When Insomniac Games showed Spyro the Dragon at E3 in 1998, its president, Ted Price, was proudest of something you could not see. “There’s no fogging, nothing obscuring the polygons in the distance,” he told Edge. Most 3D games on the PlayStation hid the edge of their worlds behind mist; Al Hastings’s engine let Insomniac show “these huge panoramic views”, with separate engines drawing the characters and the sky. Into those views it put a small purple dragon who could charge, breathe fire and glide, and asked the player to explore rather than follow a path. Computer and Video Games called the result “easily the best 3D platform game on the PlayStation”.
Fast facts
- Developer: Insomniac Games, with Universal Interactive Studios.
- Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEA in America, SCEE in Europe).
- Released: 1998; in Britain by the autumn, at £35.
- Team: 12 people at Insomniac and three at Universal by mid-1998, Price said.
- Music: Stewart Copeland, of The Police.
- Sequels by Insomniac: Ripto’s Rage (1999, Gateway to Glimmer in Europe) and Year of the Dragon (2000).
Making it
Spyro was Insomniac’s second game, after the first-person shooter Disruptor, and like Crash Bandicoot it was produced with Universal Interactive Studios. Work began in January 1997. Price told Edge that by the summer of 1998 there were “12 people at Insomniac and three people at Universal” on it, with outside help from Charles Zembillas, who had also designed the Crash cast and drew Spyro, and from Mark Cerny, who, as Gamers’ Republic put it, oversaw “every last scale”. The Insomniac Games entry tells the studio’s side of the story.
The team had studied Super Mario 64. “Mario made some great strides in every area of 3D gaming, so we’ve taken notes and made what we think are significant improvements while creating a very different game,” Brian Hastings of Insomniac told Edge in 1998. He thought Mario’s levels “had very little interaction with enemies”, and Spyro went the other way: “By putting more enemies in the game, we were able to add a lot of humour and showcase some great animation, but also pick up the pace of the game. Spyro has a much higher twitch factor than Mario.” Insomniac’s Matt Whiting said the same about the camera: “There are camera controls in Spyro, but I’d be happier if players never feel the need to use them.”
The game
Gnasty Gnorc has turned the dragons of Spyro’s world into crystal and stolen their treasure. Spyro sets out to rescue them. Computer and Video Games described the shape of it in November 1998: each world has a “home” area that leads to all its other levels, and Spyro travels from one to the next, freeing dragons, who reward him with advice, and collecting gems. The homeworlds are the Artisans, the Peace Keepers, the Magic Crafters, the Beast Makers and the Dream Weavers, and the last world is Gnasty’s own. Thieves run off with dragon eggs and have to be chased down. Hidden in each world is a flying course, where Spyro shoots planes and barrels off trains against the clock.
He has few moves. He charges with his horns, breathes fire, jumps and glides. Edge thought the four legs were a handicap: “Whereas a biped can grab enemies, pull objects, climb poles and hold on to ledges, Insomniac’s dragon can only run (which doubles as a headbutt attack), jump, glide and breathe fire.” His health is shown by Sparx, a dragonfly that follows him around and changes colour as he is hit, “from gold to blue and then to green”, and to stay healthy Spyro has to feed it butterflies. Beating Gnorc is not quite the end. Arcade’s tips writer found that he had to collect every piece of treasure in the game before he would be let into the last level, “at which point I nearly had a nervous breakdown”.
Reception
Edge was impressed by the engine and less by the game. It handled “the vast levels with remarkable smoothness and shows no signs of polygon folding”, but “Spyro’s shallower gameplay” kept it from rivalling Super Mario 64: “Mario for the PlayStation? Well… no.” It was still, Edge concluded, “a competent – if sometimes uninspired – 3D platformer and easily the best example of its genre to grace Sony’s 32bit machine yet.” Computer and Video Games had expected a game “for kids”, but admitted “I have to say I enjoyed playing it”, praising its looks and characters while noting that “there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before”.
After Insomniac
Insomniac made two more Spyro games for the PlayStation, Ripto’s Rage (1999) and Year of the Dragon (2000). Universal kept the rights to the character, and Insomniac moved on to Ratchet & Clank. The dragon’s first PlayStation 2 game, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (2002), was made by Equinoxe and Check Six; its creative director, Ricci Rukavina, told the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine that the aim was “to make a very smooth transition from the older PSone platform”.
In 2011 the developer Toys for Bob rebooted the series as Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, in which players brought characters into the game by standing toys on a “Portal of Power”. Edge, previewing it that June, reported that the studio had brought in “countless children” to see how they played. Toys for Bob then remade Insomniac’s three games as Spyro Reignited Trilogy (2018) for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Wireframe found the worlds “fresh and inviting” and gave it 73%, though the camera could still have “a mind of its own”.
Sources
- Edge issue 60, July 1998, p. 38: E3 preview and interview with Ted Price (development since January 1997; 12 people at Insomniac and three at Universal; Charles Zembillas, Mark Cerny and Stewart Copeland; Al Hastings’s engine, “no fogging”, the separate character and sky engines; publisher UIS/SCEA).
- Gamers’ Republic issue 3, August 1998: Spyro the Dragon preview (Mark Cerny “overseeing every last scale”; quoted in the Mark Cerny entry).
- Edge issue 63, October 1998: “The Ten Tentative Commandments of 3D Platform Game Design” (Brian Hastings on Super Mario 64 and the “twitch factor”; Matt Whiting on the camera).
- Game Informer issue 66, October 1998: Spyro the Dragon strategy guide (Dream Weavers; Gnasty’s World).
- Edge issue 64, November 1998, p. 85: review (SCEE, £35; six worlds; the four-legged hero; the engine; “Mario for the PlayStation? Well… no”).
- Computer and Video Games issue 204, November 1998: review (music by “Stuart” Copeland of The Police; Gnasty Gnorc and the crystal dragons; the home areas; Artisans, Peace Keepers, Magic Crafters and Beast Makers; the dragonfly’s colours and the butterflies; egg thieves; flying courses; “easily the best 3D platform game on the PlayStation”).
- Arcade issue 1, December 1998, p. 98: tips introduction (Gnasty Gnorc the final boss; collecting every item of treasure before the last level).
- Official PlayStation 2 Magazine issue 2, May 2002: Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly preview (Equinoxe and Check Six; Ricci Rukavina).
- Edge issue 228, June 2011, pp. 18–19: Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure and Toys for Bob (the Portal of Power; playtesting with children).
- Wireframe issue 4, December 2018, pp. 61–62: Spyro Reignited Trilogy review (Toys for Bob, Activision; PS4 and Xbox One; Ripto’s Rage as Gateway to Glimmer in Europe; Sparx; 73%).
- Insomniac’s other games, Universal’s ownership of Spyro and the sequels’ years: as cited in the Insomniac Games entry.