair it to also. The characters available are pretty diverse, and it helps a lot to keep the game fresh. The portal itself is a novel idea, and even with two grown adults trying the game out, we were still highly amused with switching our little plastic dudes around on it. We'll have to pick up one of the adventure packs sometime to try out the other types of figures as well. That, and there is a frickin' Street Shark in the pirate one.

[Emberdione]

Heh, yeah, the peeps here at Acti are pretty astonished by how well the extra figures are selling too. We expected most people to buy one or two, but that to be it. There are a lot more people with the "Gotta buy em all!" mentality.

It's pretty neat that here at the office we have everything to make our own little "skylanders" that are not official. So like I have the tech jammed into the bottom of my voidwalker figurine from the WoW mini's game that lets me play a Skylander that got cut (on the dev builds only, obviously). We also have a 3d printer (like what they make the figure prints with.) So if I got the WoW model viewer hooked up I could make my own "pirate" versions of the minipet prints, lol. (I can't though, our character artist keeps such a tight control on it, we aren't even allowed in the room where it's at.)

We have seen the "my friend got it and now I want it" on our Social Media stuff too, so it's very exciting for us. As Blizzard is a part of Activision, it also means they could use the tech if they so felt like. (And considering new cell phones already have the tech to "read" our Skyalnders, in the future there could be a version that wouldn't require the portal, just any one of the cell phones that can use it.)

[Zingela]

I'm guessing RFID or similar, then.

With the uptick in sales I've been seeing at the stores in my area alone, I can certainly see Activision throwing out a sequel and/or using the tech for other franchises. Kids certainly have the "must have ALL OF THEM" frame of mind with this game, but I think that is something we can all relate to here.

[Rmd83]

Not nearly as much of a money sink as TCGs are I can assure you guys I used to spend entire paychecks on magic the gathering and had 3 legacy decks, 5 extended, 3 type 2, and a few casual/multiplayer I sold them off though and regret it because I used to collect a card called crucible of worlds which was about $3-$4 back when I was playing and I had tons of them now they're going for like $50-$60 a set =\ same with wastelands. I also had a pretty massive fetchland collection too but yeah that game is a huge money sink but worth it if you're patient lol.

[Cillianbensen123]

It looks great, I have never seen game like this, it may not be great but it is different and i like different.

[Emberdione]

Just as an update, I did in fact work on the sequel, Skylanders Giants as well.

We have 8 new Skylanders and 8 Giants. There are also new figures with led lights inside that react to the portal. (Our mad scientist guy, Robert, does amazing things!)

It's doing amazingly well.

[Guest]

I really enjoyed Skylanders, completed it and had a great time. Not hard (considering it's a kid's game, that makes sense) but it was fun and relaxing after a hard day's work. I also did some casual Ebay buying and selling with the figures and did quite well. Doing this allowed me to play with most of the characters, my favorites ended up being Drobot, Double Trouble and Slam Bam.

I found that some of the characters look very similar to Warcraft ones. For example: Boomer = a Goblin, Flameslinger = Illidan, and Gill Grunt = a Murloc! I wonder if that was intended... The various elemental icons also reminded me of Pet Battles!

Interesting to hear that the Wii version was the original, is that the same case for Giants? Looking forward to it, keep up the good work.

[Jorgea]

Thanks for the game suggestion.