MONKEY MAGIC (Published by Sunsoft)

Playstation

Monkey Magic was the very first game I worked on as a professional level designer. Developed by a small multimedia company in New York City called M-Pen, Monkey Magic was created in conjunction with an anime series being produced by the Japanese production company, “B-Factory.” Loosely based on the ancient Chinese legend, “Journey to the West,” you controlled the monkey Kongo in his quest to save his home village on Flower Fruit Mountain (I’m not making this up!). The game controlled like a 2-D platformer rendered in fairly primitive 3D graphics (interspersed with FMV clips from the anime), but at certain points, the player could move in between the foreground and backgrounds and fought enemies with kung fu moves. The most unique feature of the game was the magic system mechanics. Kongo had 4 spells (fire, ice, strength, and shrink) and they could be cast either on himself or on other objects and enemies (yes, you could light yourself on fire, and sometimes you had to do so to solve a puzzle!). The opposing pairs of spells could negate each other, and the duality of this magic system gave rise to some interesting puzzles and platformer gameplay. My primary role on the project was to design and implement level layouts and puzzles to exploit these mechanics.

I consider myself very lucky to have worked as a Designer on a Playstation game so early on in my career. It was a fun, lighthearted game that had a goofy sense of humor and didn’t take itself too seriously, and what it lacked in graphics and technology we tried to make up for with gameplay and level design. While there can be some cheap traps that must be overcome through death and retrial, it’s largely offset by frequent checkpoints and plentiful extra lives. The graphics engine was not very robust and couldn’t render many polys, so the camera had to stay in fairly close. However, we implemented a “look ahead” mechanic that gave the player limited control over the camera (so you can scope out seemingly blind leaps of faith into pits). It’s definitely skewed towards kids as it can easily be beat in an extended gaming session, but it’s got a decently-paced blend between action, puzzles, and platforming. The combat animations and control may not be the tightest, but the focus is using your magic and brains to think quickly on your feet to get through the numerous platform-based puzzles, and while the solutions are not immediately apparent, after some thought and experimentation, they become clear. In this regard, I think this is where the game really shines.

Monkey Magic definitely influenced many of my early thoughts on game design. One metaphor that has really stuck with me over the years is that gameplay is like music. It is patterned learning that has themes (mechanics or functionalities) that are demonstrated and introduced to the player, and the body of the gameplay experience arises out of the player going through the repeated application of these learned themes to conquer presented challenges. Mechanics are re-sequenced, layered, and combined with other themes to build new gameplay and instill variety, and properly scheduling rewards and the introduction of new mechanics will keep both the player motivated, and the gameplay interesting and fresh.

IGN is still hosting one of the few reviews of Monkey Magic, so I’ve included a link here

I also recently uncovered some YouTube videos for the game. I was shocked, as I had no idea Sunsoft even produced commercials for it. Check 'em out!