PARTNER: McDonalds | RELEASED: APR-MAY 2008
THE BEGINNING
It all began as a sketch for an eight-year-old's birthday. Wanting something special for his daughter, Fuel's CEO Mike Burns asked the shop's lead character designer to create a fairy character to mark the occasion. That drawing inspired the world of magical fairies and dragons which would lead to the digital reinvention a decades-old tradition, and give birth to a brand new entertainment property launched to tens of millions of children across the world.
This spring, children across Europe are being introduced to four fairies and four dragons that make up the world's first digital happy meal toy-the first step for McDonald's into the digital generation. With the product rolling out in forty markets, McDonald's is embracing a digital evolution. Whether it's from an Oscar-winning studio or an Ottawa based branded entertainment shop, great ideas and flawless execution are what it takes to invent the future.
MEETING WITH MCDONALD'S
In the summer of 2006, as Mike and a number of Fuellians were preparing to attend E3, he received a message asking if he would be able to meet with someone from McDonald's to talk about game development while at the conference. Sensing the appeal that Fairies and Dragons would have for a young audience, he brought the product along with him.
When Mike walked into the first meeting with McDonald's marketing, he arrived with a demo of an interactive desktop dragon, as well as the renderings of four fairies that began the adventure. The group loved the concept, and it wasn't long before the concept was developed into a world of four elemental dragons and their counterparts, four mischievous fairies who would change the way kids interact with their Happy Meal toys forever.
Mike introduced the concept of bringing the Happy Meals of millions of children to life on their computers, offering a level of interactivity and play well beyond that of a plastic figurine. The drawings on Mike's laptop still had a long way to go before they were ready for distribution. Fuel would need to build the characters from the ground up, from design, to 3D, to game development and programming to bring this dream to life.
BUILDING THE PROPERTY
Following the meeting, Mike returned to Fuel's Ottawa offices with a loaded mission-lead his team in the creation of Europe's next Happy Meal and the world's first digital Happy Meal. "I'll admit; I was nervous. It wasn't that we didn't have the ability-I'll confidently put our team up against the big studios any day-it's that this was the first time we had ever done anything of this magnitude. Having a chance to see our creation in the homes of children all across Europe is a very huge deal."
The process began with Fuel artists tweaking the characters to better fit the demographic. The dragons were retooled slightly to appeal to boys, and the fairies touched up for the girls.
"When you're creating art to appeal to the imagination of children, there are very few boundaries," said lead character artist Jessica Borutski. "When we first started developing the concept, we considered just about every shape, size and personality conceivable for the characters. The time between that first sketch and the final sometimes seems like a lifetime."
Fuel's talented team of artists finally settled on four flower-themed fairies and four elemental dragons. The Fairies would be named Sunflower, Rose, Lily, and Violet, and the dragons simply Ice, Earth, Wind and Fire.
