This Disney Illusion Island interview with Dlala Studios’ AJ Grand-Scrutton was edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview here.
It’s not every day that a studio gets handed the keys to Disney’s most magical property, Mickey and Friends. Recently, Dlala Studios was given that chance and more in their new game, Disney Illusion Island. In their fresh take on the Metroidvania genre, Dlala got to create their own fresh story for Disney’s Fab 4 and even were one of the historical few to create a new design for Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. Yet there were some lingering questions after hitting the credits. Like, why was there no combat? What inspired the team to create these versions of these characters? What hoops did the team have to jump through while working with Disney? This week, we sat down with Dlala studio CEO and Disney Illusion Island Creative Director/Writer AJ Grand Strutton to talk about all that and more.
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During the interview, Grand-Scrutton talked about what’s next for Disney Illusion Island and what’s currently being done to the game. “I hold out hope that over the next couple of years, the game finds its audience, and maybe there’s reason for us to go back and do DLC or bring some more Disney characters into the story somehow.”
When asked about any plans for any DLC or future plans to port Disney Illusion Island to other platforms, Grand-Scrutton said, “There are no hard plans for any stuff like that. What I’m gonna say, and what I am allowed to say, is that we’ve still got a little team on the project at Dlala. That team is paying close attention to the players; little things like… looking at what sort of quality of life stuff we can be doing or if there are any fun little updates we could be putting into the game. So, I definitely wouldn’t say this is the last you’ve seen of us working on Disney Illusion Island. But there are no big, big plans at the moment. Like I’m afraid I’m not going to be coming out anytime in the next few months and introducing a brand new Daisy five-hour add-on for the game”.
Plus, we talked about stories from the recording booth and being able to write voices for Mickey and Friends, as well as Mickey’s history that went into imagining this newly created world. We also got the answers to what’s next for Disney Illusion Island and for Dlala Studios.
Click on the audio above to listen to the full interview and hear what AJ Grand-Scrutton has to say about Dlala’s magical take on Mickey and Friends, as well as the Metroidvania genre. For some bonus fun, we even discussed his and the team’s choices for the best Disney movies. Want to read our review of the game? Find it here.
Disney Illusion Island is available now on Nintendo Switch.
