Dragopolis 2.0 dress up and get racing…

Start your engines! RuPaul’s Drag Race: Dragopolis is a fantabulous adventure starring a drag queen fighting for RuPaul. The evil drag queen Apocalypstyk has broken into the workroom on day one of RuPaul’s Drag Race in order to sabotage the show and kidnap the men in the pit crew. Players control our drag queen heroine, and can customize this ferocious character with sickening wigs, outfits and even their own face. In order to save the day, she races to the main stage, jumping and clawing her way past Apocalypstyk’s increasingly fierce minions, all while serving up new looks for the photo shoots! There is no RuPaulogizing in this game!

Logo and World of Wonder team up with So Much Drama Studios, the company behind the hit game Fireflies! to stir up the gaming field and IND13 caught up with them for a little chat.

In your own words, please describe RuPaul’s Drag Racing?

Dragopolis 1.0 is a crazy, fast-paced run through the streets of Dragopolis. The evil queen Apocalypstyk has kidnapped the pit crew and RuPaul needs your help to get them back! Of course, this requires a few trips to the Main Stage, which in turn requires new wigs and outfits. So perfecting your look is essential! Dragopolis 2.0 is a brand new game with seven new queens. RuPaul is all set to open her new Ruseum in downtown Dragopolis, but Apocalystyk sneaks inside and steals all the wigs and gowns. You’ll need to help the queens re-assemble their looks. This game really takes balls to play, as you’ll be shooting balls onto the play field pachinko-style to snatch up rhinestones, wigs, outfits, and shoes.

Did you ever think you would be working on a that involved drag queens??

Well, I can’t say that it was on my vision board five years ago! But seriously, I wanted there to be more gaming content that really celebrated LGBT culture, so I created Dragopolis. I’ve always been such a huge fan of drag queens and thought they would be perfect in an over-the-top, crazy adventure game. We built out the main game and got folks like Pandora Boxx and Yara Sofia involved. Eventually, the folks at RuPaul’s Drag Race heard about what we were doing and wanted to get involved as well, so we stopped everything so we could re-focus with the show being up front and centre.

How was it working with the stars of the show?

That’s the best part of the job! These queens are so creative and funny; they really help push the app to be as amazing as it is. I remember when we first got RuPaul’s sounds in the game and the whole play experience of the game just flipped. Both World of Wonder and LogoTV have been amazing to work with as well and very supportive of the game. There’s a surprising amount of detail that goes into creating this. We work with the queens on everything from wig styles to shoes to earrings making sure the look is perfect. We also help them brainstorm a few ideas for their voice work, but to be honest, the best stuff comes when they just open up and let loose! They love being able to interact with their fans this way; there’s a lot of love in all of those recordings! It’s been an absolute dream working on this project. The queens and our partners at World of Wonder and LogoTV have been truly fantastic. And every day we get some tweets from new fans of the app who are sharing their pictures and telling us how much they’re enjoying the app. There’s a lot of work that goes into this, so it’s really wonderful to see it so well received.

This is certainly a crossover title (see what I did there) have you had a wide range of people playing the game?

I think that speaks to the wide range of people who are fans of the show! I know parents who like to give it to their kids as a super-fancy dress up game. And there are folks out there who have never picked up a mobile game before who are now playing. But we really see all types playing, and that’s fantastic.

It’s totally unique, do you think this illustrates how a successful game can be about just about anything as long as the team is creative?

Creativity is certainly an important part of it, but it’s also having the utmost respect for and commitment to the source material and the personalities involved. We went out of our way to make sure that even small details like the loading screen have been dragified. The success of this game comes from really capturing the essence and character of the show and bringing that same vibe to a mobile experience. It’s not an easy task, but it’s one that we’ve done very well.

What has the reception been like, how have fans responded?

Fans have been going crazy over this game! We’ve been really pleased with the response for this . We chat a lot on Twitter with our fans, and love seeing them post pictures of themselves in the game. They love how all the different stars of the show have gotten involved. RuPaul cheers you on during the main game, but Manila Luzon, Pandora Boxx, and Yara Sofia all provide their own voices (and outfits!) in their episodes, so it completely changes the experience. For Dragopolis 2.0, we’re pushing that even more. We’ve got more queens, more levels, and more gameplay. We’ve been working with each of the queens to make sure their voice recordings really shine through. They’ll condragulate you on well-placed shots and read you for FILTH if you mess up.

Have you had any interesting fans get in contact with you or interesting user comments?

My favourite part is fans who do drag and send us links of them in drag playing the game or just videos of their drag performances. It so amazing to see folks so engaged with the game, and it’s a great way to learn about some new queens around the world.

Find out more about Dragopolis by visiting So Much Drama Studios

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