categoryGames   authorCollin van Ginkel Hessel Bonenkamp Martijn Reuvers   monthSeptember 2009 May 2009 March 2009 December 2009 January 2009 April 2008 March 2007 January 2006

From pixels to polygons, the new Toki Tori!

This is the first in a series of posts we will be doing on Toki Tori. As some of you may know, Toki Tori was a Game Boy Color title before landing on Wii. There was no predetermined design for the original character, he basically started off as a walking egg and evolved from there. We ended up calling the main character a chicken, but to be honest it takes some imagination to see a chicken in our chubby hero.


It was about three years ago that we decided to renew the Toki Tori franchise with a high quality remix of the original game. This gave us the chance to take a good hard look at the character and it wasn't long before we realized that he needed a pretty thorough face-lift, or rather a full body make-over.

We started off determining important aspects of the character. The conclusion was that he needed to be:

cute but not too cute
Feedback from the original Toki Tori indicated that we struck a balance that resonated well with both men and women.

entertaining and clumsy to watch in action
Our chubby friend was never the athletic type. Toki Tori cannot jump or do any other acrobatics, all his abilities come from the different items he gets to use. To communicate this to the player we made sure he looked real chubby.

able to carry and operate different items and weapons.
For the original character we could get away with a lot of things considering the low resolution. Toki Tori could never have carried the big Freeze-o-Matic on his original stumpy wings, so we enlarged those. This made him more all-round and make him more flexible for promotional activities such as the teaser trailer we released when announcing the game.

not really a chicken
By not making him a real chicken, we can make him do all sorts of things that a real chicken could never do. Just to be sure no-one would mistake him for a real chicken we gave him duck feet :)

All these changes result in the Toki Tori that shipped in the Wii version of the game. For reference you will find some rejected designs below.



Stay tuned, because this blog is just the beginning. We will be bringing you more blog entries and exciting Toki Tori news in the coming weeks!


Comments Although I would have played and enjoyed the game anyway, I am glad he looks like as he is. The character wouldn't quite be the same if he had feathers and actual chicken feet.
Agree, he turned out just great in my opinion.
I was initially hoping for some DLC for Toki Tori on Wiiware, two new "worlds" for 300 Wii points or something in that sense.

Hopefully these new blog posts will drive up interest for Toki Tori on Wiiware and we can get a sequel...
nice start to the blog. looking forward to a sequel!
The first game was truly amazing. Now waiting for a sequel (wishing). :) it would be exellent on DS
Toki Tori needs to move on to be a true platformer on all consoles! That would be truely awesome!
You know, it looks a bit like Tux, the linux mascot.
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/6156/tokitorituxwf3.png

You should totally make a Linux version with tokitori looking like that :P
This was my first WiiWare game and is still one of my favourites. I'll be keeping up with the blog :)
You are basically describing a penguin there, but I am glad he looks the way he looks.
Incredible game, this game should really be a lot more popular. It teaches creative thinking which is great. I love it
It's great to see Toki Tori back on todays consoles, as the first release at the end of GBC's life span never got the attention it deserved (many people didn't want to buy a GBC module for their new GBA, although the graphics were great for its time).
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