Large Animal: The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Casual Games Market

written by Brad Cook

Josh Welber and Wade Tinney founded Large Animal in January 2001, originally calling themselves Gamekitchen. In the early days, they focused on creating Flash and Shockwave games and other content for such clients as LEGO and Mattel. They also produced an original title, called QUEUE, that landed them distribution on Shockwave.com.

RocketBowl PLUS

"Contoured terrain is a core part of the RocketBowl experience,
and Torque 3D has a very nice terrain system."

- Josh Welber  

As the dot-com boom continued to implode, Welber and Tinney persevered. The runaway success of Bejeweled in the casual games market led to Shockwave asking for a downloadable version of QUEUE, which challenges players to arrange shapes on a board in the correct order. Each of its 100 levels is more fiendishly difficult than the last, and there are many possible solutions to each one.

By the fall of 2002, Welber and Tinney had an idea for a game that demanded a 3D representation, prompting them to seek out a more robust technology. That's when they turned to Torque for their first 3D project, RocketBowl, which came out in 2003 and has since been upgraded to RocketBowl Plus. The game takes the ultimate leisure sport to new levels, featuring curved lanes and rocket-powered balls. Wacky environments, bizarre characters, and the ability to play in tournaments complete the experience.

"Contoured terrain is a core part of the RocketBowl experience," explains Welber, "and Torque 3D has a very nice terrain system." He adds: "We developed an expertise and comfort with the engine and GarageGames' style of C++ programming. We even created our own extensions for it."

Extending Torque

Saints & Sinners Bowling

"It made sense to use Torque for Saints & Sinners Bowling since
we already had a bowling physics engine built on top of the Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) library."

- Josh Welber  

That comfort level put Large Animal on a path to using Torque 3D, and, later Torque Game Builder, for most of its releases. Their last four titles were created with Torque.

"It made sense to use Torque for Saints & Sinners Bowling since we already had a bowling physics engine built on top of the Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) library," notes Welber. "We could build our own technology around it, so it was a natural choice."

He adds: "Torque is a powerful framework for game creation. Mass market games aren't about pushing the technology envelope. They're about a polished game experience that lots of people can play. We're into this for the long term, especially since we want to bring our games to Xbox 360 - Xbox Live Arcade, and Torque already supports that platform."

The Return of Kong

In December 2005, Large Animal developed King Kong: Skull Island Adventure, a puzzle title built with Torque Game Builder in just three months. Designed to tie into the King Kong mania generated by Peter Jackson's movie remake, the game features Vincent Denham's journey to Skull Island to unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of his father, Carl, and the mighty King Kong. The two vanished within hours of the giant ape's plunge off the Empire State Building, and 25 years later, Vincent must find out what happened.

King Kong: Skull Island Adventure

"We could have used something like Director, but it wouldn't have been as slick, and our familiarity with the Torque framework made
it possible for us to create a custom level editor for the game quite quickly."

- Josh Welber  

The game features more than 100 levels that challenge players to fit puzzle pieces onto a board and uncover an image connected to Skull Island. The story winds its way through the brain-teasing action while a cinematic soundtrack sets the mood. King Kong: Skull Island was based on an illustrated novel by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland, which in turn had been licensed from Meriam Cooper's estate. The game was developed for and published by Oberon Media.

Despite the fact that Torque Game Builder hadn't been released yet, the Large Animal team was able to turn to GarageGames and get an early version of it. "We could have used something like Director," notes Welber, "but it wouldn't have been as slick, and our familiarity with the Torque framework made it possible for us to create a custom level editor for the game quite quickly. Also, the ability to dive into C++ and to change rendering code, or add processor intensive functionality, was key."

He also says that the engineering team at Large Animal is currently exploring the multiplayer gaming functionality of Torque Game Builder.

Accessibility is Key

"One of the strengths of using Torque is the accessibility of the guys at GarageGames," says Tinney. "They're responsive on the message boards, and we don't need a big service contract like we would with other companies. You're a part of the community with the guys who built the engine, and they've done a good job of maintaining that even though they've grown."

LEGO Bricktopia

"The guys at GarageGames took the initial work we did [on the
level editor] and have really turned it into something very flexible
and slick."

- Wade Tinney  

He adds: "We put a lot of work into the level editor for Torque Game Builder and put it back into the code base, so we're invested in that sense as well. The guys at GarageGames took the initial work we did [on the level editor] and have really turned it into something very flexible and slick."

Torque Game Builder even sees use during Large Animals' annual holiday party, for which a new game is created every year. Last year, TGB supplied a dynamic scoreboard for a trading card game centered around a snowball fight between elves and gnomes. As each team scored points, a game master input the results and let everyone see how many of the little people were clobbered.

Large Animal recently released LEGO Bricktopia, an Arkanoid-style game that was created in partnership with LEGO. Each of its over 160 animated levels features the ability to customize the player's paddle by catching and stacking LEGO bricks, or charging the shield by unleashing the power of each block. Twenty unique power-ups, two levels of difficulty, and an unlockable "blitz mode" add intriguing challenges to a title with kaleidoscopic visuals and an interactive musical score.

Bricktopia was created with Torque Game Builder, which Large Animal expects to employ for the other two titles it will release by the end of 2006.