Spector defends Epic Mickey camera

By Fred Dutton Published 7 December, 2010

It's the "hardest problem" any dev faces.

Epic Mickey director Warren Spector has defended the game's much-maligned camera, claiming getting the camera right in any game is the "hardest problem" developers face.

In an interview withMTV's Clutch blog, a full unedited version of which appeared on examiner.com, the Deus Ex creator said "First, there has never been a game that I couldn't break if you give it to me for 30 seconds. I mean, I will break a camera in any game ever made.

"And if I learned one thing on this project, it's an immense amount of respect for people who have been making third person action and platforming games. Third person camera is way harder than I even imagined it could be.

"It is the hardest problem in video game development," he added. "Everybody gets it wrong. It's just a question of how close to right do you get it."

Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead awarded Spector's Wii game 6/10 last month. His take on the camera? It "blights the more perilous platforming sections, struggling to keep pace as you climb and drop, and it's an absolute pain during combat."

"What I try to be completely clear about is that this is not a platforming game," Spector went on to explain, in response to gamers' complaints that his team should have followed Super Mario Galaxy 2's near-impeccable lead.

"This is a game that takes platforming elements and adventure game elements and role-playing elements and merges them. So we couldn't tune the camera perfectly for platforming or for action adventure. It's a very different camera style.

"What we did is try to find the best compromise in the moment and give the player as much manual control as we could. So we took the hardest problem in third-person gaming and made it harder by trying to accommodate two different playing styles.

"And I will go to my grave, imperfect as it is, proud as hell of my camera team," he concluded.

"If reviewers want to give us a hard time about it because they're misunderstanding the game we made, it's not for me to tell them that they're wrong, absolutely not. But I wish people would get it out of their head that we made a 'Mario' competitor, because we didn't."

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Ryze #1 1 year ago

    THIS is why I say that the Move controller needs directional controls.

    Saying that - the God of War developers seem to be OK with an auto camera, but no one seems to want to follow their lead. Don't mention Dante's Inferno.

  • coolbritannia #2 1 year ago

    I severely doubt he could break the camera on every game ever made.

  • Daeltaja #3 1 year ago

    What about the bog standard gameplay, Warren? Paint/thinner is a good idea, yet hardly implemented to it's full extent. Fetch this, fetch that.. Variation much?

  • bombabyte #4 1 year ago

    Even if it weren't a Mario competitor, it would be a mediocre game, becaus it is a mediocre game. The camera is bad, no way around it and most certainly no excuse for it, what an overrated man Spector is.

  • Armoured_Gideon #5 1 year ago

    Churlishly stating that everyone else is just as shit as you is a) woefully ignorant and b) paints you as dumb - if that many people got it wrong, why didn't you avoid such a glaring issue?

    As the article points out, Super Mario Galaxy 2 got it pretty much perfect, so it can be done.

    An awful response. The PR and comms team at the studio must be quadruple facepalming.

  • RoaringPanda #6 1 year ago

    The guy spent a lot of time making this can't blame him for getting defensive

  • rayscoota #7 1 year ago

    Great game. Camera is no where as bad as people make out, it just takes time to get used to thats all

  • CaptainQuint #8 1 year ago

    I appreciate where he's coming from, I really do, but still... other noteworthy development teams...

  • lexxx #9 1 year ago

    such a shame, a missed opportunity, because the game looked like it could be a little gem from the previews

  • MiY4MOTO #10 1 year ago

    I've only played it for an hour or so but I was suitably impressed. Can't say I had an issue with the camera, platforming or combat and I also never felt the need to compare it to Mario.

    Personally 6/10 seemed rather harsh to me... it was the longest I've played on my Wii since I finished HoTD: Overkill.

  • Augmentation #11 1 year ago

    A main rule of game development: don't blame the consumer. If I didn't understand the genre that your game is, that's the developer's fault for not defining it well enough, not mine for being apparently too stupid to get it.

  • Jamiesan #12 1 year ago

    Someone get that man a copy of Tomb Raider 1 and a stopwatch! People have been getting it right for over a decade.

  • Ninja_Tino #13 1 year ago

    It's not the point that every camera can be broken, it's how easy it is to break. I'm sure you could fuck around with any and it'd show your character in an awkward position, but of course you wouldn't do that when actually playing. Epic Mickey's camera, on the other hand, is a hindrance that doesn't need manipulation to distort the gameplay. Still, I found the game fun enough and would love a sequel that fixes everything that marred this game.
    *typing on an iPhone is tough*
    Edited by Ninja_Tino at 08/12/10 @ 08:48

  • NOSAVIOUR #14 1 year ago

    I just a little lost repect for him after he appeared to be an ignorant defensive prick in this story.

