An Interview with Executive Producer of The Crystal Maze, Neale Simpson!

Earlier this year, myself & team superfans were once again invited to take part in helping The Crystal Maze as Games Testers.

This time round, we had a more intense experience as Camera Blocking was taking place, so this meant all the cameras were cranking & rolling, and we were doing all the new entry methods into the maze for Aztec, Industrial & Future.

We also got to hang out briefly in the new zone, Eastern, and bumped into James Dillon who designed this wonderful masterpiece of a zone. Whilst we did not get to play any of the games in Eastern, we had a full day (9 Hours!) inside the wonderful world of the Crystal Maze.

Following our 9 hour marathon of gaming the maze, we went home almost euphoric and feeling like we left a dream state. We had a lot of questions, and Executive Producer Neale Simpson was kind enough to go through the interrogation we lined up for him.

Neale, firstly please let me re-iterate the thanks from all of us on Team Superfans and The Crystal Maze Fansite Blog for allowing us to enter the Maze again this year, and for your time in answering our questions about the 3^rd season of filming!

An absolute pleasure on all fronts!

So Let’s kick off with the most obvious thing – the new zone! Why did you decide to change a zone in the first place?

One of the things that made the original shows consistently brilliant was the commitment to reinvention. As the current custodians of the maze, we feel we have a responsibility to try and match that creative ambition. This is our third filming run and it felt like the time was right to do something big with the maze that hadn’t been done before.

Also, from a practical point of view, our main creative challenge for each run is devising with all-new games. Designing a new world to play in unlocked new visuals, mechanics and themes for us to plunder for ideas to keep things fresh for the games team and the viewers.

With a new zone & the Maze only holding 4 zones at a time, why was Medieval selected as the Zone to lose?

Rest assured a lot of thinking went into deciding which zone to change.

Aztec is arguably the most-loved zone and it’s also the most visually impressive too - it’s also the home to our water games.

Futuristic has been completely re-imagined for our reboot, so it’s the freshest in terms of design and is also the world we get to play with new technology that we can’t use in other zones.

Industrial is a big, dramatic space and perhaps our favourite zone for designing games as we get to play with mechanical contraptions that have provided some of our most interesting challenges. Which leaves Medieval.

There were two reasons why Medieval felt like the prime candidate. Firstly, the entire space is predominantly grey and visually the least varied of the four zones in terms of colours and tone. Secondly, the game development was limited a little because the Medieval theme harks back to a primitive time, as does Aztec, so there were often games that could easily be inter-changed between the two. Ultimately, we were confident that of the four zones, swapping Medieval for something new would unlock more opportunities for new and unique ideas than we’d lose.

The Eastern Zone plays on a lot of Asian culture, what made you decide to go east? What elements of Eastern Culture appealed to you in terms of being able to create games? Did you find you had new avenues to explore as a result?

As you can imagine, James Dillon cares a lot about the show and embraced the challenge of creating a new zone. He first came up with a long list of fascinating concepts, each with mood boards. There were many great/ridiculous/expensive thoughts as you’d expect (he’s a mad genius).

Each concept came with its own issues and considerations. For example, we spoke about an Arctic cave at one point; I liked the idea of using translucent ice-effect walls, but ultimately, we felt in terms of colours it would feel too close to Futuristic with the cold whites.

A Wild West theme was discussed; it was too problematic with the space we have and we felt we couldn’t do justice to the scale we needed to build a town to walk through - we discussed a giant saloon bar, but felt it was too limiting.

Ultimately, we wanted to create a world that was vibrant and varied; a space that offered bold differences in colours, textures and design that contrast with the other zones. When James showed us a mood board of ancient Asian temples, dragon iconography, lanterns and beautiful architecture it immediately sparked the imagination of the games team in terms of creating all-new concepts.

We didn’t get to play any games in Eastern, but we certainly got into the games in the other 3 zones – there was of course, reuse and the bringing back of popular games like the Planets, however we saw some exciting new technology used in “Mo-cap” in the Future Zone, which looked like the love child of Tron & Knightmare! What caused you get this as a game in the zone?

