Very Surreal Alpha Team Prototype

[jamesster]

(Note - This topic is shamelessly copied from a topic I just posted on Eurobricks a few minutes ago, which in itself contained content from a few topics I posted on Rock Raiders United months ago. I'm just posting it here as well in case there's any active Alpha Team fans here that haven't already seen it elsewhere.)Perhaps "Prototype" isn't entirely accurate here, as it WAS going to be the real thing and was close to completion, and only became what it eventually did because of a last minute decision at LEGO. Still, "Prototype" seems more attention-grabbing so I'm using that in the title.For those who don't know, the Alpha Team theme that lasted from 2001 to 2004 (with a hiatus in 2003) wasn't primarily created by LEGO - the whole thing was an adaption of the video game LEGO Alpha Team, developed by Digital Domain and released in 2000, the year before the sets based on the game hit store shelves. The characters, locations, story, etc were all created by Digital Domain for use in the game, LEGO then adapted what Digital Domain had created and turned it into a proper theme, with real sets and minifigures.Anyway, back in October of last year I was digging around YouTube and noticed this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T4tJFp_ZRk(Skip to 1:25 for the relevant bit)Confused yet?The animator, Doug Wolf, was kind enough to reply to some of the comments on the video asking about what the LEGO bit was. Here's the comment chain, copypasta'd from YouTube:

jamessterV2 9 months agoWhat's the animation that goes from 1:25 to 2:38? Looks like an animation for LEGO Alpha Team, but aside from Ogel and TeeVee the characters look almost nothing like their counterparts in the finalized game. Was this some early concept animation? Looks really well done. Got any more stuff like that? :DDoug Wolf 9 months agoYou are correct! Well spotted. That is for the cut scene to the first incarnation of LEGO Team Alpha. I worked on it at Digital Domain with a team for about a month to get the whole thing done. Then it was sent to Lego corporate offices, who loved it, and then immediately said, "By the way.. We have changed all the characters and we wont be using it." Alas... but it will live on in my demo reel forever.VezonWireless 9 months agoAlong with what jamessterV2 said, I recall hearing from various sources that the LEGO Alpha Team game was originally going to be called the Trans-International LEGO Team. I don't suppose whether or not you can confirm that this is true, and if it is, would 1:25 to 2:38 happen to be starring the cast of the original Trans-International LEGO Team?Doug Wolf 9 months agoI cant remember that name exactly, but it was something like that. It is the first cast of Lego Alpha Team. You can read the comment below for what happened at the time. ;(

jamessterV2 = myself, VezonWireless = PeabodySam.Later, while digging through the Alpha Team video game files, I found asset lists and files and other evidence that the game was intended to have two more zones than the final game. Details can be found here (along with more things posted later in this topic), but in short, Alpha Team at one point had Mountain and Moon (Space) zones, in addition to the four zones in the final game (Tropical Island, Subterranean, Undersea, and Arctic - all but Subterranean were turned into real LEGO sub-themes). I also found object listings for a "Cyberia" zone, and a "Neandert" listing under the section for enemies (more on that later). So it's pretty apparent that Alpha Team went through some heavy changes throughout its development. To get more information, I emailed Tom Mott, the lead game designer. The result was pretty surprising.

