High-Flying Dreams: “Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron” Explores a Peanuts Fantasy

by Louis Bedigian

“Snoopy interprets everything in his world, which is the Peanuts world, in his dream.” 

“The whole goal of the Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron game,” opens Producer Benjamin Cole, “was to create a really simple flying game that would do justice to the Snoopy name behind it. We also wanted to make sure that younger kids would really enjoy it and have fun flying around the world, and that there was also enough to the game so that older gamers would enjoy it.”

In fact, he says that this was one of the challenges – balancing a game that’s really fun and challenging, but also appropriate for a younger audience. “We really took a lot of opportunities to do that with the whole grading system, all of the secondary objectives, and a lot of the difficulty changes…” he says. “Especially with the way you’re able to upgrade your weapons, and how you can pick and choose what you want to do and how you want to play the game.” 

Snoopy’s Big Guns

Without a doubt, Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron’s coolest feature is its weapons. “We have a bunch of really funny weapons that tie back to the Snoopy universe, like a potato launcher that shoots rapid-fire potatoes,” Benjamin told us. “[We have a] flame boomerang that Snoopy has to use to burn down certain obstacles in his path. It’s really cool. You throw it out, it’ll ricochet off a bunch of enemies and come back to you.”

There are six different primary weapons plus different levels of machineguns. “We have a pumpkin shotgun, one of the more powerful weapons in the game… All of them were designed to be effective in combat, but also big enough so that they would belong in the Snoopy universe.”

Even Woodstock gets in on the fun, guiding a bomb to its destination. The controls switch to Woodstock, allowing the player to be the one who directs the bombs fate.

Roman Candles are rapid-fire rockets that track enemies. “We have a stinger weapon where Woodstock jumps on a giant beehive, and giant bumblebees come out and attack your targets. There’s a balloon launcher that’ll hit enemies with a splash of damage…”

And last but not least, Benjamin told us about a Roman candle weapon that shoots rapid-fire rockets that track enemies. 

Snoopy and World War I. Call me crazy, but I don't see an immediate connection outside of Snoopy's crazy dreams. What made this -- the idea of creating an aerial combat game starring Snoopy – appealing?
 

Benjamin Cole: We had access to the Snoopy license, and we were in the office talking about what would be cool to do with a Snoopy video game. The thing we always came back to was the story of Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron. It took a long time before we decided exactly what we were going to do, and make it a game that booth kids and adults could play. We decided that if we’re going to a Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron game, it had to be a flying aerial combat game that was easy but had enough gameplay involved for something that everyone could enjoy. So that’s where the idea came from – it was one of the most popular Snoopy stories that instantly had a game tied to it. 

Let's talk about the creative elements, like the Woodstock-guided bomb. I thought this was a really clever idea.

BC: We started with a huge list of different weapons we thought would be cool in the game. We started narrowing those down based on the weapons we could make most different from each other, weapons we could make most interesting, and weapons that would be the key to gameplay.

The Woodstock-guided bomb – that’s one we had a definite idea for early on. It was to make Snoopy and Woodstock work together as much as possible. There was nothing better than that to strap a rocket to Woodstock and have him smash targets. We wanted weapons that Woodstock could man and that would be really different in the game.

And also, [we didn’t want to only] follow any weapons in conventional flying games. The flaming boomerang is nothing like anything in a game right now.

Tell us about the controls, their simplicity, how well the plane maneuvers, and how the developers worked to refine these controls to the level they are at today.

BC: When we started the game, we wanted to make the controls as quick and easy to grasp, and as easy to master as we possibly could. That’s why we decided to use the one analog stick to fly, dive, turn left and turn right, and not really try to manage flying elements like in a lot of flying games. We spent the most time trying to refine that control scheme – trying to figure out where all the action buttons would feel the best. We went through about five different control schemes before we found one that really felt right, really worked right... Once we hit it, it actually clicked.

We wanted to make sure the collision system was really friendly, really matched to the controls without making it too difficult. It’s the Red Baron’s job to shoot you out of the sky – not the player’s job to crash all over the place. 

So how is the story clarified? "Snoopy has a dream..." Okay, he starts dreaming. Will he wake up in the end? Or will there be some truth to the dream, changing history forever?

BC: I don’t want to spoil the end of the game! I can tell you a little bit about some of the characters…

Snoopy interprets everything in his world, which is the Peanuts world, in his dream. Lucy, for example, is the commander because she’s always bossing people around. Sally is the spy, and she’s giving reports on things she found in funny ways. Linus is the intelligence officer because he’s the intelligent one. Marcie is the scientist; it really fits her and her personality.

We tried to use a lot of the existing characters, personalities, and rules in the Peanuts world. And really bring that back to the military role of the game. But we can’t alter Peanuts history too much.

The analog stick is still a great way to add dimension to your games. But with the new generation, we're seeing motion-sensing technology on Wii and PlayStation 3. Do you think that, for flight games like Snoopy, that motion-sensing will eventually replace the analog stick?

BC: It possibly could. I think it’s all in how it’s implemented. We were really careful in the way we implemented our control scheme to feel correct using the analog stick. But I would really love to use a next-gen sequel to the Snoopy game using motion-sensing technology.

Could you tell us more about the mission objectives?

BC: We have a pretty wide range of objectives. A lot of them are based around protecting installations or characters, and a lot of them are about destroying enemy characters or installations. It’s all in the context of how we’re doing it, and the way it’s paced, and the way it’s presented to the player. We tried to keep the objectives and the amount of stuff you do and how often you do certain types of things spread out as much as possible.

In one mission you’re trying to shoot off the pillars of an enemy base in the woods to get it to collapse. We’ve also got some really cool boss battles in the game, which are more on-rails, trying to take out the enemy as he throws things at you and you dodge back and forth.

There are also a whole bunch of secondary objectives that aren’t related to the main mission that you can take part in to get a better grade. Maybe to get a little extra money, and to master the game if you’re good enough to complete all of the main objectives.

If you do complete all of the main objectives, is there some kind of bonus…?

BC: If you complete all of the main and secondary objectives within the framework of the game’s grading system, then there are some extra bonuses. I can’t tell you what they are – you have to play and find out what happens.  

Can you tell us more about the multiplayer modes?

BC: On the PS2 there is a two-player multiplayer with up to six bots you can turn on or off. Any multiplayer mode can be played with or without teams. There are three different modes you can play. One is a basic, number of KOs [most KOs wins], and another is a timed-based multiplayer mode.

One of the main strengths of the PSP version is the multiplayer. We have up to six players, and a bunch of different multiplayer modes that didn’t really work well with only two players. For example, we have a capture the blanket mode where you have to try to hold onto it as long as possible. We have a tree capture game where you can capture a tree and try to return it to another base. We also have a pumpkin bomb game that’s kind of like basketball. There are two teams, three-on-three, and one has a bomb that has to be delivered to a target. You do this three times and then it switches sides, from offense to defense.

Does the PSP version have exclusive environments?

BC: It has one extra multiplayer map, the pumpkin patch level. It was just a little too big to put on PS2, so we thought it’d be cool to put it on the six-player mode on PSP.