We love reinventing the planets in Futuristic for each run. After Rob made the wobbly planets a breakout moment, we always want to create new ways to traverse tricky planets to collect a crystal. This series we’ve created the hardest game to date; you know this because you’ve seen me do it…and you’ve heard the appalling amounts of swearing involved.

Motion capture and VR is something we explored when we first brought the series back in 2017. We had a few meetings with companies around designing a virtual game but the challenge, as ever, is budget. Boringly, we have a set budget for games that we have to balance to make sure we deliver a good mix of scale, ambition and variety. The tech games in Futuristic often require us to hire kit from specialist companies that can sometimes hoover up a lot of the budget.

Anna and the games gang found a brilliant company this time around and created a game that felt tonally spot on for the show. We love the contrast of someone flailing around in a completely empty all-white room while their team are barking instructions based on a virtual maze in front of them. It also addressed something we hadn’t done before, which is to create a game that the player in the room cannot play and win on their own; success or failure is largely down to the communication skills of the team outside the room.

Will Gemma ‘the GC’ Collins be the new Rob for this series? Only time will tell…

We had fun making Neil R, our Team Captain regenerate several times in his new digital form – As a Tron fan myself I was very jealous of Neil – and I’ve just realised I unfortunately missed my chance to quote Hugo Myatt of Knightmare whilst playing – do you think we could potentially see more of this in the Crystal Maze’s future?

I hope so!

Neil was obviously in his element to have been able to wear one of the silver boiler suits during his play of MoCap – could we potentially see any team clothing changes in the future?

I’m going to boldly suggest not, purely because they’re very practical and we think they look great for people of all shapes and sizes. These were a bespoke design working with the brilliant Simon Carter and inspired by Steve McQueen's LeMans racing outfit from the 60’s. We needed a neutral light grey that works on camera in each zone, but with a bold flash of colour that adds to the detail of it.

Okay, so onto making the show itself. First – there must have been a logistical challenge as you wouldn’t be putting the Medieval Zone back up again and had a new zone to build from scratch. What kind of obstacles did you face?

The big two: time and money. Everything we do is a relentless battle to make both stretch as far as possible.

For example, when we were first looking to bring back the maze, I was fixated on bringing back the 60ft long Aztec river. It transpired that back in the good old days they didn’t need to worry about those trivial things like health and safety. The water was stagnant, not chlorinated and apparently became rat infested.

Nowadays you have to have heated water, that’s chlorinated, cleaned and pumped on a constant cycle. The cost and logistics of building the river made it impossible. Hence the oft-mocked ‘majestic waterfall’, which is affectionally known as ‘Simpson’s Folly’; a daily reminder from the crew that not all of my ideas are winners.

The insight we got into the process of making the show during our day in the Maze was incredible! An army of people must synchronize together to make the recording of a single game work. It must be a challenge to manage.

A team of 137 people work on the shows. It really is the best and happiest team I’ve ever worked with; this is a much-loved entertainment show and if the team aren’t enjoying the process of making it then we’ve done something is wrong.

At the center of everything is our production management team. They are the unsung heroes of the production, doing the boring but vitally important things that keep all the many departments and freelancers working harmoniously, feeling supported and valued and assisting with problem solving. They look after all schedules, booking accommodation, travel, managing dept budgets, negotiating with suppliers.

That team are always first in and last out and they keep all of us on track no matter what ridiculous ideas we’re trying to shoehorn into the shows at the eleventh hour.

Here’s a hot tip to keep a large group of people really happy: great catering. 

Editors Note: We can vouch for the catering, was fed better at the Bottleyard than at home

Moving on to the games themselves, When I played a game in Aztec, I started throwing the sandbags at the top of the hoppers for the sand thinking they needed to go in the hoppers, instead of hitting the bullseye targets – if a change is needed to make it more obvious that the bullseye target needs to be hit, how quickly can you implement that change? The Bottleyard’s facilities must enable you to work fast and safe!

One of the reasons we chose The Bottleyard Studios was the on-site facilities available. Attached to the studio is a large workshop space we’ve been able to commandeer so our team can quickly adapt and swap in and out games during the testing and studio stages.

