Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures Episode 1: Fright of the Bumblebees

Background

Design director Dave Grossman told Eurogamer.net that the team "had to pitch stories and show [Aardman] visual samples to convince them we'd be able to make the characters look and feel right, but it was worth the effort. Wallace and Gromit are rich, charming, funny characters, and you're right, they're naturals for the kinds of games we make". Grossman went on to say that the stories will encompass "some new entrepreneurial ideas from Wallace, unintended consequences, Gromit saving the day, Wallace saving the day (no, really!), dastardly villains, colourful locals, romance, kidnapping, chase scenes, camaraderie, and Wensleydale".

The game continues to step up from previous Telltale titles by refining its storytelling and placing a greater emphasis on non-player characters, who are now actively engaged with the player and their actions, rather than springing into life when being clicked on. The idea was to make the scenes feel based around the characters, rather than the character inhabiting that scene. The character's relationships with Wallace and Gromit are complex and constantly envolving.

To help keep the British feel of the franchise alive in the games, Telltale was paired with Tristan Davies from Aardman who went over all the scripts, stories and designs to make sure that the premises, humour and culture all felt appropiate to Wallace and Gromit. Telltale also noted that the in-game subtitles will even have the English spelling of words. The claymation visuals are also retained thanks to efforts from Carlo Morgantini, a Telltale engineer who gave new options to the game team who model, light and texture the characters and environments.

On 4th Febuary 2009, Telltale announced the game would be coming to the PC and XBLA in Spring of the same year. In a February interview with Dan Conners conducted by Joystiq, it was revealed Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures would not be following the point-and-click gameplay that past Telltale titles offered. In that month's issue of PCZone, it was confirmed that voice actor Peter Sallis would not be reprising his role for Wallace as he does in the films, and instead the official back-up voice actor would take his place. On 26th February, VideoGamer interviewed Dave Grossman who revealed there would be four episodes to the season, but that "the season as a whole will probably be about the same size as the previous games [Sam & Max, SBCG4AP]".

On 13th March 2009, Telltale Games revealed that the first episode, Flight of the Bumblebees, would be launching on March 24th, and that if you pre-order the game before then you'll receive a 25% discount, along with free copies of Dangeresque 3 and Ice Station Santa. A new trailer was also released on Yahoo! Games, and an exclusive playable demo was made available on March 16th, and later on Telltale's site.

Trailer Overview

A teaser trailer for the game was released by Telltale Games on July 28th 2008. The trailer starts with a red buzzer signifying the start of something. A boxing glove then shoots out from somewhere and hits a wooden block, releasing an egg and causing it to roll down a slope and then be carried across on a zipline. It is then dropped off on a stand and is hit with a mallet. The inside of the egg goes down a tube and falls onto a frying pan, where it cooks nicely. The camera then cuts to a pair of hands putting a plate down next to a knife and fork. Across the room a timer goes off on the machine, and it switches from Lob to Serve. The frying pan swings up and releases the egg through the air - past Gromit reading a newspaper - and hits Wallace in the face, causing him to fall off his chair. He gets up and sheepishly grins and waves at Gromit, who rolls his eyes. The camera zooms in on the newspaper and then the game's logo comes up.

Trivia

• In Wallace & Gromit's basement there is the orange door from their rocket ship which took them to the moon in their animated short A Grand Day Out.