Snoopy Flying Ace: Clark Stacey

With Snoopy Flying Ace wowing XBLA games across the globe Clark Stacey, VP of Smart Bomb Interactive, took some time out to chat with me about the how the game came to be and the future for Snoopy and the team behind this air combat bonanza.

Dan RU: So Snoopy Flying Ace, what a great game! I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect it! Gamers have been totally caught off guard. You must have known you had an awesome game on your hands but did you expect the reception the game has received?

Clark: Well, WE knew it was awesome, but we knew that Snoopy and the Peanuts characters were going to be a tough sell with hardcore gamers that didn’t grow up with them. I’m guessing that a lot of people also thought Lego versions of the Star Wars characters were a weird anchor for a game franchise… but once people heard through the grapevine that Lego Star Wars had great gameplay, they gave it a chance and were blown away. We’re grateful that gamers have been giving Snoopy that chance, and that they’re being pleasantly surprised.

Dan RU: We heard it was originally planned as an open world game and your plans changed. Can you tell us about how this came about and how you shifted focus to concentrate on the flying element?

Clark: This was originally conceived as a game that would combine on-foot action-adventure gameplay with the aerial combat. We actually had a very fun vertical slice of that game built, but we couldn’t get any publishers to take a chance on a license that wasn’t going to be on millions of McDonald’s cups when the game released. We figured that if we could go it alone and prove to serious players that Snoopy is a great action game star, we’d eventually get the chance to bring him to more platforms and genres.

Dan RU: Snoopy Flying Ace is fairly brutal, did the licence owners have any issues with the games design, Woodstock packing dual pistols for example?

Clark: It’s funny, we’ve heard some complaints that Charles Schulz would never approve of this game because of the violence; but faithfulness to his characters has been our priority throughout development, and we’ve worked very closely with the Schulz family and the keepers of his legacy. If you go back and read the Peanuts strips with the Flying Ace character that Schulz wrote, they are often much darker in tone than anything we’ve done. He had Snoopy’s doghouse riddled with bullets in dogfights, the Flying Ace creeping through bleak, war-torn battlefields after being shot down, even gritty historical data on the weapons of the era. But it was all part of Snoopy’s funny romantic fantasy of himself in this role, and that’s where we’ve kept it. Everyone parachutes to safety in Snoopy Flying Ace.

Dan RU:Where did you get your inspiration from? It’s such a confident and complete package it’s hard to imagine your team don’t already have tons of experience in this genre?

Clark: If you mean the flying beagle genre, we do have a bit of experience there. Also, we are all deeply interested in blowing things up, and you’ll note that more things blow up per second in Snoopy Flying Ace multiplayer than pretty much any game out there. It was natural for us to combine our historical knowledge of canine aviation with our overarching enthusiasm for blowing things up. So I guess I’d catalog our inspirations like this:

1. Dogs that fly biplanes
2. Things that blow up, or ought to
3. Military hats, circa 1917

Dan RU: The online experience is very streamlined, Halo style prematch lobbies for getting your friends together are a god send, was this a strong focus during development?

Clark: We have a lot of hardcore online FPS gamers on this team, with a lot of strong opinions on what works and what doesn’t in terms of matchmaking interfaces. Fortunately when you’re funding a game yourself, you have the opportunity to let the gaming experience on the team drive the functionality. Terry Penn, our lead network programmer, deserves the credit for making it all work, though.

Dan RU: So what now? Smart Bomb have really knocked it out of the park with Snoopy Flying Ace. You’ll surely have publishers falling over themselves to finance your next projects. What are you going to do to capitalise on this success?

Clark: First of all, we’re going to deliver the best DLC expansions we possibly can. Maps, weapons, aircraft, game modes – it’s all coming. Then we’re going to sleep for a week. After that, the SFA team has a very, very exciting new project in the works that we hope to start talking about soon. And of course, Smart Bomb also has a virtual worlds group that is focused on a younger audience. That team is about to unveil an online playground with National Geographic, called Animal Jam.

Dan RU: And finally I’d like some insider advice on weapon selection, I’m loving the Rain Maker but need a good match for it, your recommendations?

Clark: You’ll beat me with just about anything, so if you’re playing in the Game with Developers session this Friday, you should single me out. My recommendation would be the Blunderbuss. The Rain Maker is nice for softening up a swarm of planes from a distance, and a close-range face full of shotgun is a perfect dénouement.

Dan RU: Again, thanks for your time and congratulations to you and the rest of Smart Bomb Interactive for creating what will no doubt be the surprise smash hit of 2010.

Clark: Thanks! See you online!

Snoopy Flying Ace is out now for XBLA for a mere 800 Microsoft Points, details of the Game with Developers session can be found here.