By Irene Tham Technology Correspondent, The Straits Times, 3 Nov 2014
The mobile game for the superhero comedy was developed right here - the first time a top global brand has engaged a local studio for game creation.
Big Hero 6: Bot Fight is being released today for mobile download. In the reel world of San Fransokyo (a mash-up of San Francisco and Tokyo), players collect robots for quests and battle other bots to defend the city.
The studio that landed the coveted contract, whose value is undisclosed, is gumi Asia.
The enchanted journey began when he met a producer with Disney Interactive, the digital entertainment arm of The Walt Disney Company, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March.
"From there, everything was a whirlwind," said Mr Ng, who spent "four gruelling months" ironing out exclusive content licensing terms and the game co-development contract.
He believes what sealed the deal was the start-up's track record. It has successfully localised mobile fighting game Brave Frontier, which belongs to its Japanese parent company gumi, for several markets.
Since the title was translated into 12 languages in December last year, it has garnered more than 20 million downloads, said Mr Ng. In June, it even joined the top 10 grossing games at the Apple and Google Play stores.
But signing the deal with Disney was easy compared with what gumi Asia had to do next.
In less than four months, it had to design the game, animate the characters and build the story - a process that typically takes at least nine months.
Mr Ng's 35 designers, artists, programmers and animators here put in 20-hour days and pulled all-nighters, especially last month, to meet deadlines.
All the creative and art work was done at gumi Asia's studio in Ayer Rajah Crescent, with supervision from Disney's Los Angeles headquarters over the Internet.
"We put in everything after we flew our key team members to Tokyo for a film preview. The film was only 16 per cent complete then, but we left the theatre mesmerised," said Mr Ng.
Inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, Big Hero 6 is about robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada and his bot Baymax, who put together a team of inexperienced crime- fighters to foil a dastardly plot. Characters from the film appear in the game as well.
Inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, Big Hero 6 is about robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada and his bot Baymax, who put together a team of inexperienced crime- fighters to foil a dastardly plot. Characters from the film appear in the game as well.
The chance to work on his first project for Disney rekindled "a lifetime of memories" for studio head Cash Ong, 42, who "grew up on a diet of Disney movies".
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