 Hey, this is Andrew with The Verge. We're here at the Game Developers Conference taking a look at Disney Infinity. It's a new platform from Disney. It's part game, it's part toy. It sounds an awful lot like Skyliners. Disney Infinity features a line of physical toys that you can bring into the digital world via these collectible interactive game pieces. These figures actually store, because they have memory on them, all of your experiences inside of the game. So one of the things is that we wanted to make sure that we were always writing to the memory of the toy, and that actually adds value to the consumer. That consumer can go and then take that toy to different platforms. In the world where consumers have so many different choices of consoles and mobile devices, what we wanted to do is make it so that players could take any character that they purchase from Infinity and bring it to another platform. It's the first time ever that we're bringing all of the Disney characters together under one roof. And so probably one of the most interesting challenges that we had was coming up with an art style that all the characters could live in. When you look at a character like Sully in his fiction of Monsters University, he's an 11 foot tall monster. And when you put him next to Lightning McQueen, he's a car. So we had to come up with this really unique art style where it felt like all the characters could live inside of the same universe together. So the game is divided into two parts. There's a sort of standard action game where you play through worlds starting with Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles. But more interestingly, there's a creation element that has sort of a Minecraft vibe. The Toy Box is really where we allow players to just be as creative as they want to be. We equip them with a number of different items and things that they can use to build anything from a castle in the sky to a villain's cave and everything in between. We start teaching kids right off the bat about how does driving work and how do melee mechanics work, and how does sword combat work, and how does ranged attacks work. So we teach those through a series of what we call mastery missions. And then as time progresses, we actually layer on more and more advanced techniques. The hope is that with some of the game design techniques and tools that we've actually put inside of Infinity, it's some of the same tools we use to create the game that we're actually going to get consumers thinking more about game design and thinking more about building their own skill set and what they could do. There's tutorials to teach you how to build within the Toy Box because it essentially is kind of like a level editor or some basic programming. So the trick there is to do it in the right degree in each step. The other thing is that what we're planning on doing is running a series of contests. Those contests will come at launch and then also post-launch. They're going to ask players and encourage players to submit content to Disney to be ranked and curated by us and then pushed back down to the community. So we're talking about having contests like build the coolest version of Disneyland that you can or build the most ultimate roller coaster that you can or build your favorite 80s arcade game. There are also these neat little chips that add new game elements into the world like objects based on other Disney properties or new abilities for your characters or you can rescan the entire world. Plus, more importantly, there's Tron. The other day I actually went through and created the stadium. I put down the sky and the ground to theme the entire Toy Box to be the grid. Then I took stadium pieces and actually recreated that scene, the battle scene inside of the stadium on the grid. You know, greetings programs, right when Clue is up addressing and when we see Sam for the first time. I think I've got kind of a reputation for making elaborate roller coasters around the office. I sometimes get a little carried away. I've got three kids of my own and I'm really excited to be working on a game that I just want to end up playing with them just as much as they want to play.
 Hey, this is Andrew with The Verge.
 We're here at the Game Developers Conference taking a look at Disney Infinity.
 It's a new platform from Disney.
 It's part game, it's part toy.
 It sounds an awful lot like Skyliners.
 Disney Infinity features a line of physical toys that you can bring into the digital world
 via these collectible interactive game pieces.
 These figures actually store, because they have memory on them, all of your experiences
 inside of the game.
 So one of the things is that we wanted to make sure that we were always writing to the
 memory of the toy, and that actually adds value to the consumer.
 That consumer can go and then take that toy to different platforms.
 In the world where consumers have so many different choices of consoles and mobile devices,
 what we wanted to do is make it so that players could take any character that they purchase
 from Infinity and bring it to another platform.
 It's the first time ever that we're bringing all of the Disney characters together under
 one roof.
 And so probably one of the most interesting challenges that we had was coming up with
 an art style that all the characters could live in.
 When you look at a character like Sully in his fiction of Monsters University, he's an
 11 foot tall monster.
 And when you put him next to Lightning McQueen, he's a car.
 So we had to come up with this really unique art style where it felt like all the characters
 could live inside of the same universe together.
 So the game is divided into two parts.
 There's a sort of standard action game where you play through worlds starting with Monsters
 Inc. and The Incredibles.
 But more interestingly, there's a creation element that has sort of a Minecraft vibe.
 The Toy Box is really where we allow players to just be as creative as they want to be.
 We equip them with a number of different items and things that they can use to build anything
 from a castle in the sky to a villain's cave and everything in between.
 We start teaching kids right off the bat about how does driving work and how do melee mechanics
 work, and how does sword combat work, and how does ranged attacks work.
 So we teach those through a series of what we call mastery missions.
 And then as time progresses, we actually layer on more and more advanced techniques.
 The hope is that with some of the game design techniques and tools that we've actually put
 inside of Infinity, it's some of the same tools we use to create the game that we're
 actually going to get consumers thinking more about game design and thinking more about
 building their own skill set and what they could do.
 There's tutorials to teach you how to build within the Toy Box because it essentially
 is kind of like a level editor or some basic programming.
 So the trick there is to do it in the right degree in each step.
 The other thing is that what we're planning on doing is running a series of contests.
 Those contests will come at launch and then also post-launch.
 They're going to ask players and encourage players to submit content to Disney to be
 ranked and curated by us and then pushed back down to the community.
 So we're talking about having contests like build the coolest version of Disneyland that
 you can or build the most ultimate roller coaster that you can or build your favorite
 80s arcade game.
 There are also these neat little chips that add new game elements into the world like
 objects based on other Disney properties or new abilities for your characters or you can
 rescan the entire world.
 Plus, more importantly, there's Tron.
 The other day I actually went through and created the stadium.
 I put down the sky and the ground to theme the entire Toy Box to be the grid.
 Then I took stadium pieces and actually recreated that scene, the battle scene inside of the
 stadium on the grid.
 You know, greetings programs, right when Clue is up addressing and when we see Sam for the
 first time.
 I think I've got kind of a reputation for making elaborate roller coasters around the
 office.
 I sometimes get a little carried away.
 I've got three kids of my own and I'm really excited to be working on a game that I just
 want to end up playing with them just as much as they want to play.