Xavier Agulló

I used to collect classic Spider-man comics when I was in college. I even had a Spider-man costume …but that’s a long story. So I was really excited when I was assigned to do a brawler with Spidey. One of my teammates (and good friend) was also a big comic buff. But what seemed like a dream project proved to be a difficult challenge…

Moving forward with the designs of Spider-man and the enemies was a very slow process with a lot of back and forth with the licensor and Gameloft HQ. Unlike other genres, fighting games are very dependent on graphic assets since they determine the timing and location of collision boxes. This added considerable stress to the development.

To adapt a “Beat’em up” to the essence of Spider-man we worked on different features. They ranged from a web-slinging bonus level, to the climbing sections you would expect our favorite spider to crawl. I put a special focus on aerial combat, with lots of jump attacks and combos in the air. The problem is that all this subtlety was lost for those players who simply smashed the “5” button. In retrospect I should have done a better job of introducing those mechanics, enforcing them or, alternatively, devising a simpler system.

There were a lot of good things too as the game was brimming with “fan service”. It was the first time ever you could control a civilian version of Peter Parker, Mary Jane or unmasked Spider-man. Getting all collectibles unlocked the powerful black suit. We also managed to cram all spidey’s main enemies into a small 1MB package.

Despite all the difficulties, the game was released on time and became a considerable success for Gameloft.