I had an opportunity to buy Smurfs on NES a year ago and I had done so, because it was a European exclusive release. Living in America, it made that sort of game interesting. I wasn't even a fan of the Smurfs franchise. Anyway, when I played the game, it enthralled me and quickly became one of my top ten favorite games of all time. So yes, I think you (and the rest of the team) did a great job!

TWZ: As I had mentioned in my previous paragraph, I live in America. I own copies of both Smurfs and Asterix. I had modded my U.S. Nintendo system so that it runs Smurfs fine, though Asterix is terribly glitchy. It seems like it would be a really fun game too, from the pictures I saw. Anyway, do you know why Infogrames never marketed either of these games stateside? Also, as the programmer, did you do something really special with the timing and stuff on Asterix which would throw it off on a NTSC console?

IG: As I told you, they have the decision to sell the game in the USA. I think they did not have an office in USA when the game was released. And probably, because the characters are not very popular in your country, they thought that they would not sell many copies.

I did not do anything to prevent the game running smoothly on an american console. In fact, I did not see an american NES before the game was finished! I guess the problem is the amount of work done during the V-Blank. European consoles have a bigger V-Blank time.

TWZ: Whom had originally thought up the idea of producing a Smurfs game? Did the final product turn out as well as you had hoped? I heard both of the games had sold very well...

IG: The idea was coming from Infogrames. The Smurfs license is very strong in Europe, and the reviews of Ast�rix for GB and NES were very good. They had the right license, they had the right team, so they had the right game! I do not know how many copies they sold... They do not provide us with this information.

TWZ: Do you remember any ideas that never made it into the released Smurfs or Asterix games?

IG: We put on the game everything we planned, even more features that were not designed at the beginning. The only constraint was the time to deliver the game. We did our best during the development time.

TWZ: What was your favorite aspects from Asterix and Smurfs?

IG: We really loved the gameplay. The game was easy to start to play, and hard to complete. Our goal was that the player enjoys all the time, even if the game was difficult. It was specially funny to throw cakes to Azrael the cat near the end of the Smurfs game! And the final jump on all the Ast�rix levels was funny, specially when you crash in the wall.

TWZ: The other day I saw a Smurfs game on Playstation in my local game store...did you a hand in this game? Is it worth buying?

IG: I did not see the game. We did not do it...

TWZ: Anything else you would like to mention? I would be glad to hear it.

IG: Sure! Smurfs GBA has been released this week in Europe, and we have developed it! And Ast�rix GBA is on the shops in Europe since January 2002. Not NES stuff, but Ast�rix and Smurfs stuff.