Disney’s Illusion Island is a new platforming adventure game featuring The Fab Four—Mikey Mouse, Minnie, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Players will experience a Metroidvania-style platformer full of interactive abilities, colorful maps, and more. Those who want to experience Dlala Studios’ newest title can get a copy now on Switch.
Recently, Game Rant had the opportunity to chat with creative director AJ Grand-Scrutton about how he and his team worked to bring a new story to such beloved characters, stand out mechanics of the game, and more. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Please start off by telling us about yourself and your involvement in Disney’s Illusion Island?
Grand-Scrutton: My name is AJ Grand-Scrutton, I’m the Creative Director on Disney Illusion Island and the CEO of Dlala Studios.
Q: Where did the idea for the game come from? Was it always the same and/or how did it change over time as you worked on it?
Grand-Scrutton: As soon as we spoke to Disney in 2019 and decided to do a game together we knew that it was going to be Mickey and Friends. We also knew that it was going to be a 1-4 player cooperative platform game, but that’s really all we knew at that point. The early stages of the game were us exploring what it meant to make a modern Mickey game and what type of gameplay we wanted. Kelsy (co-writer) and I started on the story quite early sculpting out how we would tell a longform Mickey Mouse story. At the same time, Grant (Allen, Lead Designer) and I locked ourselves away in my office and started covering the walls in post-it notes, each note being a different possibility of what the game could be. I think the big changes we had from the first day in the office to what you’re seeing now, in Disney Illusion Island are a few things.
Firstly, removing the concept of “combat”, we didn’t really trust our guts on that until part way through the pre-production process. The other big one was that Monoth was originally going to be 5 biomes, rather than the 3 it is now, and this was a decision made for scoping purposes. You could say that we’d at least learned some lessons from making Battletoads (2020)!
Q: These characters are obviously beloved, classic Disney characters. How have you approached their character identities and balancing that everything the game newly offers?
Grand-Scrutton: Authenticity was core to making this game, and that was from Day 1. One of our three pillars for the project was “Authentically Disney, Distinctly Dlala”. That meant that this had to feel like a true Disney experience, but we had to make sure it was the type of Disney experience that Dlala would make. Making sure that the Fab Four felt like the Fab Four was so important. We were very lucky that we got to work with Chris Painter (Lead Writer & Narrative Designer, Disney Games) who did such a fantastic job of mentoring us and helping us learn to write for the characters. He knew all the subtleties about words the characters use and don’t use, phrases that Donald would say and wouldn’t etc…
Alongside that Eric, our Animation Director, worked very closely with the team to make sure that the animations felt fresh and appropriate for the game, but at the same time felt familiar to those characters and emphasized elements of their personalities. I hope that when fans of the characters play the game that they feel true to what they love and that they enjoy going on a new adventure with them.
Q: Please tell us more about the world of Monoth. How do our heroes find themselves there and what/who can players expect to see?
Grand-Scrutton: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy have each received an invitation for a picnic on a beautiful island, however they all think that one of the others sent them the invitation! When they arrive at the island they find that they have been tricked, with good intent, into coming to the island of Monoth to help recover some stolen magical books. This leads to the adventure that is Disney Illusion Island, our Fab Four are the only familiar faces and locations players will see in the main game here. Every other character is a brand-new character created by our team and Monoth is its own individual location far away from the familiar views of Mouseton, Duckburg and Toontown!
Q: How do each of the playable characters differ from each other in terms of their abilities and interactions with the world?
Grand-Scrutton: This was actually something that Grant and his team went back and forth on trying different things. We tried giving the players different speeds and jump settings, but it always meant that players were getting left-behind too easily. We also tried some character specific abilities for locks, but it meant that we were forcing players to stop playing as their favorite character, and with these four people are passionate about their favorites.
Where we landed instead was that all characters are given equal balancing and skills, however they all still feel different and this is down to the work of Eric and his animation team. Each of the characters was given a toy analogy, Mickey is a bouncing ball, Donald a slingshot, Minnie a paper airplane and Goofy a slinky. The animation team then kept these in mind when they animated, and that’s why Minnie feels quite graceful and Goofy feels quite floppy, like his body is trying to catch-up with itself. Each character also has unique items for their ability unlocks, each with their own running themes like Goofy and food or Donald and getting the ‘rough end of the stick’.
Q: The game features both solo and co-op play. How can players expect gameplay to differ depending on how they choose to play? What are the benefits of choosing one style of gameplay over another?
