Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget Swoops into Park Beyond
Unleash the madness of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Park Beyond’s newest DLC, today! The theme park game’s unique ‘impossification’ system lets you elevate every game element to a level beyond your wildest dreams – perfect for a chicken adventure you’ll never forget.
The goal during production was to provide the player with the opportunity to recreate and expand on the movie in their own theme park! For this we worked in close collaboration with Academy Award-winning animation studio, Aardman. Early in the DLC production phase, we had the unique opportunity to watch a pre-release version of the movie and get our inspiration going. Tons of ideas were brainstormed, sketches made, and scenes selected to build on. Our initial key decision and baseline for every asset was to determine the general scale. The movie is shown from the perspective of chickens, making everything look huge. Translating this concept into our theme park design; we scaled everything up so that visitors would feel chicken-sized when wandering the park too.
The creation of the flat rides was the first challenge. Carousels, Ferris wheels and similar attractions are usually the highlights of every theme park; especially in Park Beyond where they can be ‘impossified’ into over-the-top fun centerpieces never seen before. We thought about many great-looking rides but came to the conclusion that looks alone wouldn’t do justice to the great story of the movie. Rather than prioritizing appearance only, we started to select the most mesmerizing scenes and figured out how we could tell their story in a single ride and its upgrade. The result is two flat rides transform into a highlight of the movie. For example, one of the rides resembles a Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget village-themed thrill ride in its base version. When upgrading, it transforms into an action-driven, over-the-top chase scene which takes direct reference from a counterpart in the movie that leads away from the village.
For the rollercoaster we didn’t just want to provide a new track type. We wanted it to be part of the Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget universe. We looked at the coaster cars, tracks, struts and thought of how the chickens would build it, resulting in a unique makeshift style cobbled together from recycled junk. Complimenting this wonky track, we designed four ‘chicken style’ cars based on flowerpots, sinks and a lot of duct tape. On top, we added a car in the style of the ‘Fun-Land Farms’ van that has several appearances in the movie, as well as an ‘egg with chicken legs’ we all know from the trailer, settling a well-known dilemma once and for all.
Expanding beyond rides, we also created two brand new Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget-inspired sandbox maps, which we designed according to the main locations of the movie. The most challenging one was the ‘Fun-Land Farms’ map, inspired by a theme park for chickens that is shown in the movie. Since the Fun-Land Farms in the movie is an indoor park, we needed to find new solutions for the lighting and map border which led to a one-of-a-kind environment. . Additionally, time was spent to match the distinctive ground visuals of the original, leading to a de facto new look for the map.
The distinctive environments of the movie also had a huge impact on how we designed the scenery objects that the player can use to build shops or decorate their parks with. In contrast to classical themes like ‘Western’, ‘Candyville’ and ‘Alien Planet,’ there wasn’t just one Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget environment throughout the movie. Therefore, we identified three main ones which we turned into sets of multiple assets. Overall, a lot of effort was spent to make sure the player could recreate the whole movie in detail. At some point during production, we even noticed that the initial planned number of scenery objects was too low for what we needed, so we added an extra set, resulting in a whopping 280+ pieces to get creative with. On top of that, we designed a wide set of prefabricated shops to make sure that everyone can start a Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget Park right away.
Being Chicken Run fans ourselves, creating the DLC was an extraordinary experience and lots of fun. While there were challenges, all of them turned into unique designs and benefits for the player. While there is already lots to ‘eggsplore’, the assets just lay the foundation of what players will create with the community. Thanks to Community Content introduced to the game in October, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget creations can be shared cross-platform directly from the game menu. We’re definitely looking forward to all the chicken madness that is to come!
Finally, as a thank-you from the studio to the early adopters of the game, players who pre-ordered Park Beyond as a Standard, Impossified and Deluxe edition, digital or physical, will be able to claim this DLC for free when it launches. The process to redeem the DLC will be shared on Bandai Namco Europe.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget Theme World is now available along with the release of the movie exclusively on Netflix.
