BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

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BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby PirateSteven » Sun Jun 22, 2014 9:15 pm

On behalf of all of the interested Disney Infinity Fans we asked BerryBomber some questions.

What is your real name?

Kevin Berry (Ohio, USA)

What is the origin story of your Toy Box submission username?

Sticking with my last named, I made BerryBomber, as bombers were my favorite unit in many of my games (and it has a good flow!). I am still with BerryBomber today. My Toy Box name is Kevin B.

What made you decide to buy Disney Infinity?

As the Disney Infinity trailers rolled out in Summer 2013, I couldn't help but to slowly become a hype machine for the game. Just the idea of creating Disney worlds itself had me sold. At first I was like, "This is pretty cool, but I'm just gonna get the figures I like". Well that didn't happen. Come launch I bought everything the game had to offer because a store had 50% all play sets and triple figure packs! I had more content than I knew what to do with.

What is your favorite play set and why?

My favorite play set has to be The Lone Ranger. I've played it several times through. It plays so well! But why I like this set so much is its artistic values. The day and night cycle running over the canyons is breathtaking, and the music is incredible. I find myself just riding around, looking at the views and enjoying the tunes sometimes.

Who is your favorite Disney Infinity character and why?

My favorite character is Jack Skellington, simply because he's from my favorite Disney movie currently in the game. (If only there were more NBC content...) Considering I love to sing along, I love to listen to NBC music. I will often have the jukebox playing NBC in my Toy Boxes while I build, as it features all the songs in the movie! (Except Kidnap the Sandy Claws...) Once in the Toy box however, I love to use the Lone Ranger characters. Their combat ability's are top notch!

Which character would you like to see included that hasn't already been and why?

I have always wanted to see Sally and Oogie Boogie figures, as I always thought the use of limbs and bugs would add some pretty diverse gameplay to the Toy Box! Imagine a button is in a unreachable place, but Sally can throw her arm to go and press it! The puzzles we could create could be so dimensional! Id also love to see Robin Hood, as he is one of my favorite Disney characters ever.

What is your favorite power disc and why?

I love to use the Pizza Planet Truck and the Muppet Electric Mayhem bus, as its just so cool to ride around to some rockin' tunes!

When you hear of a new challenge, what steps do you take to make your idea for a Toy Box a reality?

I always try to brainstorm a little, then just hop straight in and build something, anything at all. I always want to recreate a scene from a movie or place. If I cannot figure out a way to add some gameplay to it, I will usually go ahead and finish it up, then try again. Although I don't have time to participate in every challenge, I try to attempt a 2nd world just focusing on movie/place elements and theme it around a challenge, be it battle, collection, platforming, or racing.

What do you consider to be your specialty when building Toy Boxes?

My specialty had to be creating smooth natural environments. I use terrain a lot, and I am incredibly OCD. I always try to fit cliffs and other terrain pieces perfectly together, to give it the cleanest and most realistically natural feel. I like my environments around my challenges to be complementing to the story I try to tell.

What is your favorite Toy Box that you have built?

My favorite Toy Box I built has to be my recreation of Disneyland's The Haunted Mansion, which I submitted twice during the Disney Parks challenges. It is my favorite attraction. It just gives you incredible feelings! Although my mom's (Berrys.lovedisney) toy box was featured in the first Disney Parks challenge (Fantasy Land). My Haunted Mansion toy box was not able to place during the 2nd challenge. Probably because there's no real challenge in it, it's just a ride.

What is your favorite Toy Box that someone else has built?

This is something really hard to choose, because there are truly so many good ones! Even through its from Disney, my favorite land has to be the Tron Highway. Its fantastically laid out, and has great gameplay to it. I also like Disney's Big Thunder Mountain. For actual challenge toy boxes, my favorites had to top off with Tron City Race by Dadi and North Hole Mini Golf by PapaEcho. These 2 worlds look absolutely fantastic. I can tell a lot of love was put into these!

Your Christmas Town toy box inspired by the Nightmare Before Christmas was selected as a featured toy box in the North Pole Challenge. Please give us some Inside the Toy Box details on your Christmas Town toy box.

