Hello again everyone! In this latest development diary we’re taking a look at some of the art and design in Diggs Nightcrawler.

Our starting point for the game was Wonderbook itself, and it was from here that we arrived at a bookworm hero, a city made of books and cast of characters from fiction. We also knew from day one that we wanted Wonderbook to be the key method of interaction, and so the physical nature of the book was intrinsic to the design of the game.

We wanted the experience to be intuitive, so we imagined every scene as if it were a real physical object on the book that would respond in the way the player would expect. Early on, we have a scene where Diggs is looking for clues, but it’s dark and he needs light. Overhead is a lamp on a chain which will swing if the player picks up the book and tilts it.

All scenes, including this one, were initially prototyped as foam models. Using these we could test interactions, experiment with scale and move scenery around. Given that the player is in full control of the book, we took inspiration from theatre in the round.

When it came to animating the experience, we knew we needed very high quality animation to engage the player with the characters and story. We decided to create bespoke animation for every scene, and approached production much like an animated feature film. Everything was storyboarded throughout, with storyboard artists attending all design discussions to visualise the experience in development. As in film, the actors’ performances were recorded before animation production began, and often the animators would bring elements of the actors’ physical performances to our Library City heroes.

Diggs Nightcrawler will be released exclusively on Wonderbook for PlayStation 3 this holiday.

Time for another update on Wonderbook‘s upcoming murder mystery – Diggs Nightcrawler.

Today, we get to know our hero: Diggs Nightcrawler, a bookworm private detective from Library City. Diggs is stoic, a dyed-in-the-wool character whose external cool is challenged mere moments after the player opens their Wonderbook and arrives in his office.

He’s always worked alone, and that’s done him just fine… until now. As the new sleuth on the case, players will need to earn Digg’s trust through the course of the adventure, and as circumstances conspire against him, he’ll rely more and more on their help. Working in tandem, Diggs and the player will collaborate to solve the mystery of who bumped Humpty from his wall and strive to restore harmony to Library City.

Creating a truly narrative-driven game presented some unique challenges. The story, characters and world were crafted specifically with Wonderbook in mind. We knew from day one that we could use the PlayStation Eye camera to put the player into the same physical space as the game characters, and that the player would then have control over the game world by manipulating Wonderbook. This yielded a natural division of special skills between Diggs and the player, which we used as a foundation for gameplay – Diggs and the player working together to progress. As an autonomous character, our golden rule was that the player would never directly control Diggs. Likewise, we avoided any interaction that would undermine Diggs’ character – after all he’s a great detective and the player (at least at the start of the game) is new to the business!

With these rules in mind, the story and gameplay were developed in tandem. We started from the key story beats – ‘Diggs meets player’, ‘Diggs chases villain’, ‘Diggs gets framed for Humpty’s murder’ – and so on. In each case we then challenged the beat for gameplay potential, asking what the player could do, what Diggs could do, where it would take place and how the environment could be constructed on the Wonderbook. Oftentimes we’d reject story beats which gave little gameplay opportunity and gameplay ideas which conflicted with the story or characters. The result? The story and gameplay are so tightly interwoven that there are no inconsequential interactions, and everything that the player does drives the story forward.

If you’ve ever wanted a starring role alongside a great detective (imagine being a Watson to Diggs’ Holmes), keep your eyes peeled for more Diggs Nightcrawler updates to come!

The team at Moonbot Studios are a highly creative team and master story tellers. Little Bo Peep, the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Three Little Pigs together in a film noir mystery? Definitely not your run of the mill game. We’re pleased to lift the curtain on the development of Diggs Nightcrawler in this first video diary.

With the book as the starting point, the world, the characters, the story and the interactions were born (or as Humpty would say, “hatched”). Diggs is a detective bookworm who knows he’s inside a book, whose world is made from books, and who travels throughout the course of the game to different sections of the library, meeting unique characters along the way. Of course, being Wonderbook, this is no ordinary hardcover. It is your controller as you tilt, rotate and turn the pages to help Diggs get the bottom of Humpty’s downfall.

We hope you enjoy the diary — we’ll have more in the coming weeks. And in case you missed it, check out some additional game play here:

While Book of Spells led off our Wonderbook announcement at E3 earlier this year, there are plenty more projects in the works for the forthcoming PlayStation 3 augmented reality platform, including Walking With Dinosaurs from the BBC, and an exciting partnership with Disney Interactive Studios. Diggs: Nightcrawler is a little different, however – unlike Book of Spells and Dinosaurs, it’s a brand new IP, promising quirky detective noir with style to spare.

Less than 24 hours after the game’s new trailer debuted during the Sony press conference at gamescom last week, we sat down with Adam Volker from Oscar-winning animation studio turned game developer Moonbot to find out what it has in store.

“So, Diggs is a detective bookworm and he’s really good at what he does,” he explained.

“He works for the godfather of Library City, Humpty Dumpty. And you know his story – someone pushed him off the wall, someone bumped him off – and the cops think it’s Diggs. So when you start the game he’s framed for the murder of his old buddy. The story unfolds from there, with you attempting to clear Diggs’ name and find out who actually committed the crime.”

So how exactly does this eccentric set-up translate into gameplay?

“Because Wonderbook is new, we’re still figuring out a lot of specifics about what the gameplay is,” said Volker, who lists stints at EA and BioWare on his CV.

“We’re trying to make the characters in the game self-aware that they are in fact in a book. The mechanics of Wonderbook are all very physical and we want to encourage players to actually pick up the book, turn it around, hold it upside down – so the game will focus on that a lot.

“We designed the IP to be a book about books, so that the characters can help the player. We give Diggs the user interface stuff, so he says ‘turn the page!’ when it’s time to turn the page, he says ‘Go back, you missed something’ when it’s appropriate to backtrack.

“Wonderbook is celebrating the really old and beautiful interface of the book,” he continues. “People know how to use a book, so we want to monopolise on that. It’s definitely celebrating the medium.”

While the game is certainly aimed at a younger audience, Volker insisted that there should be something here for everyone to enjoy, especially those who appreciate classic adventure games. And although some onlookers might express surprise that Moonbot has moved away from animation – a medium it’s clearly very, very good at – and decided to try its hand at game design, Volker believes its a natural progression for the Louisiana-based studio.

“It’s the creative challenge that Wonderbook represents. The uniqueness of the interface is really exciting and getting to pave that road is a real creative challenge,” he enthused.

“I’ve always had a passion for gaming. Moonbot, as a company, is about storytelling and about characters. We like to be media agnostic and gaming is just another avenue to tell a story.”

Diggs: Nightcrawler is due out sometime in 2013 – we’ll have much more on the title over the coming months.