THE MAKING OF SPYRO YEAR OF THE DRAGON

IN THE KNOW

» PUBLISHER: SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT

» DEVELOPER: INSOMNIAC GAMES

» RELEASED: 2000

» PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION

» GENRE: PLATFORMER

Playing Spyro: Year Of The Dragon is a joyful experience. Exploring its brightly coloured levels with Stuart Copeland’s legendary soundtrack in the background, either as the iconic purple dragon or one of his new playable companions, has a timeless pleasure. Simply smashing a pot, collecting the shiny gem inside and seeing a gold number pop out is a compelling feedback loop that still hooks you in over 20 years later.

However, Insomniac didn’t need to wait two decades to see how beloved its game would be to a generation of children. Designer Caroline Trujillo, now an executive producer at Asobo Studio, remembers going to playtests where children played the game. “Most of the time there were kids that would just run around and they’d scream with laughter, running around in circles, just because they’re watching Spyro’s butt tail wag,” she tells us. “There was nothing more charming than that, to know that you could make people happy just by running around.”

is the biggest game in Insomniac Games’ PlayStation trilogy, containing four homeworlds, five new was developed to improve on the success of the first game, but Insomniac decided to take a different approach for . “We really wanted to make this a masterpiece, we really wanted to make everything special,” chief creative officer of Insomniac, Brian Hastings reveals. “There’s something unique and memorable in every part of it that’s different from everything else.”