Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
a video game for your cel phone from the excellent people at Kuju Wireless.

Our Exclusive Interview with the creative babes and dudes behind this outstanding new video game!

Bill & Ted's Excellent Online Adventure: Tell us about Kuju Wireless . . . what you do and how you got started creating video games for phone systems.

Kuju: Kuju Wireless is one of the leading mobile phone games publishers, producing a wide range of quality branded and original games.  We first started working on mobile phone games early in 2000 and quickly established ourselves as a market leader first in WAP and SMS games, with titles such as The Weakest Link and FIFA, and then subsequently in Symbian and Java games, with titles such as Space Impact, Lotus Challenge and Judge Dredd.

B&TEOA: What made you decide to do a phone game based on Bill & Ted?  Were you all fans of the movie?

Kuju: We're always on the lookout for quality brand opportunities and so jumped at the chance of working with 'Bill & Ted' after meeting the film agents at a trade show.  Several key team members are long-term fans of the films (including the lead designer), and they quickly converted the rest of the team to 'be excellent to one another'.

B&TEOA: What did you look at for inspiration?  The movies?  The animated series?  Previous computer games featuring Bill and Ted?

LK: The inspiration was drawn mainly from the first film, and the game follows the main plot line of traveling to several time zones.  The main artistic license we employed was to introduce Death from the 2nd film in our 'Don't fear the Reaper' feature which the player can use to reset puzzles.  The film agents provided lots of useful advice and feedback for us, and was heavily involved in editing the dialogue to ensure it sounds genuine for the characters.

B&TEOA: It must have been tricky taking characters and making them work in a game which will be played on a small screen.  How did you work through this process and come up with the character designs?

Kuju: Representing larger-than-life characters like Bill and Ted was always going to be a challenge, but I'm sure you'll agree that our artists did a fantastic job of capturing the correct look.  Our in-house development team has created more than 60 games and so they know all the tricks to use to produce the best graphical effects on a small mobile screen.

B&TEOA: Unlike previous Bill and Ted computer games in this new game you get to play both Bill & Ted at the same time!  Explain more about how this works, as I think this aspect will really appeal to the fans!

Kuju: We felt that the game should feature both Bill and Ted working cooperatively as this was a key theme in the films.  Therefore we started with this as the main design remit.  To achieve this we determined that they should have a range of skills.  Using just the directional buttons you can make them run, swim, push things, pick up objects, open doors, talk to people, drive the Wyld Stallyns van, ride a horse - even herd cows!  We've made the controls very simple and intuitive, but the range of things you can do is very wide, which makes for a fun game.  There is a also comprehensive tutorial provided by Rufus to get the player off to a good start.

An example of the teamwork required is that Bill might have to stand on a pressure pad to open a door allowing Ted to retrieve a prize item from the previously locked room.

Other skills such as swimming and pushing large rocks are unique to either Bill or Ted and the player has to discover the strengths of each in order to solve some of the trickier puzzles.

B&TEOA: You also created original music for the game.  Could you tell us a bit about this process and what you used as inspiration?

Kuju: Music for mobile phone games has to work on a variety of handsets each with differing music capabilities.  This makes composing music for mobile phones a real skill and so we use a specialist musician who has always performed well for us.  We wanted the music for the game to represent the music style from the film but also stand alone as a contemporary tune.  The musician watched the film several times and then produced a number of samples from which we and the film agents chose the final piece.

B&TEOA: Are there any special tricks or easter eggs in the game which fans can find as they play?

Kuju: There are several places where you can discover secret rooms which gives you the chance to earn bonus points.  I shouldn't really tell you this but there are also hidden levels set on famous dates that you'll have to discover by entering famous years into the phone box (yes, of course we included the phone box!) and these feature famous people and events from throughout history.

B&TEOA: Did your team have fun creating this game and working with the Bill and Ted characters?

Kuju: 'It was like, totally awesome!'  Seriously though - this game was a joy to work on and the team put in many extra hours polishing the gameplay and squeezing in neat little features.

We are sure the players will have as much fun playing the game as we did making it.  You'll meet up with Joan of Arc, Billy the Kid, Socrates, Rufus (the dude from the future), Missy, Ted's Dad, Colonel Oats (still trying to get the boys to military academy) and more.  Your old friend Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is also around to lend you a hand when you need it.  There are also bonus levels, snakes, rabid dogs, icy lakes to negotiate, outlaws to outwit and princesses to placate.  It's a really fun adventure you can dip back into whenever you have a spare moment and we think you'll really enjoy it.

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