The schedule is tight, so we have a ‘dark day’ in the middle of the recording run where we swap out some games for others in some of the game rooms. Time is always against us so being able to react quickly is essential; sometimes to adapt and tweak, sometimes to fix games and props that break.

Sometimes, no matter how well thought through and built a game is, when people enter the room they react in unexpected and baffling ways. Rather than see it as a failure of the design it’s funny to watch people doing the wrong thing when it’s obvious to us all that it’s wrong…a bit like, er, not throwing sandbags at brightly coloured bullseye targets!

I got completely drenched in my Aztec Water game, pulling the Crystal Casket on the chain out from the maze in the walls and floor – I’m glad I don’t have to do that to pull out my bath’s plug! When I spoke with one of the team who was resetting the game, I found out that he had to pass it all the way back through the same way – can games like this cause issues for resets during filming?

We do have some games that, due to the way they are constructed, require a complicated reset (for example, filling and emptying sand timers, is messy and time-consuming). However, even on a two-show day, there is always plenty of time for the team to reset a game for the next turn as we’re not back in that zone again for a few hours. Also, we change the games we play in every show so sometimes a tricky reset can be left overnight.

In the course of our day, I think we played pretty much all the games in the 3 classic zones that remain. Of course, the contestants on each episode only play 10 – when a team is on site and competing, do they get to see the games they don’t play, or is that a logistical issue, as I understand you knock out 2 episodes a day.

There’s, unfortunately, no time in the schedule for the team to see or play other games. It’s a long record day with very little margin for error for everyone, so we rattle through each zone on our way to the dome.

We also, of course, saw your own attempts at playing some of the games, it’s good to see you get your hands just as dirty as anyone else’s! Aside from the bragging rights, why was that necessary? Is it to see for yourself if a game is too easy or hard?

I think we can all agree that the amount of swearing involved in my turn on bungee planets game was less than ideal (I’ve got stress-based Tourette's). You have no idea the ruthless mockery that awaited me in the gallery if I’d failed. They’re merciless in there.

Jon’s Note – I can confirm the material in question is non-transmittable!
Editor's Note - Not before the watershed anyway. That's right America, we can swear on free-to-air TV after 9pm.

Pretty much everyone involved in the editorial and lots of the crew have a go at the games. Partly, because it’s important to road test every game as much as possible so we can tweak the difficulty and experiment with time we allow the teams. Partly, because it is an absolute hoot.

I felt we saw a new generation of games coming through as we played on throughout the day – The Incinerator really put the time pressure on us, especially with the control panel flashing away, and the Crystal travelling along the conveyor belt. Do you think the “peril” of the destruction of the Crystal adds to making a contestant’s mind malfunction?

Seeing the crystal on a conveyor headed toward the fire felt like a good way to visually represent the time left for the player in the room, putting them under more pressure as they see it getting ever closer to the flames.

We’re always trying to do different things to surprise and entertain the players and the viewers. We had the red crystals in series two. We’ve got the introduction of the ‘Mega Crystal’ this series, which is effectively a Joker Card for the team. Richard Ayoade has had so much fun with the silliness of it and it’s delivered a bit more fun for the team having to gamble it on a game for extra time.

For anyone who aspires to design the games used within the Crystal Maze, what makes a game appealing for you as the producer, Channel 4 as the broadcaster, The Adventurers to make their experience, and the viewers as their entertainment?

There are a few things and some of the games have different strengths so there isn’t one definitive box-ticking list we work to. If I have to make a list of things that we look for it would include:

•       It has to be simple enough for someone to work out what to do within 20sec of entering a room with just a few words on a sign.

•       In most cases we like a game where we can imagine the team helping/screaming/barking/moaning at the player in the room.

•       It should be visually interesting; we want to create games that are a treat to watch from weird constructions to beautiful or interesting environments. I love the dragon game in our new Eastern zone; it’s a simple game, but looks beautiful. The water room in Aztec always looks great too.

•       We really like play-along for the audience, so if the game isn’t play-along then it needs to entertain in different ways: slapstick, drama, comedy.

