Influences

The first influence you'll recognize in Skytopia, literally as soon as you create a character, is that of Disney's Talespin. While this wasn't what we had in mind when we designed the game, it became an obvious factor later on. Cape Suzette is still one of the coolest locales in any cartoon, and I'm still in love with that world, even if the cartoon itself is... terrible (never watch your old favourites when you're older).

Skytopia is a dangerous place, but Bryan was convinced it needed a light-hearted feel too. While there was danger at every turn, we couldn't have it making unreasonable demands of the players, or put you in a position where you were constantly concerned for your skyrate's safety (it just isn't fun). So it ended up having a similar feel as Talespin, a world where adventure awaited those who took to the sky, but at the same time, the worst you were risking, generally, was losing your cargo to the pirates: who in both worlds are friendly enough to leave you with your life, as it's good business practice anyhow.

It's funny, because we were actually originally going to make Skyrates be pirates (makes sense right?) and that's where the name of the game came from. The original bad guy was the encroaching government in Skytopia, and the players fought against the law. It solved a lot of problems (factions, governors, traders) to ditch it, but I don't think we've seen an end to the idea of being a pirate...

But our characters aren't quite as carefree as those in Talespin. The world of Skytopia is definitely meant to be a grittier, darker world. We look at the prohibition-era US for a lot of influences, that's why carrying alcohol around in your airplane used to get you into trouble. Many of the character designs have a feel to them similar to that of The Rocketeer. There is definitely a Howard Hughes feeling to the aircraft, and you could ask Chuck, but I doubt that's on accident. That era gives us a lot of good stuff, a sense of science and progress, but at the same time, a certain instability in both economics and foreign policy that fits well in the context of Skyrates.

The last prevalent influence is probably Crimson Skies. While I never played it for the xbox (or owned an xbox), there is the old PC version that few people remember. I spent countless hours with that game when I was younger, and probably more imagining that I was part of that world. The upgrades take some design hints from that game. Not enough, honestly, but that's what I was aiming for. I spent a lot of time in that game salvaging aircraft and building them into something terrifying. On top of that, there was a feeling that I had to fly all the different craft at least once, before I settled on my play style (which was the Brigand, if anybody remembers it), which I try to recreate in Skytopia.

Zeppelins come from all of the above influences, but I hope to make them a bigger part of the world. The one that should have had an influence, but really didn't, is the floating islands. In the end, floating islands are just cool... and it makes aircraft the most important part of the world, which is exactly the feeling we wanted. Sure it's far-fetched, but we figured if you'd gotten past the part about a WWII airplane being flown by a Badger, then you'd be able to deal with floating islands.

The is another influence I should mention, but it's relatively recent, and it doesn't really show in the current feature set. If you've seen Last Exile though, then you've had a glimpse of something that's inspiring some future direction. Jeremy, Chuck and I really liked that world, and I think we subjected the entire team to more than a few episodes. I don't expect you'll see it anytime soon, but it's there, in the shadows, waiting...

This is a lot of the stuff that inspired me, and there's even more I imagine if you ask to other guys. It's really the mix of talent that worked on it that made the world what it is. Chuck's aircraft and islands were incredibly cool, and the characters Chris made are fantastic. Much of the worlds shape comes from the team members, and the styles mixed together well.