Bluetongue Before Barnyard: A Look Into The Rise of Bluetongue Entertainment Before Nickelodeon’s Barnyard

28 Apr

When I was moving from my Grandmother's house to another with my mother and sister, I had the opportunity to go through my belongings which had piled into the back of my wardrobe, and supported the bottom of my bed frame for the last few years of my life. I found many different things. An old copy of a random Spider-Man issue, some t-shirts lost to time (and devoured by some sort of critter), and tucked away inside a large zipped up storage bag, my Nintendo GameCube with two games.

MarioKart: Double Dash and Nickelodeon's Barnyard. My excitement was only triggered by the latter.

Nickelodeon's Barnyard has always been an anomaly to me. A semi-decent, open world game, focused entirely on minigames, missions and a ‘night barn’ system (all which will be discussed later in this article) based semi-fully on its movie counterpart. It was truly nothing special when it was released, the GameCube version garnering a 67 on Metacritic, with IGN stating that “It’s not perfect by any means, but what can you expect from a game that can’t tell the difference between a boy cow and a girl cow?” which alone says a lot on how serious the game was perceived by game critic outlets at the time. The only indication of its success is a 2008 GameDeveloper blog by Eric Caoili, in which THQ reported a $1b profit from their Nickelodeon titles, a bittersweet note given THQ’s decision to close the studios responsible just three years later. And yet, I love it. A lot. I have in fact, a large custom poster on my wall, which is just the GameCube cover art for the game, and a framed custom art piece from my partner. Nights would be spent in my childhood constantly waking up to make sure my console had not turned off overnight, as I did not have a memory card, and the only way to progress in this talking animal paradise was to increase my family’s energy bill. I do not however, carry this admiration for the movie, something I rarely give a passing glance to, even as a kid. It's a strange phenomenon indeed. Lovers of Battle for Bikini Bottom surely tuned into SpongeBob Squarepants after school, or went to see Flushed Away before buying its Gameboy Advance counterpart. What is it about Barnyard as a game, which drew me in despite my lack of enjoyment for its source material? While this is an interesting question, the primary focus of this article is to explore BlueTongue’s history leading up to Nickelodeon’s Barnyard, whilst a second article will be released sometime in the future reviewing the game itself, so whilst I will look fully into the latter now, I will take the opportunity to answer the former at a later date.

For now however, let me start this by digging my metaphorical hooves into the background of this Barnyarding studio, and begin with a simple enough question.

Who were BlueTongue?

BlueTongue: Before Barnyard (BB)

When loading up GameDeveloper (previously Gamasutra) and searching ‘BlueTongue’ into the search bar, you will be met with only five results. A blog by Chris Wright on the launch of Australian indie team Surprise Attack Games from 2016, and the announcement of the opening of a Sydney office for Fruit Ninja devs Halfbrick in 2011 to name two. However all five which appear have a somewhat depressing commonality. None are about the rise of BlueTongue, but all of them mention the fall.

Specifically the blog ‘A failure, of sorts (personal commentary on the Brisbane collapse)’ posted by Leanne Taylor in 2011, which I recommend you read in its entirety for a look into the developer scene in Brisbane, Australia during that period of time. A line from this blog still carries a lot of prominence today, with the extreme layoffs and closure of fan-favourite studios:

“It could have been halted, but it wasn't[...] They are simply the way things are.”

It is sad, that BlueTongue’s biggest time in video game industry news cycle (from what I could garner) was its closure in 2011 alongside THQ Studio Australia, in a move THQ described as a ‘strategic realignment’ away from ‘licensed kids titles and movie-based entertainment properties’, as they had been around in the video game industry since 1995, with their first release AFL Finals Fever.

Founders Chris Mosely and Andrew Heath are still active today, the former being the now CEO of PlayCorp, and the latter making a more drastic change in career, being a BDM at Novachem, a company which 'specialises in in providing certified environmental and forensic standards and solvents to research and analytical companies throughout Australia.’ Definitely a bit of a far cry from game development. Though important to the creation of BlueTongue, these two will not be mentioned much further from this point.