•       Games with a twist, surprise or a moment that can change things. We try to avoid games where if you’re doing terribly after 30sec or a minute there’s no suspense or jeopardy. Some of the most gripping games have unexpected moments for the players (like the disappearing bridge in Medieval) or a last chance where they can suddenly turn it all around (like the gutterball game in Industrial).

•       It should be a game that will play out in different ways; some of our favourite games have been ones where someone makes it look effortlessly easy and the next person makes it look impossible. Like Rob on spinning planets, the legend.

We’ll move on to our Maze Master, Richard Ayoade for now - he obviously needs briefing on how the games work – how far ahead of time does Richard get briefed on the games and how they work? I thought there may have been potential for him to be present during our day so he could learn the games.

It’s worth acknowledging up top that Richard isn’t normal; he’s formidably intelligent and picks everything up instantly and without need to be reminded. He’s also thoroughly lovely and hard working. But he refuses to join us for karaoke nights when we’re filming so I’d argue he’s not perfect.

We have a tight schedule but we tend to start filming late morning on our first shoot day so we take Richard around to talk through the games. On the day he also has Chris Lore, our Series Producer, in his ear to prompt him to give hints/tips/updates if the team need a helping hand.

Richard doesn’t follow the team through the passageways of the maze between zones, except for gaining entry to the Maze and going up the Aztec Wall occasionally – is this more down to Richard’s Maze Master persona, in that he takes the easier route – or that his suit may not be best suited for crawling around like former Maze Masters?

It’s all part of his character, those suits are made of hardy stuff!

The passageways of the Crystal Maze can lead to many strange and wonderful places – and then sometimes they cross over into other realms – so could our Mazemaster be rampaging through any other realms like last year’s “Tipping Maze”?

We’re always trying to find new ways, even if it’s just little tweaks, to add to the zone entrances and passageways.

The Tipping Point cameo was such a jolly and utterly ridiculous thing to do last series. We also make that show and we were recording a series in the studio next door to the maze at the same time. It was perfect timing, but it still required permission from both ITV and C4 to allow us to do it, two production teams collaborating with respective tight schedules, and of course Ben Shephard who was a terrific sport. What a love about this show is that you can have a crazy idea one day and be making it happen the next.

Jon’s Note – The contestant on the Tipping Point cameo was, in fact, The Crystal Maze’s Script Editor!

Next year is the 30^th Anniversary of The Crystal Maze, we are obviously hoping for a 4^th season of filming for the show – do you think we could expect something special to acknowledge the shows anniversary?

It’s too early to say, but as you know I’m always banging the drum! What an incredible legacy this show has left behind for our generation of fans - and now a whole new audience of young people entertained by the maze-based madness, not just with the shows but with the Live Experiences in London and Manchester too.

As was in the 90’s, a new generation of children are growing up with the show and wanting to enter the fantasy world of the Crystal Maze and its time zones. Do you think a kids special will ever be likely in the future?

I’d love to see that (and I think I’ve mentioned that to C4 every year since I started pitching the show to return in 2011). Maybe one day someone will let us do it? I often think celebrities have around the same levels of mental and physical aptitude as 10-12 year olds.

We’re all very excited that this year Nickelodeon in the US have commissioned a series of 10 shows with American families (kids and adults) so we’re going to see how some younger people cope in the mighty maze. It’s also the first time The Crystal Maze has been made outside of the UK so it’s going to be interesting to see what an entirely new audience make of it…and, without giving too much away, I don’t think they’re going to be the only ones!

Neale, thank you for your time, we got a lot of questions answered here – I hope the visitors to our blog will feel a little more enlightened about how the show works in its current Era – and hopefully, see you again in the future!

I hope I gave some helpful, interesting and informative answers. If anyone has stayed awake long enough to get through all this they arguably deserve a crystal.

So whilst the celebs got the maze to themselves this year, here’s hoping 2020 will re-open the gates to the civilians – However, if you can’t wait and want to take on the challenge yourself, why not get the board game from Rascals or get a group together to visit the London or Manchester Live Experience Mazes!

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