Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers


Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers is an adventure game published by THQ for the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color, based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. The Nintendo 64 version, developed by Terraglyph Interactive Studios, was released in November 2000, while the Game Boy Color version was developed by Digital Eclipse Software, and released in February 2001. A PlayStation version, identical to the Nintendo 64 version, had been in development by Terraglyph Interactive Studios but was cancelled.

Gameplay

Nintendo 64 version

The game follows the Mystery Inc. investigating a crime ring run by a mysterious ghoul king through four levels. The first three levels retell three episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, while the fourth is an original mystery. The player controls Shaggy and Scooby as they find clues and trap pieces to complete the levels. Velma, Fred, and Daphne assist them.
When Shaggy is scared enough times, he leaves the area and the player must restart. The fright can come from simple things such as the opening of a mummy's case or complex dangers such a moving dinosaur display hitting the player. 'Courage' can be restored by finding food to eat in a cafeteria or in Scooby Snacks lying on the ground.
Each room, or sometimes different sections of the same room, are presented as unmoving camera shots that the player moves through. Familiarity with the television show helps the player, as in one instance, the player must hide inside a two-dimensional painting to escape a villain.
The Villains are Black Knight, Snow Ghost, The Witch Doctor, and the game exclusive Ghoul King.

Game Boy Color version

The Game Boy Color version features the gang trying to solve the case of the ghost of Dr. Jekyll. The player controls all members of the gang. The Mystery Machine had run out of gas in front of the Jekyll Mansion. The gang goes through each area of the mansion and the lab. The player must pick up items for later use, such as a stool, a sausage, and a book with the code to get into the lab. The gang, except Shaggy and Scooby, investigates the mansion to look for clues. When Fred and Daphne see the ghost walk through a door, they go in to investigate. The ghost has vanished and Daphne is curious about a device called a "Tele-Pot," a teleporting toilet. Daphne disappears and is captured by Dr. Jekyll. Fred is worried and Velma studies the symbols in the house with the help of a book she found. She opens the door using a code from the book. Fred goes in to find Daphne and Velma decides to return the book.
Fred is captured by robot guards that look like Shaggy and are locked away. He thinks Shaggy has gone mad and has mutinied. Shaggy and Scooby are hungry and go inside to look for food. They find a wall of cheese. They eat it and find a way to fix the levers for the library. Shaggy and Scooby go to the lab and find the robot guards. They search for items needed to make a disguise. They succeed, shut down one of the guards, and sabotage Mr. Hyde's experiment on Daphne. Shaggy and Scooby save Fred and help save Daphne.
When the members of the gang are reunited, Fred makes a plan to trap the ghost. Velma rigs the clock to chime and then the ghost appears and chases Shaggy and Scooby. When Velma sees Shaggy and Scooby run to the ballroom, she throws a towel to the laundry room to signal Fred to hit the breaker and turn off the power. With the power out the ghost slips and is caught in a net. The ghost is revealed to be Dr. Jekyll, stealing jewelry to finance his projects. He originally used cheese to power his robot staff, until Helga, his maid, discovered him. He then used a Tesla coil to power his staff. Shaggy finds gas for the Mystery Machine, and the gang sends Jekyll to jail and head home.

Development

Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers was publicly announced in May 2000, with three levels that would each be based on three episodes of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! series, - "What a Night for a Knight", "That's Snow Ghost", and "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" as well as a fourth level featuring an original story. At that time, a PlayStation version was in development by Terraglyph Interactive Studios, but was cancelled. Like the Nintendo 64 version, the PlayStation version also would have been based on the same three episodes of the series, as well as featuring a new story for its fourth level. The Game Boy Color version, announced in June 2000, was developed by Digital Eclipse Software, with its release date initially scheduled for fall 2000.

Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 version was developed by Terraglyph Interactive Studios. Development began in late fall 1999. To ensure that the game would have a style similar to the series, the developers worked closely with Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros., and repeatedly watched dozens of old episodes of the series. Three episodes were chosen to be adapted into the game as levels, while an original story was created by the developers to serve as the fourth level of the game. Original 2D art from Hanna-Barbera was used for the game's characters and environments. The developers faced difficulty in creating perfect 3D models of the characters, which had previously only been seen in 2D form on television. Although backgrounds on the series were simple, the developers used highly detailed environments for the game, while ensuring that they still looked like settings from the series.
Scott Innes, who was voice actor for Scooby and Shaggy at that time, provided his voice for the characters in the game. The original theme song from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was recreated for the game. The rest of the game's music meant to be similar to music from the series was created exclusively for the game. Because violence was never featured in the Scooby-Doo franchise, the game's designers had difficulty designing the gameplay in a way so that the player would have to either hide from enemies or move past them, rather than fight them. Various jokes from the series were implemented into the game. Development had concluded by October 2000, at which point the game was in Nintendo's final approval process.

Reception

Classic Creep Capers was met with average to mixed reception upon release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 71% for the Game Boy Color version, and 59.33% and 53 out of 100 for the Nintendo 64 version.
IGN gave the N64 version a score of 4.8 out of 10 overall. The sound was criticized for a lack of authentic voice-overs and the graphics were blurry on the low resolution screen. However, IGN gave the GBC version a warmer review, rating it 7 out of 10.