  • GreyBeard #15 1 year ago

    No he's just defending his guys, which is fair enough. Not to mention the fact that what he says about game cameras in general is (unsurprisingly) spot on.

    What most people don't realise is that most often the difference between a "good" camera and a "bad" camera in a 3d platformer is less to do with the way the camera is programmed, and more about how the levels are designed and built.

    Certain types of geometry will always cause problems, so you either try to minimize the presence of those shapes in your level design (which is hard, especially if your heavily art-style led) or use "patches" -short sections which clamp the camera trajectory to a spline- to cover up the sticky spots.

    The latter approach is by far the best (Mario 64 uses it extensively) but its time consuming to implement and really needs to be factored into the level building process from the start.

  • kangarootoo #16 1 year ago

    The thing that bugs me about this sort of defense, is that it suggests everyone in the games business is starting from scratch every single time they make a game. And the sorry truth is, half the time they are.

    It doesn't MATTER how hard it is to get the camera right, as several games have solved the problem already for you. So copy the best camera system out there, and get on with focussing on the stuff your game does that is original. Seriously.

    Jesus, do you think that BMW reinvent the wheel everytime they design a new car? Does every airplane that Boeing make involve their engineers redicovering the majesty of powered flight?

    I could list five 3rd person games off the top of my head that had rock solid camera systems - there is no excuse anymore. Yes it is that simple.

  • Hyoscine #17 1 year ago

    Warren Spector will go to his imperfect grave proud of his camera team? What has he got planned?

  • trip919 #18 1 year ago

    Spector please shut-up, you've created the biggest turkey of this season - a dodgy camera is just one problem of an endless parade of problems this game suffers from. *Gobble, Gobble*

  • waynenot #19 1 year ago

    Hard, but loads of others have done it really well - EAD, Sucker Punch, Ubisoft and Insomniac to name a few. It's not like he didn't have access to cash/ time.

    In short - he's a whining girl. The end.
    Edited by waynenot at 08/12/10 @ 10:38

  • Golgo #20 1 year ago

    "First, there has never been a game that I couldn't break if you give it to me for 30 seconds. I mean, I will break a camera in any game ever made."

    Someone give this Specter noob a copy of Super Mario Galaxy FFS.

  • thesombrerokid #21 1 year ago

    I was really looking forward to this game, i had high hopes, it's not the camera that's broken, it's everything else.

    I really wanted to like it, i kept thinking it would open up & it never did, i am truly baffled at how someone could take such a U Turn on game development and be openly happy about it, at least Harvey Smith was like "Midway made me make a shit game", I think Warren Spector must be truly blinded by his admiration of Disney.

  • kangarootoo #22 1 year ago

    "I think Warren Spector must be truly blinded by his admiration of Disney"

    I'm not sure he is that full of admiration. I think he is just bigging up the guys that pay his wages.

    When you get to where he is in the games business, your options can cebome quite limited overnight. He has spend years heading up companies, being a figurehead of multi-studio ventures, and there aren't that many such positions in the business.

    He still needs to pay his bills, and it feels to me like Disney gave him an opportunity that he couldn't really turn down. Unfortunately the kind of game they wanted wasn't the kind of game he excels in... or maybe they gave him too much rope to "be original" and he got a bit carried away. Who knows.

    I don't think he has suddenly got rubbish, and I've not forgotten his record (which some posters will be too young to really appreciate), but I think he might have lost way of late. I think his defensive response here is him making the best of the situation he finds himself in, and perhaps feeling (behind closed doors) that he is not in an ideal situation that really allows him to do his best work.

    I don't agree with what he is saying, but I understand why he is saying it (and I wonder if he really agrees with what he is saying, deep down).

  • orborborb #23 1 year ago

    Reviewers complaining about the camera usually means I will like a game, it means the developers cared enough about their particular gameplay and levels to do something unique, for me a boring camera is far worse than an occasionally finicky camera. No the thing that turned me off to Epic Mickey was the gigantic "Banjo-Tooie" like levels, nothing is worse in a 3d platform game than having too much ground to cover and not enough to do on the way.
    Edited by orborborb at 08/12/10 @ 14:03

  • GreyBeard #24 1 year ago

    It doesn't MATTER how hard it is to get the camera right, as several games have solved the problem already for you. So copy the best camera system out there, and get on with focussing on the stuff your game does that is original. Seriously.

