The online action-adventure mobile game LEGO Star Wars: Castaways is available now on Apple Arcade and playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV and StarWars.com took a closer look at the game and spoke with three of the brains behind it, Gameloft manager Lee Kaburis, GameLoft creative director Jacques Durand and Lucasfilm Games executive producer Craig Derrick.
If you were a LEGO Star Wars character, who would you be? That question lies at the very heart of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, an online, action-adventure mobile game available now on Apple Arcade and playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. In LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, players build and customize their own in-game LEGO minifigure character, who they’ll use to visit a mysterious new planet, meet and team up with friends (other “Castaways”), race Microfighters, and experience classic Star Wars moments. There are puzzles to solve and battles to fight, as well as a strong social component, as players can meet with friends in the Social Hub and communicate through LEGO emotes. In other words, there’s a ton to do, and there’s never been a LEGO Star Wars game like it.
StarWars.com: How did you develop the story of the game?
Craig Derrick: Early in development, we knew we wanted to create a never-before-seen location with a mysterious history and a new cast of characters. We also wanted to allow familiar characters, moments, and elements from the Star Wars saga that everyone knows and loves.
To do that, the Lucasfilm Games team worked very closely with the Lucasfilm Story Group and the creatives at Gameloft early on to identify a framing story and worldbuilding that would allow us an entry point that sets up the plot and structure of the story, while also giving the player the agency and freedom to create their narrative.
Lee Kaburis: We worked closely with Lucasfilm Games to plan out the eight chapters of the narrative of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways. Our senior narrative designer worked with the Lucasfilm Story Group, as well as the Gameloft team, to build it into the narrative that we have today.
Our narrative designer would work on the story, we’d have some reviews internally, and when we felt that a certain section of the narrative was in a good enough state, we’d send it over to the Lucasfilm team for review and feedback. We would schedule meetings to discuss feedback live with Lucasfilm and, believe it or not, in pre-pandemic times, we actually met face to face, as well!
We would also invite the Lucasfilm team to play the game with us at various milestones so that they could get a feel of what the game was shaping up to be so that could, in turn, fuel all of our creative juices. It was really an honor for all of us to get the chance to work with these amazing, real-life encyclopedias of everything Star Wars and be given the privilege of creating this unique and original storyline and cast of characters for our game.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He currently contributes to ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com and Star Wars Insider, having previously written for StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Starburst Magazine, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia and Model and Collectors Mart.
He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since it began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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The online action-adventure mobile game LEGO Star Wars: Castaways is available now on Apple Arcade and playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV and StarWars.com took a closer look at the game and spoke with three of the brains behind it, Gameloft manager Lee Kaburis, GameLoft creative director Jacques Durand and Lucasfilm Games executive producer Craig Derrick.
If you were a LEGO Star Wars character, who would you be? That question lies at the very heart of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, an online, action-adventure mobile game available now on Apple Arcade and playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. In LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, players build and customize their own in-game LEGO minifigure character, who they’ll use to visit a mysterious new planet, meet and team up with friends (other “Castaways”), race Microfighters, and experience classic Star Wars moments. There are puzzles to solve and battles to fight, as well as a strong social component, as players can meet with friends in the Social Hub and communicate through LEGO emotes. In other words, there’s a ton to do, and there’s never been a LEGO Star Wars game like it.
StarWars.com: How did you develop the story of the game?
Craig Derrick: Early in development, we knew we wanted to create a never-before-seen location with a mysterious history and a new cast of characters. We also wanted to allow familiar characters, moments, and elements from the Star Wars saga that everyone knows and loves.
To do that, the Lucasfilm Games team worked very closely with the Lucasfilm Story Group and the creatives at Gameloft early on to identify a framing story and worldbuilding that would allow us an entry point that sets up the plot and structure of the story, while also giving the player the agency and freedom to create their narrative.
Lee Kaburis: We worked closely with Lucasfilm Games to plan out the eight chapters of the narrative of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways. Our senior narrative designer worked with the Lucasfilm Story Group, as well as the Gameloft team, to build it into the narrative that we have today.
Our narrative designer would work on the story, we’d have some reviews internally, and when we felt that a certain section of the narrative was in a good enough state, we’d send it over to the Lucasfilm team for review and feedback. We would schedule meetings to discuss feedback live with Lucasfilm and, believe it or not, in pre-pandemic times, we actually met face to face, as well!
We would also invite the Lucasfilm team to play the game with us at various milestones so that they could get a feel of what the game was shaping up to be so that could, in turn, fuel all of our creative juices. It was really an honor for all of us to get the chance to work with these amazing, real-life encyclopedias of everything Star Wars and be given the privilege of creating this unique and original storyline and cast of characters for our game.
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He currently contributes to ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com and Star Wars Insider, having previously written for StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Starburst Magazine, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia and Model and Collectors Mart.
He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since it began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
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If you were a LEGO Star Wars character, who would you be? That question lies at the very heart of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, an online, action-adventure mobile game available now on Apple Arcade and playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. In LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, players build and customize their own in-game LEGO minifigure character, who they’ll use to visit a mysterious new planet, meet and team up with friends (other “Castaways”), race Microfighters, and experience classic Star Wars moments. There are puzzles to solve and battles to fight, as well as a strong social component, as players can meet with friends in the Social Hub and communicate through LEGO emotes. In other words, there’s a ton to do, and there’s never been a LEGO Star Wars game like it.
