When it comes to humor in videogames, Ubisoft’s Rabbids franchise takes the cake. The compilation of mini-games has translated into a bestselling party game franchise for Wii – a feat that’s not easy to accomplish these days when you’re not Nintendo. The games are also laugh-out-loud funny, which is also something that’s not commonplace in the interactive space. Gabrielle Shrager, senior game writer and lead narration designer on Rabbids Go Home at Ubisoft France talks about the franchise and its Hollywood influences in this exclusive interview.

Did you have any Hollywood influences in the Rabbids Go Home when you were creating the dialog?

Lots of influences! A lot of it comes from Pixar movies and also Cartoon Network like “SpongeBob,”  especially any of the irreverent humor that’s gotten really popular in the States like “The Simpsons.” “Dumb Bunnies,” which is sort of a younger version of the Rabbids. I guess that’s about it. Although, Jack, the creative director, likes to say, “Woody Allen.” (laughs) And there is a Yiddish man in the game! But, it was really fun to write because we have the opportunity to work with the eighteen character actors, the really good actors, and created 80 characters. So, 80 different stereotypical people and you run around after them and they get increasingly panicky as you get close to them, like in a Borat movie. So at first, they try to stay all calm and mellow, and they sidle away, and pretend nothing’s happening. And little by little, they get more and more panicky, and their dialog sort of goes along with that until they freak out completely.

How does the humor play?

Rabbids go crazy

It’s sort of like a comic duo, you have straight man/funny man. Like in Borat, the humans are trying to stay straight the whole time, it’s very Monty Python-esce. In fact, the infectious man--Monty Python was a huge influence for me, and with a wink or a smile, he says things like, “I’m not dead yet!” And, there’s another character who’s a typical surfer dude. There’s a fanboy who’s making all kinds of references to Star Trek. And any kind of classic and contemporary pop culture that I could think of, I just threw in there. People who pay attention will find all kinds of little detail in the dialog.

Your target audience is still families? How does that work?

Absolutely. It’s the two-tiered humor that you see in most things, like “The Simpsons,” where the kids will laugh their heads off at certain jokes and at the slapstick and stuff, which is what the Rabbids are famous for. And then their parents will get a different level of humor, so that they can actually sit down and enjoy the show, too. And that’s how we tried to do this. There’s a co-op mode so parents can play with the kids and enjoy the humor, in addition to just the slapstick Rabbid humor.

Have you worked on all of Rabbid games’ dialog?

I wrote the last one: Rabbids TV Party. That was more context creation, there was no human dialog. This is the first time that it’s a comedy adventure. So, it’s not just the mini-games. There’s actually a story to it. It’s an absurd Rabbid story, they just see the moon and decide that they have to get there, they want to swallow it or electrocute themselves, who knows. There are varying versions. We haven’t been able to ask them! (laughs). But they decided that the only way to get there would be to create a big pile, so they look around at the human world and say, “Wow, these humans have way too much stuff. They do not know what to do with it. So we’re just going to go and grab everything we can, shove it into the toilets, fill a huge pile, and just climb right on to the moon.” They get a yardstick, and they literally try to measure the number of feet that’s going to take them to get up to the moon.

Did you speak with parents and families to see if there was anything they especially liked in the previous games?

It was pretty easy to look at how well the Pixar movies have done in taking animation and making it popular for entire families. So, it becomes a much more fun experience to go to the movies with everyone. Everyone gets something out of it. So, that was definitely an inspiration to say, “We don’t want to make something that’s just purely for kids. We want to make sure it’s a family experience.” Also, hardcore Mario Kart Nintendo players will have some fun with it too. The irreverent side of the Rabbids makes it easier for us to play around and there are things that kids won’t get: the dialog that people will just laugh their asses off at if they’re a certain age! When you get your copy, you’ll be able to listen to some of that dialog and let me know if it makes you laugh.

Are there some aspects of the game that really work well with parents and kids playing together?

It’s hard to say. The things we’ve seen people hysterically laughing at is the customization mode, which is called “Inside the Wii remote,” or as we like to call it in Montpelier, “In ze Wii-mote!” The story is we heard these weird noises in the Wii remote. And we called Nintendo, and said there’s something seriously wrong with the controller. And then we stuck a microscopic camera inside and it turned out that there was a Rabbid and so we actually stuck the Rabbid inside the Wii remote, and you can play with him and talk to him.

How have you seen people interact with this Rabbid?

More Rabbids

They tend to love the level of abuse. You can shake it around, and they keep coming back for more. There’s a vice, and you can explode their heads. It’s really great that you can do that because with a lot of branded characters—you can’t imagine Disney letting us do that with Mickey Mouse. Where you can just take the Rabbid and just turn him into Wolverine if you want to, or any character that you wanted to do. Paint on him, give him tattoos, stretch him out, there are air tanks: you can blow up his eyes, you can shrink him, and lots of other things that I can’t reveal, but the more stuff you collect, the more accessories, the more mini-games you have in this feature. And that feature has been incredibly popular with just people just sitting around and just laughing their asses off.

How does the co-op gameplay work?

In the game, the co-op mode allows the second player to help in the way they do in Mario Sunshine, so they can block some of the enemies. You can also undress them, because one of the major things that you do with your bwaaa attack is to strip humans down to their undies. The second player can do that, and also use our cannonball Rabbid. He shoots a third Rabbid at the different enemies, and knocks them down. There’s a really funny animation where he goes splat against the humans and they freak out and end up in their undies. The person who’s the second in the co-op mode doesn’t have to do the challenging driving if they don’t want to, they can just be there for the fun and the comic side of it, but help out a little bit. There’s a progressive curve, because unlike the mini-games which is just about quick take-up and play, they’re about 40 levels, 15 different environments, and a lot more depth to the gameplay.

How does the gameplay evolve?

Just about every level, you pick up an extra large object, which are a directive, and it completely changes the controls. You can get a jet ski at one point, strap it on and tune up your shopping cart. There’s also a bubble bed, where you go into a hospital mode, and they’re all obsessed with hygiene, clearly freaked out that you’re making a mess, because the Rabbids just wreak havoc everywhere they go. When they’re making a mess, you eventually get to this place where there’s this infectious man who’s in a quarantine bubble bed, and you pick the bubble bed out, and then you go out onto the rooftops, and you just fly over the city, with a completely different feel to the controls. Another time, you strap on a jet plane reactor that you have to knock off the jet plane. And that makes you go a zillion times faster. You go a lot farther, a lot deeper, and it also gives us the ability to give more depth to the Rabbids by confronting them with the humans, who are their extreme opposites.

How do you cater to the hardcore gamers?

Rabbids go flying

There’s a time-attack mode, for the more hardcore players, who have to beat the game, and become obsessed with collecting every last object, hidden in every last corner. But the objective is the same: build the pile, get to the moon.