The Creators of Ape Escape 3 Talk to GZ About Development, Creativity, and Originality

by Louis Bedigian

“…The final decision had to be made by Hideo Kojima himself. His reaction to ‘Mesal Gear Solid’ was a very positive one and he seemed to very much enjoy it when playing for the first time.”

This game means business: monkey business. Ape Escape 3 is one of those rare, special gems that has kept the action/adventure genre going. The art of collection is more eventful than ever – coins, rings, and other stationary items are second to living, breathing monkeys. These guys will taunt you, laugh at you, and if you’re not careful, they’ll even take your gadgets. The thrill of capturing them is higher than ever and the reward has never been more satisfying. 

After the credits roll you discover that there are still another 200+ monkeys to capture and a couple of mini-games to unlock, including the unbeatable, unforgettable Mesal Gear Solid, a clever parody of PSone and PlayStation 2’s most successful spy/espionage series.

What does it take to produce a classic on this level? Ape Escape 3 Producer Naoto Ohta and Director Yuzo Sugano took a few moments to tell us about their experience developing their best game yet.

Ape Escape 3 seems to have been heavily inspired by Hollywood and several major motion pictures. Talk about that, and how the development team came to the conclusion that movies/Hollywood was the perfect theme for this game.

Naoto Ohta, Producer: The prologue to the story of the game is: "The Pipo Monkeys hijack TV stations around the world to broadcast stupid monkey programs. When these programs are viewed by humans, they become mindless couch potatoes." This means that the monkeys are currently filming and making those stupid programs during the course of the game. With this theme in mind, we considered the best way to use this theme is to show it in the way we created the game.  

Not only were we inspired by Hollywood, but also by documentary programs, sports programs, music programs- all kinds of different programs. Every member of the team has been inspired at some point by various genres and various pieces of work. So, it was quite enjoyable for all of us to work on this product and we truly hope the users will feel the same when playing Ape Escape 3.

I was really amused by the level titles and themes, especially Monday the 16th. Were these different in the Japanese version, and if so, what needed to be done to ensure that the game was clever and appropriate in both markets?

NO: First of all, thank you very much for playing this game and I am very happy to hear that you enjoyed it.

The only difference in the Japanese version and the US version is the language. None of the stages/levels were changed for the US version. We tried to choose content and culture that are popular to make it appropriate for both markets, at the same time working hard on the game mechanics and visuals to be appropriate. 

Could you tell us about the depth and intricacies of these levels? Many of them have hidden passages, and areas that gamers may not be aware of until Specter has been captured.

Yuzo Sugano, Director: The basic concept for the "Ape Escape" series is to explore, find, and capture. The stages are designed based on this concept with unique, tricky shapes and designs in mind for each level. We considered the overall balance of the game to design the stages as attractive as possible to gamers.

We first designed the basic shape of the stage and then adjusted them by using actual characters in the concept level. We repeated this over and over to make the best design possible and then finally went forward with the graphical designs. As for the hidden passages, as the main theme was "TV broadcasts," we wanted to add some "behind-the-scenes" elements to add more fun for the user the second time round.

The Simian Theatre is another movie-themed element; I'd love to hear about that and the history of its concept and implementation in the game.

YS: When we (the team) were brainstorming whether there are any other fun elements to add in the game using the captured monkeys, the idea of creating a user-friendly tool to allow players to create a simple scene by themselves came up.  The concept was "Make the captured monkeys act, add music and subtitles to it, and make your own original movie!"  Each movie will be 15 seconds long maximum and players will be able to save it onto the memory card.  If I were to express the process of implementing this in the game in one word, it would be "horrific!"

It was difficult to come up with a user-friendly key config and it induced many un-necessary bugs. This feature wasn't finalized until the very last minute, but it did come out to be a feature with more depth and fun in it than originally expected.

One of the things that sets the Ape Escape series apart from its competitors is that it uses the right analog stick as an attack/capture button. Most games save the right stick for camera functions – was it hard to let go of that?

NO: It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy because using the right analog stick for action is a unique feature in the "Ape Escape" series from the beginning and it inherits the series identity.

The main concept for the "Ape Escape" series is "intuitive," "simple as it looks" and "simple operation." We try to directly connect the simple action of waiving the monkey net to capture the monkeys and actually tilting the right analog stick in the direction of the monkey. 

