Spector: I want to prove a point with the Wii

Warren Spector wants to send a message to the Wii sceptics of the development world with his latest project, Epic Mickey.

Nintendo’s home console has famously modest tech specs when compared to its direct competitors, but Spector insists Epic Mickey will show just how far the system can be pushed.

“This is a Disney game,” the Junction Point founder tells Develop.

“It’s going to have the lush, beautiful, bright colours of a Disney feature film on the Wii. And I want players and I want our competition to think ‘holy cow I didn’t know you could do that on a Wii’.”

Though there might be a resistance from some corners of the industry to develop Wii titles, Spector insists the console can host games that truly stand out from the crowd.

“For my money, Epic Mickey may be the best looking Wii game ever. The critical thing is I believe we’ve captured the spirit of the character, and the essence of Disney. That’s what we needed to do.

“When you start any project you have to know what you want to achieve,” he said.

“I remember when we started this project I told the team that some day we’ll be at E3, and there are going to be 2,500 games on display, and 1,800 are going to be brown. ‘Welcome to brown world!’ And the others are going to be [mock enthusiasm] hyper-real! Everything looks real now!

“I told the team we’re going to have five seconds – five seconds for people walking past our exhibitor booth to know that Epic Mickey doesn’t look like any other game.”

Epic Mickey – the first project completed by Junction Point Studios – is set for release November this year. It is built on Emergent’s Gamebryo Lightspeed platform.

The full Q&A with Warren Spector – where the Deus Ex creator talks on how to reimagine Disney’s icon – is available now.