I SPY Pirate Ship (PC, 2015) - Full Playthrough

[@nex1788]

Addressing some comments and in case it was not clear in the description: (which, I can see why. It was quite ramble-y.) I played I Spy Pirate Ship using a RealSense F200 3D webcam. This is to my knowledge exactly what is required to play this game from the time it came out. And, this the only way to play it. There are no fan modifications or whatever to remove the requirement in case you were wondering, and I do not believe it is possible. Attempting to open the game and after choosing a langauge results in a "You need a RealSense camera to play" and the game closes itself. I got my camera for my birthday last year after explaining to my mom that there were no gameplay videos or walkthroughs I could find prior to this one. And so I was able to play the game that way once i got it. (Yeah, I spent my birthday practicing for this video lmao) As for how I got I Spy Pirate Ship in the first place, it was preserved by the awesome members of the Walter Wick Wiki community! (although i didnt know it at the time of this video) So shoutouts to them. Come to think of it, the game itself comes with tons of other localizations in other languages such as French, Chinese, Russian, etc. and are all fully voice acted too. Maybe one day I can come back to this game and record the other localizations just for preservation's sake.

[@sbilman414]

Wow! I worked on this game and I can't believe you got it up and running again. That's dedication. It was only made to work with the real sense camera, because the game was funded by Intel to introduce their "new" tech to kids and families. The art was created to look it's best on a Lenovo screen, so it's not quite optimized for a PC. I'm the founder of Monkey Bar Collective, and we made this game. I worked at Scholastic for 10 years and have been a part of all the I SPY CDs, the gameboy and the first Wii game. I wrote, Fantasy, the update to Spooky and Mystery. Thanks for continuing to be a fan. It's work I'm super proud of and I'm delighted that you're helping it live on.

[@canyouseewhatispy]

Aaaaaaa! It's so nice to hear from someone who worked on the games. Thank you for helping create such an amazing and memorable game series! I figured there had to be some reason Pirate Ship was made with such a specific camera requirement, so it being funded with that purpose makes sense.

[@sbilman414]

@@canyouseewhatispy Hello! I just took a quit look at your videos and wiki. THANK YOU! You've documented a decade of my career. It's like falling into a time portal and finding old friends. Love that you have skeleton as your icon. I'm happy to answer any question you might have about I Spy games, but it looks like you've put together tons of information in the Wiki.

[@canyouseewhatispy]

@@sbilman414 😭 I am glad you like the wiki, my uploads, and Skelly! I means a lot knowing one of the game creators enjoys it. The wiki is a work in progress since there's a lot of I Spy content, but other fans and I have tried to document the main things so far at the least. I will try and come up with some questions to ask and also ask the discord if they have questions! Thank you so much for being willing to answer questions! A few I can come up with off the bat/friends have asked: For the games, how much of each scene was photographed vs computer edited? Were some games more photographed or edited than others? Do you have information on items that feature in the game? A lot of fans in the community like hunting down items that feature in the games/books in real life and collect them. How much involvement did Wick and Marzollo actually have in the games? I imagine the involvement varied by game. Did you have a personal favorite game you worked on? 🥰 Were there plans for other I Spy/CYSWIS games that didn't happen? I understand if you can't answer this one due to NDA's and things. Do you have a favorite fact/piece of trivia about any of the games? Which I Spy game was the hardest to make?

[@sbilman414]