Hi Jamie,Holy cow, what a great email! Im glad we have fans.Yes: it was originally called LEGO Logic and the team was called T.I.L.T. Digital Domain (DD) was coming off the heels of making Barbie Fashion Designer for Mattel, which make boatloads of money (it kept the company afloat while they were doing special fx for Titanic). So DD decided it would be a digital toy company. It pitched 5 concepts to LEGO Media LEGO racers, a virtual LEGO set, LEGO robot builders, a LEGO adventure, and then to round out the list, they threw in a half-baked idea to build wacky Rube Goldberg type contractions similar to the popular game The Incredible Machine. LEGO already had a number of the other ideas in development but they loved the contraption-builder concept, so thats what they chose.The initial idea was to freely mix-and-match themes. So the team consisted of a chef, a gymnast (Flip), a magician, a mad scientist with bouncing powers (Dr. Pogo our idea was that LEGO would produce a rubber mini-figure instead of hard plastic), and a marching band musician (Major Minor). The chef would flip things in his frying pan; the gymnast would provide spinning motion; the marching band musician would provide forward motion, the magician could teleport things from one spot to another. There were probably other team members my memory is fuzzy. We had a lot of characters in the game at one point. I recall a motor that was a cowboy sitting at his campfire. If something lit his fire, hed start cranking his spit. So he functioned as a fire-activated motor. The worlds included places like Aromazona, Mt. Fridgy (home to the Neanderthaws those unfrozen cavemen-type creatures you referred to), Poodle Dreamland, and more. Bill Benecke did the concept art and may still have some of it. Ill see if he can dig some up and share it. It was really fun.We were fairly far into full production animation, building out the worlds, starting to build puzzles when LEGO Media flew myself and the senior producer to their offices in London to present what we were doing. They hated it. The mix-and-match aspect just didnt fit in with how they market LEGO themes. We were pulling bits and pieces from themes targeted at 5 year olds, 8 year olds, boys, girls, etc. They told us they wanted to completely revise the idea to base it around a Mission Impossible style Spy team. Keep it all very blue and black and boy oriented. More of a focus on cool gear and gadgets. So we threw out 90% of what we had developed keeping TeeVee and Evil Ogel and created Cam, Dash, Crunch, and the rest. It was a bit rushed we had eaten up a year and a half of production heading in the wrong direction but all things considered, I think it came out pretty well. I think the abbreviated schedule necessitated cutting the moon base and the mountain hideouts. Im not sure how developed those ever were though.If I can find some old files Ill share them with you. Im still in touch with a number of the guys who worked on the project too, so Ill forward your email.Thanks again for the great email.Best regards,Tom

Whoa.So we talked some more. I sent him links to this and this as examples of what fans have done with the theme, which he loved. Some other highlights:

A funny anecdote: When we redesigned the characters, we had a hard time getting Dashs character design approved. I finally told the character designer to just make him look as much like the LEGO Executive Producer (Tom Gillo) as possible. Tom loved Dashs new lookhaving no idea we were trying to make Dash look like himand the character design was promptly approved.Dash: http://images1.wikia...s/2/20/Dash.jpgTom Gillo: http://www.mobygames...51474743-00.jpg

The two main engineers, Bob Soper and Thomas Miller, went on to work at SONY. They were heavily involved in the God of War series. The Executive Producer on LEGOs side, Tom Gillo, works for Sony Europe and oversees development of Sony Kinect games. Bill Benecke, who designed the characters and devices, now works at Mattel as a toy and action-figure designer. Ive mostly worked for LeapFrog for the past 10+ years producing interactive books. LEGO Alpha Team was super fun to work on. Great team. Fun work environment. Loads of creative freedom until the boot came down those last six months and we rushed to revamp the whole product. Immediately afterwards, Digital Domain shut down their interactive division and laid-off the entire department, so the project has always been tainted for me by that. But youve reawakened some nostalgia for the good times we had making that game. Thanks for that.

Bill Benecke, the concept artist for the game, also got involved:

This is just flat- out wonderful- I never suspected that there would be dedicated fans of Alpha Team, or that they were able to piece together so many bits of what we worked on!!!Alpha Team was one of the niftiest projects Ive worked on, and probably the biggest in terms of my career where I look at the designs for our first version and feel a strong dose of what if? tinged with a lot of if only!- especially when I think of Roller Toaster! And Ol Blue Ice! And the Neaderthaws! And, yes, Poodle Dream Land.Youve really brought a huge smile to my face with this- thank you ☺

More from Tom:

His email jogged my memory a bit:The very earliest concept for LEGO Logic was that the things we take for granted in our homes: refrigerators, dog bowls, toasters, are actually powered behind the scenes by incredibly complicated contraptions and loads of mini-figures hard at work.The look and feel was very much akin to Diddy Kong Racing, or Crash Bandicoot, or Banjo-Kazooie: brightly colored surreal worlds, with fun bosses to defeat. Evil Ogel was meant to be the final boss. As I said, this wasnt just preliminary concept work: quite a bit of actual production (modeling and animation) was done along these lines before it was all scrapped for the spy theme.Mt Fridgy was a snow and ice freezer environment that included a lot of frozen foods: pizza boxes as platforms, ice cream tubs, things like that. The Boss was Ol Blue Ice and the Neanderthaws were frozen in blocks of ice. If you defrosted one, hed starting walking in a forward line, swinging his club.The Roller Toaster was a roller-coaster hot lava environment. Roller coaster cars that looked like slices of bread would ride the rails and get toasted by hot pools of lava. The boss was King Crusty.Poodle Dreamland took place inside a dog pool. It was shades of pink and lavender, with topiary trees, and giant doggy bones. The boss was a killer poodle named Flea-Flea.Aromazona was a world of giant flowers, inside a flower pot.