Grand-Scrutton: Another one of those core pillars I spoke about earlier was “Awesome Alone, Better Together”. This meant that we want people who played 1 player to have an absolutely incredible experience but for those that played multiplayer we wanted to give them some little touches that brought out the fun of friendship. That sounded much cornier than I anticipated, but I’m leaving it. In multiplayer the level design is the same as single player, but we give you a set of multiplayer only mechanics. When you play multiplayer you’ll get access to Leap Frog, which lets you jump further by jumping off of a crouching friend. Rope Drop, which lets any player drop a rope down the full height of the level and the others can climb it. Hug, this lets players hug each other and give each other an extra heart of health. There might be another one hidden away in there too, but I don’t want to spoil anything!
Q: Illusion Island appears to feature not only platforming mechanics, but also a decent amount of story as well. Can you tell us how platforming adventure interacts with the narrative to deliver a well rounded story?
Grand-Scrutton: It was really important to us that we tell a brand-new Mickey and Friends adventure, whilst also giving the player those moments where they can just embrace the joy of movement in the game.The story is told via two main methods. The first is the fully animated cutscenes, these are the ones you’ve probably seen in the trailer. These feature the authentic voice cast and there’s a good chunk of these tactfully positioned in the game. Alongside that we have, what we call, in-game cutscenes. These are the ones that don’t pull the player out of the game and are told through speech bubbles and emotes.
Throughout your journey you’ll meet lots of awesome new characters with their own quirks who will help you on your journey and give you some quests to do. We wrote the story and built the game in complete parallel to make sure that both, not only worked together but complemented each other.
Q: The game also features “epic boss battles” on top of platforming adventure. Can you tell us what makes these bosses so epic? What is a boss battle you're excited for players to experience?
Grand-Scrutton: A big thing for me is that I do not enjoy boss fights in games, I am always under the belief that it’s easier to name 10 boss fights you didn’t enjoy than it is to name 2 that you did. When we approached our bosses we knew that we didn’t have combat and that we didn’t want to go for those, very well-designed, deliberate frustration loops that bosses often fall into. Our approach was that our bosses should be “levels in disguise.” We wanted them to feel more like puzzles that you approach and can handle in unison in multiplayer. I actually really enjoy our boss interactions in Disney Illusion Island. My favorite boss battle is probably the confrontation with the third thief, but I can’t say more than that without giving a major spoiler!
Q: In a broader sense, how do you feel Illusion Island fits into the larger catalog of Disney games and animation, especially those that feature these classic characters?
Grand-Scrutton: I would like to think that we’re a spiritual successor to those incredible games from the 90’s like the ‘of Illusions’ and Magical Quests but with a modern take and Metroidvania structure. We tried to give a familiar yet fresh feel to the gameplay and to the story itself. This is a game for the family, and that doesn’t mean a kids game, it means a game that I can enjoy with my best friend, or I can switch-up the settings and enjoy with my nieces and nephews.
Q: These characters are all household names. How does it feel to be taking part in creating new gameplay and animation for such iconic, age-old characters?
Grand-Scrutton: It is one of the biggest honors of my entire life, let alone career. To have been trusted with four of the greatest characters ever created is not something any of us have taken lightly. It is no secret that I am a lifelong Mickey fan, and so I took this very very seriously, in a very Mickey appropriately silly way.
Q: What has it been like to work with Disney to bring a new story to these classic characters? Were you allowed to have a lot of creative freedom in the process, or were things a little more under tight lock and key so to speak?
Grand-Scrutton: I was shocked by the amount of creative freedom we were given. I think a big part of the reason for this is that we wanted to stay true to Mickey and Friends and create something authentic. I imagine if we’d gone in and tried to change their personalities and do something that felt completely out of character then there would have been conversations to be had. I got to do things with this story that surprised me when they were approved, and we got to do our own designs for these characters, something that only a handful of people in the last near-100 years can say.
Q: What is a feature of the game that you’re most excited for players to get to experience? Why?
Grand-Scrutton: Can I say all of it? No? Okay. Honestly the core of the game, it’s movement and the abilities you unlock. The team has done such a wonderful job of making everything really embrace this feeling of ‘Playground Parkour’ that we wanted to hit. Also hugging. I absolutely love hugging, and it’s really interesting how the dynamic of the mechanic changes depending on the playstyle. When we created it we saw it as a “this will be great for people to help less experienced players”. However, as we got to the end of the development, and we were trying to show off doing 1 heart co-operative runs you just heard fully grown adults begging for a hug every five minutes as we were scared of losing our single hearts!
Q: Is there anything regarding Illusion Island you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on yet?
Grand-Scrutton: Just that I hope everyone gets some real joy from playing the game. The hardest thing about making this game has been letting it go, I’ve loved the years I've spent with these characters and in this world that my team made, and I really really hope you enjoy it when you bring them all into your home.
Thank you for all the questions, I really enjoyed answering them!
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Disney’s Illusion Island is available to play today on Switch.