@@canyouseewhatispy Hi, Those are some great questions. About the images being photographed and edited: All of the CD ROM and Gameboy game images start with photographs with two exceptions. In the first I Spy (and also School Days) Balloon Popper and Wood Block City were created in 3D. It was a test to see if 3D was a photo realistic enough option. I think Balloon Popper works well, but less successful for Wood Block City. All the screens have some level of digital manipulation. Most of the backgrounds are sets - dollhouse or actual size - that are lit and photographed as complete as possible. We'd also photograph tons of objects separately. Then add them in later. Especially the ones with bigger animations. We usually wrote the final riddles after the photoshoots so we'd need to add things in for the game play. We also used book images for the town in Treasure Hunt and the outside of Skelly's house and his ghost machine. We'd manipulate them to add items or change proportions. But we really tried to make sure everything start with something real. About the items in the games: Yes! I have lots of information about them. I found lots of the props. Some from my home. What the Moon Brought in the Spooky Chest is my mom's childhood book. My aunt made the blanket and those are my striped slippers. We rented some from shops. Bought tons of dollhouse furniture. Bespaq was my fav brand. And I found lots of old things in flea markets. Walter gave us the mermaid and space men in Fantasy. I still have them. He taught us how to make the clouds into shapes. For the books, some of the unusual props, like the clowns in Fun House were found by Walter's wife Linda who is a stylist. Walter and Jean had approval that the beginning of each project. They were shown a full set of sketches and the basic story line. In the beginning Jean used to review all of my riddles. She was very particular that every word be recognizable to a five year old. I had to add black in front of cauldron because of that. She trusted me more later and did less review. Walter gave photography advice in the beginning of a project. Told us how he'd achieved certain lighting. And our main photographer, John Bessler, had been one of Walter's assistants at the beginning of his career. John did amazing lighting on the sets. I love them all but I think Fantasy is my favorite. It was the first time I was the lead game designer and we had some much fun making the game. It's the only meetings I've ever been in where the teams wondered what a mermaid would have in her bedroom. I also had a ton of fun with the GameBoy one. I left Scholastic in 2008 when the first Wii was wrapped up. I freelanced on the props and photoshoot for Challenger - the touch screen game. And the writing and art for Pirate Ship was all freelance. So I don't know of any "undone" projects. There is some amazing art in the Scholastic archives if anyone there was to do updates. It would be great to make CYSWIS games. Here's a little trivia, Amy Birnbaum, who is the voice of Skelly and the princess was a producer in our team. We recorded the scratch VO with her to use during game production. Then, when everything was written we went into a sound studio and recorded a different actor as Skelly. Once we put those files into the game, no one liked the new voice. We had all gotten used to Amy. So we did another session with her in the sound studio. And she has always been Skelly. She's also worked on other cartoons since then. (Oh, Joy, the original art director on Spooky, called the skeleton Jack. This is before the Nightmare Before Christmas) The hardest to make: I think it would have to be the first one. It was hard to get Walter and Jean to agree to make it. And everything was being figured out from scratch. (I was a programmer on that game) Every subsequent game got a little smoother and we learned a little more. The longest production time was I Spy Fantasy. That was the biggest one. Shuffling all the screens into mystery case files, was my idea for making "new" riddles without doing big photoshoots. I think it still turned out fun. Hope you are happy with these answers. Sharon

[@canyouseewhatispy]

@@sbilman414 AAAAAAAAAAAAA thank you so much for answering! That's all so interesting. Hearing about some of the back-end process is great, especially when a lot of the back-end processes for the games hasn't ever been publicly explained before. I really appreciate you being so thorough and detailed about all of this 😭 If you're still willing, I have a few follow up questions: On average, how large were the sets? The game photos can really make the sets look smaller than they probably were due to display limitations of the time. What was the largest set you worked on? My guess is Smuggler's Cove, but I am unsure. Was an I Spy Christmas game ever considered that you're aware of? I always assumed one wasn't made due to it being very timely, so it'd be less relevant unless it was around Christmas time and impact sales, or due to the religious nature of it. For the Fantasy mermaid, it's so cool you still have her! She's one of the props I've been trying to find one to own. I know Wick gave her to you, but do you have any identifying information about her like a date, company, material she's made out of, etc? Any identifying information would be amazing. For the Fantasy dragon, based on the credits, I assume it was custom made, right? If so, I guess I couldn't get one myself lol. If it wasn't custom made, any identifying info you have about it other than the credits information, 2001 Lanka Novelties, would be great too. Similarly, I assume the aliens from Fantasy were also custom made? If not, any information you have about those would be great as well. What are your personal favorite props from the games? And if you have info on them so we could find them in the real world, that'd be awesome. It'd be really cool to own copies of some of your favorite props :)

[@RedLionKNC]

Woah! I love the I Spy PC games, but I had no idea this one existed!

[@RoamerMonkeyTummy]

Thanks so much for going out of your way to get the expensive camera just for this game and for uploading this online! Again, real shame this game is locked behind that camera. There's also another obscure, discontinued PC I Spy game almost no one played called I Spy Challenger, and just yesterday did the community found a way to download and play that game. I just uploaded a tutorial on how to do that and a playthrough of the game if you want to check it out.