And finally:

Hi Jamie,Thanks for all the great emails. Ive forwarded them to the rest of the team. They really made everyones week.Glad you liked the gamegood to know there was fans! It was a lot of fun to make. And of course were all very happy it spawned a popular LEGO theme.Best regards.

Wow. Just wow.So what do you think about this? Should LEGO have let Digital Domain stay with the original, more playful concept? Would it have transferred as well into a real play theme? Would LEGO have actually made a rubber minifigure? Would you have liked minifigures and sets based on this original, more surreal concept? Or was the switch to a "spy" theme a good thing? What about the Mountain and Moon zones that didn't make it in time? We could have had LEGO Alpha Team Space sets! Ah man, I would have gone completely bonkers over those... Personally, I dunno what to think, as I like both concepts. I LOVED Alpha Team back when it was new on the shelves, and bought every set I could get my hands on. But I also like the idea of a video game taking place inside a house, but viewed from the wacky perspective of the minifigures inside of it. Ah well.

Edited July 29, 2013 by jamesster

[Aanchir]

This is pretty crazy to hear! All things considered, it's amazing how Alpha Team started out with the game in mind but developed into something else entirely. Truth be told, I think later years of Alpha Team drifted too far from the game concept that made it so engaging for me back then. I loved LEGO Alpha Team's characters especially because each had their own personality and specialities... so Flex was the happy-go-lucky ropes expert, Charge was the detonation expert, etc. Later years seemed to sort of mold them into generic secret agents who had far less uniqueness.I do think that the "spy" concept tied the brand together a lot better than the initial zany concepts might have. It made it marketable not only as a game, but as an entire theme, and that perhaps helped the concept gain a lot more exposure than it might have otherwise. I have no problem with a "potpourri" theme, but I have to admit a toyline themed around that initial concept would have felt all over the place and would not be that well-remembered today, sort of like how a lot of AFOLs think of Time Cruisers as "a way for TLG to get rid of overstock parts from other themes" (though I have not really found much evidence to back this theory up, all things considered).

[jamesster]

This is pretty crazy to hear! All things considered, it's amazing how Alpha Team started out with the game in mind but developed into something else entirely. Truth be told, I think later years of Alpha Team drifted too far from the game concept that made it so engaging for me back then. I loved LEGO Alpha Team's characters especially because each had their own personality and specialities... so Flex was the happy-go-lucky ropes expert, Charge was the detonation expert, etc. Later years seemed to sort of mold them into generic secret agents who had far less uniqueness.I do think that the "spy" concept tied the brand together a lot better than the initial zany concepts might have. It made it marketable not only as a game, but as an entire theme, and that perhaps helped the concept gain a lot more exposure than it might have otherwise. I have no problem with a "potpourri" theme, but I have to admit a toyline themed around that initial concept would have felt all over the place and would not be that well-remembered today, sort of like how a lot of AFOLs think of Time Cruisers as "a way for TLG to get rid of overstock parts from other themes" (though I have not really found much evidence to back this theory up, all things considered).

Charge was the electronics guy and Crunch was the explosives guy, actually, but they were both on the bomb squad. I agree with what you're saying here about the characters - it didn't help that they got the heads on the wrong bodies in 2004 and ended up swapping around names on top of that... Not only did the team members end up with different looks and attitudes, but they ended up with different specialties! Not that the specialties were that apparent in 2004 anyway.And yeah, I can see how the original design might not have transferred to sets that well. As far as the game goes, though, I really do like it.

[Gatanui]

I've been a huge fan of Alpha Team since the Deep Sea Mission and I have some compelling memories of online and real-life play with it. It's amazing how much the concept changed with time, but highly interesting. I always find that kind of thing very intriguing.[/color]

 

This is pretty crazy to hear! All things considered, it's amazing how Alpha Team started out with the game in mind but developed into something else entirely. Truth be told, I think later years of Alpha Team drifted too far from the game concept that made it so engaging for me back then. I loved LEGO Alpha Team's characters especially because each had their own personality and specialities... so Flex was the happy-go-lucky ropes expert, Charge was the detonation expert, etc. Later years seemed to sort of mold them into generic secret agents who had far less uniqueness.I do think that the "spy" concept tied the brand together a lot better than the initial zany concepts might have. It made it marketable not only as a game, but as an entire theme, and that perhaps helped the concept gain a lot more exposure than it might have otherwise. I have no problem with a "potpourri" theme, but I have to admit a toyline themed around that initial concept would have felt all over the place and would not be that well-remembered today, sort of like how a lot of AFOLs think of Time Cruisers as "a way for TLG to get rid of overstock parts from other themes" (though I have not really found much evidence to back this theory up, all things considered).

