THE MAKING OF MICKEY MANIA

THERE WERE SEVERAL GAMES ON THE MEGA DRIVE FEATURING THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS MOUSE, SOME VERY GOOD (CASTLE OF ILLUSION), SOME VERY BAD (FANTASIA). AND THEN THERE WAS MICKEY MANIA, AN IMPRESSIVE TECHNICAL SHOWCASE FROM TRAVELLER'S TALES

- PAUL KAUTZ

The idea of Mickey Mania started with a game called Mickey’s Birthday Party, which was going to be an epic, story-driven adventure centred around a journey through the key adventures of the famous cartoon mouse. It was the pet project of then 22-year-old David Jaffe of Sony Imagesoft (who would go on to make brilliant games like Twisted Metal and God Of War). Basically, a simplified version of Kingdom Hearts before there was a Kingdom Hearts.

Disney liked the idea, and Sony Imagesoft took the concept to the British development team Traveller’s Tales, led by Jon Burton and Andy Ingram, who had already proven their ability to create technically impressive platformers in a short span of time, with games such as Leander (1991, also known as The Legend Of Galahad) and Puggsy (1993). They quickly developed several demo levels that impressed Disney executives. However, David’s ambitious plans had to be scaled back considerably due to the target platform, as Jon confirms to us, “The original pitch for the game to Disney actually came from Dave Jaffe at Sony Imagesoft, but a lot changed during development. When we first met with Sony to discuss the design, the two designers they had (Dave Jaffe and Mike Giam) had ideas that just weren’t possible on the Mega Drive hardware. Being English and sarcastic, I probably shot down their ideas fairly brutally. In any case, one of them left the room in tears. I still feel bad about that!”