I've noticed that the more monkeys you capture, the more monkeys that appear. Counting bonus and any other "extra" monkeys, how many apes are there in Ape Escape 3?

YS: There are more than 440 monkeys in Ape Escape 3. Each monkey has unique characteristics and all those monkeys can be captured. There are more than 70 monkeys in the Mesal Gear Solid mini-game, but those monkeys have exclusive roles in the mini-game so they cannot be captured in the main story mode.

Where did the ideas for the new transformations come from?

YS: It all comes from the imagination, just coming up with funny action variations that will attract the players' attention. Also, unlike the previous series, the Pipo Monkeys do not just run away from the player, but also can steal the gadgets from Kei and Yumi, and use them to fend off the player! Thus, transforming is a very effective way to fight back. Needless to say, all the transformation costumes are related to certain stages in the game.

Monkey intelligence is much greater this time around, but I must say the game is still accessible to kids. Was it hard to accomplish this – create a game that requires you to think without frustrating younger players?

YS: Yes, I admit it was a tough challenge to accomplish, but yet very much worth working on.

In order to create a game for young audience, we were very careful on the points below:  

• Not including any violent images

• Not including incredibly difficult tricks to finish the game

• Adjusting the AI of the Pipo Monkeys so that the players will want to capture all the monkeys without becoming frustrated during the process

• Use direct expressions as much as possible (make enemies look like enemies, items look like items, and buttons look like buttons)

Also, we respected the fact that children have smaller hands, so we needed to be careful about the controller operation.  We did three focus tests in the course of development to check the points mentioned above and to make the best of it.

Ape Escape 3 seems to be geared at children, but there's a special treat made just for hardcore gamers: Mesal Gear Solid. This brilliant mini-game had me bursting with laughter. How did this become a part of Ape Escape anyway? Did the development team always envision a Solid, uhh, Ape? :)

YS: When the idea of collaboration with Konami was confirmed, we did not think of making it into as an extensive of the mini-game like it eventually became. One day, when we were checking out the "Snake vs. Monkey" mini game in Metal Gear Solid 3, we were shocked by how high the quality of it was. On top of that, the "Ape Escape" aspect of it was reproduced perfectly, so we had to make a perfect "Metal Gear" as well. So, from there we started planning the whole "Metal Gear" mini-game system.  

I heard the Ape Escape monkeys also appeared in one of the Metal Gear Solid games. Was this Konami's idea? How did MGS creator Hideo Kojima react to all of this?

NO: In Japan, we have this unique coined term "NOMI-nication" (NOMI meaning going out for casual drinks in Japanese) which basically means to go out for casual drinks to chat and this whole idea probably started there. Both Konami and SCE were very interested in making Pipo Monkeys appear in "Metal Gear Solid 3" but faced various challenges, so the final decision had to be made by Hideo Kojima himself. His reaction to "Mesal Gear Solid" was a very positive one and he seemed to very much enjoy it when playing for the first time. 

Campbell sounds like himself, but that's not David Hayter voicing Solid Snake, is it?

NO: No, it isn't, and neither is Campbell (voiced by Paul Eiding), actually. We would have liked to have both characters voiced by their respective original actors, but [they] were not able to. So, we asked different voice actors.

Who wrote the story? The parodied dialogue, levels and scenarios are pretty accurate. I'll never forget it.

YS: I was the main person in charge of writing the story. I, myself, am a big fan of the Metal Gear series so it wasn't that difficult for me. We asked the Metal Gear team members of Konami to check the English dialogue for the US version to make it as close to the real (actual) game as possible.

You know, it'd be really creepy to have undead monkeys walking around the next Silent Hill. Just a thought… :)

NO: Yes, indeed that idea sounds fun. While there are no plans at the moment, I go out for casual drinks (NOMI-nication) with the producer of Silent Hill, so maybe someday if I have the chance I'll bring this idea up?!

Before I let you go, I'd love to hear what you guys have planned next. Any hints for PSP or PlayStation 3?

NO: We are still in the middle of consideration at the moment.

All I can say now is that we are considering things in a proactive manner whether it is PSP or PlayStation 3.

Thank you for your time.