[@nex1788]

Thank you for watching my video!! I really appreciate you enjoying it. And I've heard about I Spy Challenger omg! :O I actually witnessed it being found firsthand because I'm in the Walter Wick Wiki/Can You See What I Spy discord server! Several members including me have already got it working. I'll be sure to watch your videos on Challenger!

[@RoamerMonkeyTummy]

@@nex1788 Yeah, someone from that discord server also let me know about the game being found. It's probably more fun to play the game (and it was more fun than I expected) than to watch my videos on it, but be my guest!

[@dempseyvegeta1754]

@@nex1788where do you get this game

[@amajorpleb8422]

Lost childhood memories have been uncovered. Thank you Nex.

[@M1D3N]

NO WAY!!! I BEEN WANTING TO REPLAY ONE OF THESE AGAIN FROM MY CHILDHOOD AND YOU DO IT!!!! (also happy birthday dude!)

[@Aidenninja2424]

Captain wildbeard sounds like torbjorn from overwatch

[@ThePlasmicAlchemist]

So, I might sound a little harsh, but I had no idea modern I Spy games were so lacking in sauce. I only have experience with 90s & early 2000s PC I Spy, where every hidden thingamabob had their own fun special animation! Here, it's just a sparkle and a jingle...

[@nex1788]

Don't worry, I was thinking the same thing haha. At least they put lots of effort into the detail of all the scenes!!

[@roninnozlo9544]

when the eye is spied

[@eater999]

Comment for keeping track of my own score (excluding mini games that I can't play from here): 2:35 8/9 4:14 10/10 5:53 9.5/10 (i thought that was the crab but I wasn't sure) 7:20 10/10 8:54 10/10 10:08 10/11 (excluding wet match as that cannot be seen initially) 11:50 13/13 13:35 12/12 15:28 10/10 24:08 10/10 25:33 10/11 (I feel kind of cheated here) 27:35 11/13 29:27 14/15 33:54 12/13 33:49 13/13 38:22 15/15 40:23 10/10 43:23 11/11 49:22 14/14 52:22 16/16 55:00 17/17 57:08 12.5/13 (assumed 2nd crab was final fish) 1:00:30 13/13 1:00:08 8/8 1:04:15 11/15 1:07:54 10/10 1:11:46 13/14 Overall score: 313/326 or about 96% of objects found on my own. However, I only got 19/27 riddle 100%ed (counting both halves as a success) or about 70%

[@AJPiersonToonParadise]

Well then, someone actually managed to play this game. It has a similar vibe to Treasure Hunt.

[@williameusterwiemann4551]

Do try and get the leapster I spy games

[@saint_squared525]

I swear the game hostess’s voice is the one who plays Dawn from Pokemon. Is there a proper staff roll we can see to get some confirmation?

[@nex1788]

Hi there! I wish I could provide a conclusive answer, but as far as I know I could neither find anything in the game that displays the credits, nor in the game's files. The only people who are credited at all for work on the game are some of the people who built the props and setups for the scenes in the game (Art director: Eleanor Shelton), and the one who photographed them all (Photography: Brian Bloom). And that was in a blog post from the developers' website (Monkey Bar Collective), not in the game itself. So yeah through my research that was all I could find. Sorry! :(

[@LocalTorchwoodIntern]

Honestly that kinda tracks once you notice that Skelly from Spooky Mansion and the Princess in Fantasy is voiced by 4kids Charmy Bee and Jason Griffith did the riddle readings in the Wii ver of Spooky Mansion..if that is the case

[@dempseyvegeta1754]

@@nex1788do a live video of you play all i spy pc games

[@sbilman414]

@@nex1788 The voice over in this game is Emily Bauer. The person who did Skelly and the Princess had moved by the time we made this game. Sorry for the late answer.

[@nex1788]

@@sbilman414 No problem! Thanks for the response. Oh, indeed, Emily Bauer also played Dawn from Pokemon! Neat!

[@TacoDeluxe]

How were you able to play this game? Is it an old copy of it? I need to know!!

[@EmeraldZebra-tp6uo]

Is it possible to still play this game?

[@d-bonecapone95]

I’m a huge I Spy fan, I’ve made hundreds of I Spy videos of different games, can I use gameplay footage from your playthrough, I don’t make money from KZbin I just do it for fun… I can link to your video and give you credit… I can also cover up the mirror picture if you need me to that’s fine