Michel Ancel

Name: Michel Ancel
Notable creations and work: Rayman, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, Beyond Good and Evil, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, and Rayman Raving Rabbids
Born: March 29, 1972
Died: Currently Living

Biographical Summary

Michel Ancel is a French Game Designer that is responsible for the Rayman series, Beyond Good and Evil, and Peter Jackson's King Kong: the Official Game of the Movie. Ancel was snapped up at 17 years old by Nicolas Choukroun, a Ubisoft game designer, and began working for Ubisoft as a graphic artist. In his beginning years at Ubisoft he worked primarily on the graphics of The Intruder, The Teller, and Pick n' Pile; he is also credited for the story of Pick n' Pile. In 1990, he did graphics work and programming for Ubisoft's Brain Blaster. Only three years after he was hired, at the age of 19, Ubisoft let him begin to direct his first game, Rayman, which would become one of the most iconic characters in gaming history. In 1995 Rayman was released; the game was extremely successful and went he went on to design the sequel, Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Ancel's brainchild, Beyond Good and Evil, was born in 2003 and met with great critical acclaim, but a commercial failure. Peter Jackson, who became a huge fan of Beyond Good and Evil, approached Ancel to create the game for his King Kong remake; Ancel accepted and the game was released in 2005. Ancel also designed Rayman Raving Rabbids, but felt that Rayman was being worn out and losing interest in the series. He felt that over the last decade his likes and dislikes and view of the world had changed and it was no longer

appropriate for him to work on Rayman. In 2006, Ancel was knighted as a knight of arts and literature, with Shigeru Miyamoto and Frederick Raynal, by the French Minister of Culture and Communication. This was the first time video game designers were knighted and a huge step for the implications of video games in the art world and today's culture. He is now in production as the designer for Beyond Good and Evil 2, in which he has always shown in great interest in exploring further.

Work

Ancel's philosophy, concerning game design, is to focus on immersion and the player's freedom. The fact that Ancel is also in tune with the artistic side of games is clearly evident in his games in which he tries to immerse the player through rich color and visually more "realistic" gameplay, such as King Kong.

While Ancel is a French game designer, he doesn't have the "French" designing tendencies that other designers are said to have. In fact, he doesn't even believe that this is tendency exists. He believes that French game producers are more willing to produce more questionable games, unlike more cautious US game producers.