Charge was the electronics guy and Crunch was the explosives guy, actually, but they were both on the bomb squad. I agree with what you're saying here about the characters - it didn't help that they got the heads on the wrong bodies in 2004 and ended up swapping around names on top of that... Not only did the team members end up with different looks and attitudes, but they ended up with different specialties! Not that the specialties were that apparent in 2004 anyway.And yeah, I can see how the original design might not have transferred to sets that well. As far as the game goes, though, I really do like it.

 

Yeah, you're right about that. I really enjoyed the ice theme as well but still I can't look past how the strange mess with the characters (particularly Charge looking like Flex and Flex like Charge or Crunch) was kind of weird. At least they got Dash, Radia and Ogel right.Oh, and by the way, Dash so needs to get an appearance in The LEGO Movie. Anyone else agree? -Gata Edited July 29, 2013 by Gatanui

[jamesster]

I hope PeabodySam doesn't mind, but here's a photo he took of the 2004 Alpha Team members with the heads/helmet on the proper bodies:http://www.majhost.com/gallery/SJPlego/Misc/dscn2884.jpgAnd a comparison of Charge and Crunch, old and new, with the "fixed" minifigures:http://www.majhost.com/gallery/SJPlego/Misc/dscn2886.jpgAs you can see, the only one that doesn't match up is Arrow/Cam. Yeah, Cam had black highlights in her hair in the original video game, but the mouth... Not gonna work. All the others are spot-on, though.Also, anybody wondering if the 2004 android was meant to be the mysterious Gearbox character mentioned in catalogs, but in the chaos of renaming wound up as being named TeeVee?And yes, I'd love to see Dash or Ogel re-appear in The LEGO Movie. A texture for Ogel was found in the LEGO Universe assets, but he never ended up in the game before it closed. (And yes, it's Ogel for sure, not just some other character with his face.)

Edited July 29, 2013 by jamesster

[Gatanui]

What I'm really curious about is the reasons why LEGO messed up on the characters in 2004. Though I suppose we'd have to ask a LEGO designer from that time for that.-Gata

Edited July 30, 2013 by Gatanui

[SpellNeal]

Was looking around earlier at some work LEGO employees did and found this. Jamesster requested I post this, so here it is.

I've got a bunch of the Alpha Team sets, and I do like the sound of the old direction the game/theme was going to be. Seems almost like a Collectible Minifigs kinda thing.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Nealybealy

[jamesster]

Was looking around earlier at some work LEGO employees did and found this. Jamesster requested I post this, so here it is. :PI've got a bunch of the Alpha Team sets, and I do like the sound of the old direction the game/theme was going to be. Seems almost like a Collectible Minifigs kinda thing.

Thanks! Man, I played those web games SO much... Very glad the BMP has them posted for download.

[Gatanui]

 

Was looking around earlier at some work LEGO employees did and found this. Jamesster requested I post this, so here it is. :PI've got a bunch of the Alpha Team sets, and I do like the sound of the old direction the game/theme was going to be. Seems almost like a Collectible Minifigs kinda thing.

Thanks! Man, I played those web games SO much... Very glad the BMP has them posted for download.

 

Same here. I loved these games so much! They are very easy now but I still love the graphics and sound and sometimes I play them for nostalgia. Thanks for the link!-Gata

[emily]

I guess I already shared all of my thoughts on the primary subject back in the original Rock Raiders United topic. However:

 

I hope PeabodySam doesn't mind, but here's a photo he took of the 2004 Alpha Team members with the heads/helmet on the proper bodies:http://www.majhost.com/gallery/SJPlego/Misc/dscn2884.jpgAnd a comparison of Charge and Crunch, old and new, with the "fixed" minifigures:http://www.majhost.com/gallery/SJPlego/Misc/dscn2886.jpgAs you can see, the only one that doesn't match up is Arrow/Cam. Yeah, Cam had black highlights in her hair in the original video game, but the mouth... Not gonna work. All the others are spot-on, though.Also, anybody wondering if the 2004 android was meant to be the mysterious Gearbox character mentioned in catalogs, but in the chaos of renaming wound up as being named TeeVee?