So, where did it all really kick off for our Aussie All-Stars? Well, as luck would have it, ‘Star’ is in the name.

I’m Doing My Part!

There are moments when I feel like a bit of a “Faux Nerd” — being into somewhat of an ‘underground classic’ like Barnyard may have you think I am part of quite a few circles like this, but nothing shows this to not be the case more than Starship Troopers, the 1997 Paul Verhoeven film about giant arachnids and military propaganda, and something I have zero knowledge about whatsoever.

However, I do have a connection to one part of this franchise, Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy, a real-time strategy game released on November 10, 2000, for the European market, developed by our titular Australian team, Bluetongue Entertainment. That connection? Researching it for this article.

Above - An image grab taken from Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy

Before Terran Ascendancy, BlueTongue had no licensed titles to their name, a stark comparison to their mid to late 2000’s catalogue. In fact,the only games under their proverbial belt at this time would be the aforementioned AFL Finals Fever in 1996, and Riding Star in 1998, the latter being a horse/equestrian simulation game for Microsoft Windows. Given their limited portfolio, it was a bold move to entrust such a beloved franchise to an Australian studio with little experience in handling somewhat high-profile IPs.What is even more captivating here is the team. Nick Hagger was given the role as Game Director, a first in his career. His previous credits? A tester for The Dame Was Loaded, a 1996 DOS-based adventure puzzle game notable for its use of pre-rendered backgrounds.

Above: Image grab of a scene from The Dame Was Loaded

Alongside him was composer Stephan Schütze, which according to site MobyGames, a cataloging site of those who work in the games industry, Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy was indeed his first composing job within the gaming industry. These two will come up again in future, but alongside them is a team of fresh faced individuals, tasked with a beloved IP. The fear of failure must have been palpable.

Despite these challenges, the game received a generally positive reception. A strong 7.3/10 from IGN’s Stephen Butts, noting that while the inclusion of power suits and other film elements were appreciated, the gameplay itself lacked variety, stating ‘while the prospect of small squad strategy in a futuristic setting against an arachnid enemy sounds cool, there's just not enough variety in the game. I usually just clumped my troops in one big blob and marched them up to each of the enemy's strong points.’

GameSpy writer Tim ‘Juan Golbez’ McConnaughy, who provided the game with an admirable 78, states that overall, ‘If you are a hardcore gamer that doesn't mind a game you won't be able to take online, but will still provide an awesome experience, yes.’

The game definitely seemed to cater to dedicated Starship Troopers fans — much like Bluetongue’s earlier AFL Finals Fever had catered to fans of Australian rules football. This early attempt at catering to niche markets may have hinted at the studio’s direction in the years to come. However, the decision of if niche market development would define Bluetongue’s future was ultimately up to one particular company.

Welcome…to Jurassic Park (Operation Genesis)

By time 2001 arrived, Universal had already greenlit the creation of eighteen Jurassic Park titles, jumping between developers over the eight year span since the first game in 1993 (for perspective, that is averaged at two games each year for eight years) developed by Ocean Software for the Gameboy and NES. Impressed with their recent title Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy, Universal shortlisted BlueTongue for their next Jurassic Park title, which would later be known as Operation Genesis, a construction and tycoon management simulator. Though against five other international companies for the chance of development, and no previous experience in tycoon games, BlueTongue were chosen for this audacious role, and development began sometime in 2001.

The team which worked on Starship Troopers, including both Nick Hagger and Stephan, had returned mostly for this game. Joining the team was a fresh face, Kevin Chan, who contributed a remarkable blog post titled Postmortem: Blue Tongue Software's Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. In this detailed piece, he delves into the game's development process and the obstacles encountered along the way. As his inaugural experience as a Project Manager, both at BlueTongue and in general, Kevin offered a new perspective on the game's creation within his piece, and will too come up again in future.

