We’ve been rolling out a ton of Disney Infinity 3.0 features since our cover reveal, and they’ve focused on the Star Warsplaysets, the people who design the characters, and more. The playsets are certainly a big part of the Disney Infinity series – especially when you have Star Wars in your corner – but they’re not the only thing it has to offer. In addition a pair of new Toy Box games, Toy Box Takeover and Speedway, the Toy Box itself is getting some big new features, refinements, and even a whole new way of playing. We spoke to some of the expert creators at Avalanche Software to learn more about what’s ahead in 3.0.
Avalanche Software had a community in mind from the very start of Disney Infinity. Building in the free-form Toy Box is fun in itself, but without the ability to share creations with the rest of the world, the mode would have fizzled out long ago. Fortunately, players have been able to upload their own Toy Boxes and download those that other players have shared.
Avalanche discovered that creative players were coming up with things that the studio hadn’t considered. With Disney Infinity 2.0, the developers decided to hire some of Infinity’s top creators and bring them into their Salt Lake City offices. There, they generate weekly creations, experiment with the tools, and give the development team suggestions on what these builders would like to see in the future.
During our Avalanche visit, we got to see what’s new in the Toy Box. We also picked the brains of some of these Toy Box masters to learn how some of the new tools and features will make life easier for novice builders and experts alike.
A New Harvest
As we highlighted in our cover story, farming is the most obvious addition to Disney Infinity 3.0’s Toy Box. Avalanche has been refining the fighting and driving systems, but they don’t want the game to be simply about those two facets. With 3.0, the studio introduces more content for the so-called nurturing players, who may not want to smack faces around all day long.
The farming system lets players cultivate and harvest crops, either solo or with the help of one of many sidekick buddies. In addition to making life more efficient, there’s a reason the buddies are linked to this activity: They eat food. Feed your companion a freshly picked tomato, an ear of corn, or even one of Pumba’s grubs (?!?), and your sidekick gains experience in one of several areas. That means the sidekicks become better helpers, as well as stronger companions in the new Toy Box Takeover dungeon-crawler game.
Toy Machine
Disney Infinity constantly gives players new sidekicks, enemies, track pieces, landscaping items, logic toys, blocks, and more Toy Box accoutrements. It’s a great incentive to keep playing, but it also can be overwhelming. When you’re bombarded with new building pieces and elements, it can be tough to appreciate what you have and what’s cool about what you just unlocked. The new Dispenser toy has been designed to address just that predicament.
This new device – similar to an oversized gumball machine – is loaded with toy-filled capsules. Stand on its button, and a capsule pops out, containing a random Toy Box item that you’ve already unlocked. When you chuck it onto the ground, its contents are revealed. Perhaps you’ll get something from Infinity 1.0 that you’ve long forgotten about. Or maybe it’s a vehicle that you never drove. Every new Toy Box world starts out with one of these dispensers in it, to encourage players to check it out. This is a clever way to breathe new life into existing content.