    It doesn't work that way unfortunately in the real world.

    As I pointed out, there is no such thing as a perfect, 1-size-fits-all camera. It all depends on the nature of the geometry its constrained by, and the nature of the environment geometry is related to the style both visual and gameplay-wise of the overall design.

    Sometimes there are no easy fixes. That's the reality of game design/production.
    Edited by GreyBeard at 08/12/10 @ 14:35

  • Jamiesan #25 1 year ago

    Upon reading this again, and watching some gameplay on the net, it seems he was trying to say that devs have learned to adjust their level design to avoid these problems. Most games have a similar camera system to Epic Mickey - they just have more experience in their level design to avoid problem geometry, and it looks to the end user like there are no camera probs. There aren't, because the people making the levels are going out of their way to help the camera run smoothly. Better controls help make a camera better, too.

    For this game, they need the camera to be far enough away for platforming, but close during corridors. Needs to be close enough to the floor to see what you're painting, but too close to the floor and the controls suffer. Add combat into that - the thing must have been a nightmare to get to where it is now. And for a first try in the genre, jumped into the deep end there.

    But still, some of those statements in the article are pure bollocks. break the camera in any game ever made my arse. How about Street Fighter 4? Or Mario Bros. on the NES (yes, 2D games use cameras too...)

  • kangarootoo #26 1 year ago

    @GreyBeard

    "It doesn't work that way unfortunately in the real world."

    And there was me thinking it was the real world in which I live and work.

    I didn't suggest a perfect camera (whatever that means) was achieveable, but a workable and satisfactory camera, which draws no negative comment from player or review, is perfectly achieveable with sufficient planning and research and effort.

    This isn't chaos theory. We aren't tracking the path of rain drops down a leaf. You talk as if we are working in a situation where things like level design, environment layout, and collision meshes aren't entirely within the control of those that create them. All the variables you mention are in the hands of the game creators, and fitting them together in a workable fashion is well within the abilities of those with experience of designing 3rd person games.


    "Sometimes there are no easy fixes. That's the reality of game design/production."

    I understand the reality of game design/production, and I am not advocating "easy fixes". What I am advocating however, is the removal of "stupid mistakes". We have more options available to us besides just "easy fixes" or "winging it and hopinh for the best".

    When good camera systems appear in games, its not by accident, it is because all the various factors you mention were simply managed properly and considered from the off. Just like the wheels on a BMW, or the wings on an Airbus are managed properly and considered from the off, even though there are a also lot of other contributing factors to consider.

  • smelly #27 1 year ago

    Im really enjoying this game. Im wondering if the people who are REALLY down on it have actually played it?

  • GreyBeard #28 1 year ago

    @Kangarootoo

    My point is that you can't always retroactively fix camera issues due to the way its dependent on so many other aspects.

    While I agree that there are methods of process that can minimize risk, its very difficult to eliminate the possibility that things can go awry prior to a lot of time and effort being spent creating code and assets - especially when you are dealing with something with as strong a visual identity as Disney franchise characters and situations.

    The funny thing is that the actual mechanics of camera technology aren't the issue, its all in the application. The unfortunate truth is that its astonishingly difficult -bordering on impossible really- to predict every possibility until its encountered. And the thing is, players wont thank you for the 999 times it works correctly, its that 1 in a thousand situation that will piss them off.

    I've not played Epic Mickey myself, so I can't say with any certainty exactly what's gone wrong, but from what I've heard the main issue is the heavy use of the Wii-mote in pointer mode severely limits manual camera control - so when the camera inevitably ends up in an inconvenient place, you're kinda stuck.

    Now obviously Spector must have had his reasons for choosing the control scheme he did, but that's a whole other set of "what if's" quite aside from camera function, even if that's where the flaws ultimately manifested themselves.

  • batsy99 #29 1 year ago

    Some people just beg for these games to fail because of the hype. The camera isn't perfect but it's so far from being a game breaker. There's been far too much focus on it. I've learned to play 'around' the camera and enjoy the game

  • man.the.king #30 1 year ago

    What a nice argument!

    No person is perfect.

    That excuses my poor development as an individual.
    Edited by man.the.king at 08/12/10 @ 19:10

  • Kaminari #31 1 year ago

    Platform game or not, a bad gameplay is still a bad gameplay.

  • Z101 #32 1 year ago

    A 6/10 review of this great game is ridiculous!

    The gameplay and story are great but yes the camera angle sometimes is not so great :)