The original game that won the Edge competition was called Cubic Juggler, and after we signed the deal with Acclaim, some influential people felt that the game needed a theme and a story.

Consequently I ran some workshops within Acclaim to try and identify what the shapes could be, instead of simple 3D geometric shapes. The outcome was that the shapes could have been simple candy shapes or animal shapes - we went forward with the latter as it could, in theory help bring the game to a wider audience.

The animal shapes and theme were progressing well on the GameCube version, where the 3D shapes became animal abstracts that morphed into full animations when the shapes matched.  We also added a movie to help articulate the “story” of Dr Bucooze capturing these animals, with the player rescuing them. Meanwhile it was impossible to utilise animal shapes on the GBA due to its technical limitations.

The name of the game came halfway through development from one of the marketing executives at Acclaim, and upon initial reflection it sounded quite a snappy name.

So did the re-theming work?  Well yes and no.  On the GameCube it worked very well by giving the game a graphical kick and it proved that as a 3D puzzle game, ZooCube could scale well to accommodate advanced hardware. On the downside some people expected animals on the GBA version and the game suffered a little as a result.

[ZooCube] [GBA] [GameCube] [PS2] [Reviews and Awards] [Japan] [Theme] [Tips] [3D Puzzle?] [Design]