Christmas Town was made solely over the idea of the teleporting tree. I wanted the player to be teleported to Christmas Town, just as Jack was in the movie, and since "What's This?" is the second song of the NBS sky, it works out perfectly! I watched clips of Christmas Town over and over, trying to pick out key details. Obviously Jack walks around a Merry-Go Round, so that was a must. As for the town itself, I used the castle Tower base several times. As much as I wanted to make all the buildings Gingerbread blocks, the space and interior design just didn't feel right to me. In the scene, we also see jack slide down a strand of Christmas lights to smell pies, so I made rail systems to represent lights hanging from the town. Santa's workshop came naturally after that, and then came the Christmas train that ran along the cliffs. Not a few pieces in, I knew a race using track pieces would make it so much cooler! The race itself is completely custom-inspired a fun ride though a Winter Wonderland!



What are some of your classic Toy Boxes that have not been a featured top 5 Toy Box?

After practicing when I first bought the game, I made Fantasy Meadows, a race track recreation from Kirby Air Ride. You can see it here: http://youtu.be/FgomR1ocM2o .This was when I was getting comfortable with the Toy Box, so its pretty simple. I have a lot of other Toy Boxes, which most don't have a challenge to fit into, but I was just having fun building. I also made The Valley of Fire from the N64 Gauntlet: Legacy game, the race from Sugar Rush, a Colby Race, Paris from the Aristocats, and many other creations.

Your Tung Shao Pass toy box inspired by Mulan was selected as a featured toy box in the Princess Challenge. Please give us some Inside the Toy Box details on your Tung Shao Pass toy box.

I had watched Mulan recently before the Princess challenge. I knew my favorite Princess movie has to be used for my Princess Challenge toy box creation. Just about anyone who has seen Mulan remembers the Huns stampeding down the Mountain, so I knew that would make for some amazing gameplay! The world starts at a base camp, I originally had planned for you to walk though the destroyed town in the Tung Shao Pass, where General Li Shang finds the helmet of his father. I used Lone Ranger buildings, and then I destroyed them. Unfortunately, destroyed buildings so not stay destroyed when reloaded, so I wibble the idea. I wanted to make the player feel like they were marching along just like the Chinese, So I made the valleys huge and long to traverse. As we all know, Mushu accidently alerts the Huns of their presence by firing a firework, and arrows rain down upon them! To make this work, I had to make a section small enough for Hun Archers (the King's guards) to notice and attack you and your allies. This section was originally supposed to be blocked off until you found the button that clears the gate the Huns set up, but the Replayer broke before I noticed it and submitted it. Next came the great mountain battle! I knew snowballs perched on a high cliff activated by explosives was the right way to trigger this up. I wanted the player close enough to the action, but far away enough to feel like hitting the target took great aim, just like Far Mulan, so the slingshot does the trick. I was running out of time to finish and submit this, so I forgot to add a trigger that removes all the enemy and allied soldiers, so many people move on leaving people behind and wondering why more enemies are not spawning. Finally came the Chinese Palace, I couldn't make too extravagant, but I mainly just wanted to ensure that the Player felt that they were traveling along the same path of Mulan. The town is celebrating, but the emperor is still in danger! After you reach the balcony, I have Maccus represent Shan-Yu as a boss battle, and pressing the button signals your victory!



What is your dream Toy Box challenge?

I would love to build a world in a challenge for Robin Hood! There's so many good scenes possible to recreate, the only problem is what scene to do! The possibilities here would be truly endless to me haha.

Do you place any hidden features in your winning Toy Boxes?

None too extravagant, but in Christmas town you can find elves (usually walking into walls or plants), and in Tung Shao Pass, you can find Shan-Yu's falcon flying around in some places, spying on your movements!

Your Blizzard Run toy box was selected as a featured toy box in the Frozen 2 Challenge. Please give us some Inside the Toy Box details on your Blizzard Run toy box.

Snowflakes was actually an idea my mom had, so I took her idea and made it into the Toy Box I have now. Using the camera angles, I wanted to take the idea of snowflakes and make it into a platforming game. I tried to use a little of everything the Toy Box had to offer, with every snowflake being a different challenge. From puzzles, guessing, and battling. My favorite flake is the two-sided vertical flake with the grid puzzle. I knew the last flake had to be something awesome, so I after using the intersection piece representing blizzard winds, I made a long path with a buggy, jumping into a ring of fire though a snowflake! Awesome! Haha.



Your Steamboat Willie toy box was selected as a featured toy box in the Toontown Challenge. Please give us some Inside the Toy Box details on your Steamboat Willie toy box.