As if knowing that their choosing for this game’s development showed them as the underdogs compared to previous JP titles created by powerhouse Konami, Bluetongue went ambitious. In early development, it had already decided that the title would hit all three major markets, Sony’s Playstation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox, and PC, with a GameCube version also in development some time in 2002/3. The team also decided to pack everything they could into the title. This included over fourty dinosaurs, aquatic dinosaurs, baby versions of said dinos. A petting zoo. A hotel. A hunting platform. A vet station. The list goes on, Stephan Schutze even enlisted the help of the Melbourne Symphony to help create an authentic to Jurassic Park soundtrack for the game. BlueTongue truly wanted their first swing at the tycoon management genre to be a home run. However, when production slowed dramatically in early 2002, cuts needed to be made. Forty dinos? Now it's twenty five, almost half had been removed. Baby dinos? No more, and the four unique building types mentioned above, alongside the aquatic dinosaurs were also removed to save time on development. The worst of it came in 2003, where the aforementioned GameCube version was cancelled. Chan hopefully ends his section on these lost features by stating:

‘[...]these features were cut for good reasons. However, if there's ever an expansion pack or sequel, I'm hoping that some of these features will make an appearance.’

It isn’t surprising that these cuts had to be made. Kevin Chan mentions in his postmortem that ‘This was the first time we developed a game for multiple platforms simultaneously’, but this doesn’t mean that the team was not prepared. Their ambitions above were thrusted forwards by the creation of Toshi, an all new game engine made by BlueTongue specifically for Operation Genesis. Made to be reusable even after JP:OG, the engine was, as Chan states, ‘very modular’ with things such as ‘shaders (used for rendering), game creatures, and GUI objects’ all being plug-ins for Toshi, with room to expand, grow and improve. A full deep dive into the engine can be found in Kevin Chan’s full postmortem as mentioned before, as well as the entire development process. Chan ends the blog with the following:

‘Credit must go to the entire Operation Genesis team for all their talent, dedication, and hard work[...]’

When the game was released, the reviews were split between positive and negative depending on the version played. The Xbox version seemed to face some criticism more than the other versions. Aaron Boulding’s 5.9/10 review concludes by stating ‘As good as the control system is on Xbox, games like this just aren't as appealing on console’, highlighting how the graphics won’t ‘knock your socks off’, and whilst he states that ‘The combination of playing god and having the skill of a strategist do come together very nicely in Jurassic Park’, the overall systems implemented into the game, such as ‘ill-timed natural disasters’ which cause park damage, and ‘economic pressure’ present themselves as a system which, in Boulding’s words, ‘[...] unintuitive at best and utterly confusing at worst.’

The only comment on this review was left twenty years later, on 17th July, 2023, by user kreygen98, who simply states:

‘Aaron Boulding was so clueless lol’

The PC version however received high praise, quite high even. Daniel Buck on game review site Gamezilla, whilst stating overall that the game is for ‘fans only’, the review itself was totaled to be an 87/100 on Metacritic, stating that ‘gameplay is smooth and almost lag free’ on the PC, and that ‘controlling some aspects of the game will take a bit of effort, but will quickly become second nature.’ Perhaps Boulding’s thoughts on the Xbox’s inability to handle such games was true, but considering GamePro.com (which seems to sadly no longer be around, the link itself now connecting to PCWorld) score has been calculated as a 90 on Metacritic, this being for the Xbox version, its safe to say that enjoyment for the game was truly split. Dan Elektro of GamePro ends the review stating:

‘Operation Genesis offers enough variety and a bit of real action to not only set it apart but also keep players very satisfied’.

Operation Genesis sold 400,000 copies by 2008 according to a report from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), 100,000 of these alone being from the United Kingdom, earning the game the Silver Sales Award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA). With the success of Operation Genesis, BlueTongue was on the up and up. A small Australian Studio had now moved from Australian Rules Football, to the Jurassic Park franchise in just under a decade. The question of course was what would THQ give them to do next? Well in the next part of this article, I will have the pleasure of speaking on my favourite video game of all time, Nickelodeon's Barnyard, before tying this impressive yet somewhat bittersweet story up with a bankruptcy bow. This next article will be released sometime this year.