A Perfect World for Robot Clowns

Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corporation

This picture is from the early days of the Voodoo Vince project, or Vince The Voodoo Doll as he was known before we received all sorts of advice about changing the name. This picture is one of four "perfect world" pictures created by Gary Hanna and his art team during the prototype phase. The prototype phase lasted six months. That's when we built a playable first level for the game and a complete first draft of the design document (150+ pages). Gary and his crew fleshed out our goals for how the game would look in its final form. All these things were rolled out at a green light meeting where Microsoft would make the final decision to move ahead with the game... or not. They did, in case you were wondering.

This shows Vince battling the infamous Kosmobot near the end of the game. I've always like this picture... Lotsa juicy action. This would have been completed in late September of 2001. I can't believe that's nearly 5 years ago.

A surprising number of things from this piece ended up in the final game. Even the clown missiles, though you can barely see their lovingly detailed textures as they streak by (and frequently into) Vince's plane.

CK