What I took from the Toontown challenge was the key words "Fab Five". Me being 19, I can only think of the old school Mickey episodes, but I figured the best path this challenge was to go to the roots of the fab five... and Disney for that matter, Steamboat Willie! Building the toybox involved lots of pausing and viewing still images of the original video, studying all the details that went into the boat and the land. I knew it could only be black and white, so I used the Frankenweenie discs. I sized the boat based on the radius of 2 river lanes next to each other and rounding them off. The rest off the terrain was custom made but inspired by the different backgrounds in the film. As for the gameplay, I originally concepted perhaps defending Minnie on board from enemies, but it dident feel true. A big focus was the instrumental animals in the film, so critters came to mind, and using the only major plot section not on the boat, of the loading dock, my land was created. But collecting alone wouldent be very fun, so I also added the enemy spawner to mix it up so you have to defend the critters on your voyage return. Not only that, but since it was a Mickey challenge, I just really wanted to honor Walt in some sort of way. He is an idol to me for many reasons, so its more of a win to him than it is to me!



Your Cavendish Heist toy box was selected as a featured toy box in the Wild West Challenge. Please give us some Inside the Toy Box details on your Cavendish Heist toy box.

I was one of those people who thought The Lone Ranger accomplished what it needed to: to be a cowboy movie. Despite the critics, I had fun watching it. Anyway, the whole idea of "He who controls the tracks, controls the west" was my inspiration. And who else better than Cavendish and his men to challenge the Rangers for self profit! This train had a little of everything: Caboose, Storage, Livestock, water, lumber, cargo, 1st class, passenger, coal, and the engine. With so much loot, this train is prime target for looting! I really wanted to give this train that feeling of truly being overrun with enemies, and you will need your best combat skills to stay alive! Besides designing each car, this toy box is actually pretty simple. If you cross the bridge and hit the button, you can get a full view of the train!



Share a story of adversity from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes that you had to overcome.

Memory has always been my worst enemy in the toy box. Constantly I wish I could finish in these last few details! It is so close to being perfect! But alas, the memory becomes too full. Although this has not been an issue for any of my featured toy boxes, I still watch what my final plans are as I reach the memory limit, which prevents some of my ends not as good as I wanted them to.

Share a funny story from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes.

Whenever I play with someone else, (mostly my mom), I like to be annoying. Its the inner kid in me looking to have some dumb fun! I like to take the Ship set piece, and slowly move over what player 2 is doing or building, obstructing them and ill be like "Pardon me, just sailing though!"

Do you have any advice for aspiring Toy Box Artists?

Do what YOU like to do. Every Toy Box you create can be magical, tell stories with them and show the world your creativity! Whatever you create will be awesome in one way or another, so never give up! Brainstorm and build to your hearts desire! Have others play through your lands, get feedback. Try to see where you can help the player through your story. Also, creativitoys are your friends! Use them!
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Jazz820 » Mon Jun 23, 2014 4:44 pm

Great interview! Love reading these, keep up the great work BerryBomber
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Elmo STM » Mon Jun 23, 2014 4:49 pm

Great interview
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby BerryBomber » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:00 pm

Thanks guys! Im thrilled to be able to be part of this community, theres so many talented people and fantaic ideas that flow in here. Heres to more great months ahead, cheers! :)
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Modeltrainman » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:04 pm

Great interview, and thanks for the tips, Kevin!
Avalanche Software is the best game dev!
Avalanche's #1 Fan
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Berrys.lovedisney » Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:00 pm

I'm Kevin's Mom and I confirm he teases me with the ship all the time. I'll be minding my own business off building then all of a sudden a big ship comes in and I can't build. Like a typical son he does it over and over and the whole time he's laughing. But then karma steps in and while he's building I'll take a giant land piece and twirl it where he's trying to build tehehe Disney Infinity brings families together :)
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Guinydyl » Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:06 am

I watched some of your youtube vids, them toy boxes looking kewl ;)
3.0 is awesome!!
 
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Re: BerryBomber, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby tangled&tron » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:45 am

I envy your specialty! Making any type of terrain area in the 1.0 toy box was just so hard IMO... making it look natural and organic and not all right angle-ly was especially tough. x_x

Also... I really liked your train toy box for the western challenge. I remember playing it and thinking... man... if only the toy box was capable of realizing the full extent of your design. It was fun, and kinda tough, loved the way you made the train cars... and it mostly made me curse the limitations of the toy box... like I really wished the train was moving... it would have made moving from car to car so epic. ^_^
 
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