A toy's life

You don’t have to fall asleep for your toys to come alive.

No matter how old we grow, we are never too old to buy a toy or two every now and then. And every year, toys become more life-like thanks to progress in technology.

But like Mister Geppetto in The Adventures of Pinocchio, we don’t just want our toys to move — we want them to come alive and now they can. Sounds too good to be true?

This is exactly what companies like Activision Blizzard and Disney Interactive have achieved with a “new breed” of toys which come alive in videogames.

Marrying toys to videogames is sheer marketing genius, of course, as the two have become inseparable as almost every big videogame franchise has spawned various toy lines.

The only surprise is that this hasn’t happened sooner but this is probably because the technology didn’t exist before.

Sky is the limit

Activision was the first to rise up to the challenge with its Skylanders franchise and since its inception in 2011, the company has raked in US$1.5bil (RM4.9bil) from worldwide sales. This is a huge success for the company, as Skylanders is purely a videogame that is not based on a movie or cartoon.

The story goes that videogame developer Toys for Bob was given an opportunity by Activision to revive a Vivendi franchise and it chose Spyro the Dragon.

But instead of making just another videogame, the company also created toys and embedded them with RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips which can store and transmit information wirelessly.

When the toy is placed on a device called the Portal of Power, which is connected to a gaming console, the character will come “alive” in the videogame.

As loot and upgrades collected in the game are stored in the chip, players just have to carry the toy and place it in a friend’s Portal to bring the character alive again with all the information intact. But that’s not all — the toys work across all systems. So, if the toy is purchased for the Xbox 360, it will also work on the PlayStation 3, as long as the player purchases the game for each system.

Last year, Activision introduced Skylanders: Giants with 40 new toys that are twice the size of the original figures. It plans to release Skylanders: Swap Force next month for Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Wii and Xbox 360.

 

Skylanders Swap Force toy.

Swap Force figures are made of two halves and each part can be separated and combined with parts from another toy to create a unique character. There are only 16 toys for the new game but it is possible to make 256 characters from them!

Also, toys from the previous games will continue to work in Swap Force. The only catch is that the toys are not backward compatible — for instance, toys from Swap Force won’t work in the Giants game.

No limits: John Day says Infinity is about letting players do whatever it is they want with the toys in the virtual game world.

Let the magic begin

The latest to enter the fray is Disney with its Infinity franchise. The game’s associate producer John Day was in Malaysia to promote the launch of the game on PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and Wii U.

“Infinity is not a game just about Disney and Pixar characters, it’s a game about toys,” he says.

Unlike the Skylanders franchise, Infinity is leveraging on popular characters from its own stable and Pixar’s. This includes characters such as Captain Jack Sparrow, Mr Incredible, Wreck-It-Ralph and Lightning McQueen.

Date with Infinity: The Starter pack comes with three Play Sets which promise 18 hours of gameplay in total.

Infinity launched with 20 toys but this is just the beginning as the company is looking to expand the line-up in the coming months. Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Wreck-it-Ralph, Jack Skellington and many more are expected to join their “friends” soon.

With Infinity, Disney is also introducing Play Sets which are essentially levels and worlds from different movies such as Monsters University, Cars and The Incredibles.

“Each of these Play Sets provides a new adventure with a story and an open-world to explore. We are not recycling any stories, as they have been freshly written for the game,” he says.

Each Play Set should take players four to six hours to complete.

“Combining the three Play Sets that we have include in the Infinity starter pack should offer close to 18 hours of gameplay,” says Day.

Infinity’s main selling point is its Toy Box where players will get to build their own unique worlds using items obtained from various Play Sets. At the launch, Day showed off a racing game, 2D side scroller and 3D action adventure game created from Play Sets.

Members of the Infinity development team are having a blast recreating retro arcade games in Toy Box, says Day. One developer even managed to design a working calculator.

The adventures and worlds created by players can be shared with other gamers across all platforms where the game is available. For instance, an adventure created on the Xbox 360 can be downloaded and played on the PlayStation 3 and vice versa.

There is also the Power Discs which can be used to enhance the game in a number of ways. The Circular Power Discs can grant characters special power ups that can be used in Play Sets and in the Toy Box. Hexagonal Power Discs, on the other hand, unlock special gadgets, vehicles, and themes for even more personalisation.

As Disney plans to introduce new Play Sets, characters and gameplay elements, Infinity will remain fresh long after its launch.

The Disney Infinity starter pack costs RM249 while each Play Set goes for RM149. Each individual Infinity figure is priced at RM49 and Power Disc packs cost RM29.

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