It strikes me as bizarre how easily the parts can be rearranged to have the characters better match their earlier appearances. It almost implies that it was a conscious choice to confuse the characters - but certainly that cannot be?

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Gearbox was supposed to be the android. The idea had never occurred to me before, but Gearbox is certainly a name appropriate for a mechanical being. It even makes sense that they would bother to identify the robot as different from TeeVee; after all, it was a humanoid, and not a walking television set as the original TeeVee was.

 

What I'm really curious about is the reasons why LEGO messed up on the characters in 2004. Though I suppose we'd have to ask a LEGO designer from that time for that.-Gata

I would theorize that it was due to the internal turmoil LEGO was undergoing at the time. Perhaps people in the story development positions were getting moved around or laid off, with the result being a team of people removed from the original Alpha Team theme enough that they confused the characters and had little desire to follow the aesthetic of the original two lines. That is just a random conjecture based on essentially nothing, though, so it is more likely wrong then right.

 

Was looking around earlier at some work LEGO employees did and found this. Jamesster requested I post this, so here it is.

I've got a bunch of the Alpha Team sets, and I do like the sound of the old direction the game/theme was going to be. Seems almost like a Collectible Minifigs kinda thing.

Thank you! I see that the concept sketches show an earlier version of the Crunch minigame. It looks like air bubbles were still a major aspect of the gameplay, but that Crunch was perhaps shooting them at Evil Orbs to disable them, rather than the bubbles acting as a hindrance.

 

Oliver Wallington sure seems to have been jumping around to a lot of different parts of the LEGO group. It would appear as if, in addition to these games, he was involved in developing the Slizer/Throwbots line and the DUPLO Mybot. These seem like quite varied projects, making me wonder how it came about that he participated in all of them. Maybe he had a more general position in which he oversaw a number of LEGO projects, and these are the ones that he ended up contributing to the most.

[Gatanui]

 

What I'm really curious about is the reasons why LEGO messed up on the characters in 2004. Though I suppose we'd have to ask a LEGO designer from that time for that.-Gata

I would theorize that it was due to the internal turmoil LEGO was undergoing at the time. Perhaps people in the story development positions were getting moved around or laid off, with the result being a team of people removed from the original Alpha Team theme enough that they confused the characters and had little desire to follow the aesthetic of the original two lines. That is just a random conjecture based on essentially nothing, though, so it is more likely wrong then right.

 

You think Christian Faber could give us any valuable information about that?-Gata

[emily]

 

You think Christian Faber could give us any valuable information about that?-Gata

 

 

It is certainly possible, although I am not at all certain how involved he would have been in the decisions leading to the minifigure confusion.

[Gatanui]

 

You think Christian Faber could give us any valuable information about that?-Gata

It is certainly possible, although I am not at all certain how involved he would have been in the decisions leading to the minifigure confusion.

 

It's worth a try. -Gata

[LewaLew]

I am very happy the game turned out like it did. I loved the game, and the theme itself more than that. Alpha Team has always been my favorite theme, more so than BIONICLE, the Adventurers, and LEGO Island.

What I'm really curious about is the reasons why LEGO messed up on the characters in 2004. Though I suppose we'd have to ask a LEGO designer from that time for that.-Gata

I don't know. Maybe it was the same people responsible for all of the coloring and speech bubble errors in BIONICLE comics around that time.

 

 

Was looking around earlier at some work LEGO employees did and found this. Jamesster requested I post this, so here it is. :PI've got a bunch of the Alpha Team sets, and I do like the sound of the old direction the game/theme was going to be. Seems almost like a Collectible Minifigs kinda thing.

Thanks! Man, I played those web games SO much... Very glad the BMP has them posted for download.

 

I loved those games, especially the Deep Freeze ones.

[Kanakalackin]

I remember seeing this a long time ago! Too bad I didn't think about posting it then.

[LewaLew]

I remember seeing this a long time ago! Too bad I didn't think about posting it then.

To be fair, you couldn't have posted it then if it was a long time ago, due to the old rules.

Edited August 17, 2013 by LewaLew

[Kanakalackin]

Good Point.