Rayman Fiesta Run is packed with tons of new levels and power-ups, as well as plenty of new challenges and an all-new food-themed world that you can explore relatively freely.

We recently sat down with the Rayman Fiesta Run dev team, to discuss these new features and the future of Rayman Fiesta Run a little further.

148Apps: What new features and improvements set Rayman Fiesta Run apart from Rayman Jungle Run?

Ubisoft: One of the key features that sets Rayman Fiesta Run apart from its predecessor, Rayman Jungle Run, is the inclusion of something we originally started in the recently released console title Rayman Legends: the Invasion levels.

Basically, each level in the game has an alternate version which is far more challenging than the original and they are only available to players who proved their merit and did a perfect run on the regular level. This adds an entirely new layer of content for the skilled players, and allows us to keep the core of the game more accessible. The challenge is still there, you just have to prove yourself before being able to take part in it.

We have social integration as well, so now you can see where you stand compared to a friend’s progress through the game’s new open map structure. And there are even power-ups available for use in the levels to change the way you play and help those players who are having a rough time finding all the Lums in some of the more challenging levels.

On top of all that, Fiesta Run takes place in the food-themed world of the Rayman universe, so there are a lot of slippery ice slides, boiling hot chilli pots to jump over, and even mountains of cake to plow through.

Gone is the Jungle and everything that came with it: Rayman is in new territory now, and the player is going to have to adapt to the new environmental challenges.

Which part of Rayman Fiesta Run are you personally the most proud of and why?

The world map structure in particular is something that I’m personally proud of, because it’s so much more open than in the previous game. The player is no longer locked onto a linear path of sequential levels, which more often than not led to players being stuck on one level and therefore blocked from discovering the rest of the game.

Now, however, we open up a series of small islands very early on into the game, with each island containing anywhere between one and three levels. This allows the player to access any available level in whatever order they want. Their progression through the world is entirely dependent on how many Teensies they save in the levels, which lengthens the overall path from island to island.

In this way, a player can perform exceptionally well on a small amount of levels and unlock a new island, or they can perform less amazingly on a larger number of levels and reach the same island.

We wanted the world structure to give players the freedom to explore and find a level that suits their needs now, and hopefully encourage them to come back to the levels they might have skipped once they feel they have the skill level necessary to complete it.

Do you plan to extend the life of Rayman Fiesta Run with updates? If so, what content do you have planned?

Yes, of course! For now, we can’t give any details on this, but we’ll definitely try to make the game richer!

We already know that Rayman Fiesta Run will be released on both iOS and Android. What other platforms will it be released on?

For the moment, we only plan on releasing it on Windows 8.

Rayman Fiesta Run features new power-ups. Which is your favorite?

The Perfect Run power-up is definitely my favorite. The Perfect Run draws the optimal path for completing a level with having obtained all the collectibles, and shows which moves to perform to achieve this. As a skilled Rayman player, it might sound silly that a power-up which shows how to collect everything in a level is my favorite, but trust me when I say it doesn’t make playing the level any less fun. It turns the game into more of a rhythmic platformer, where the player simply has to pay attention to the action prompts and presses them at the right time. There have even been times when I used the Perfect Run power-up, but halfway through the level I completely forget to pay attention to it and I missed a jump! It’s not some some sort of autopilot that completes the level for you.

The player still has to perform the same series of actions if they want to make it to the end of the level, and the Perfect Run just helps the players who are having a tough time understanding what they’re doing wrong and how they can improve.

Download Rayman Fiesta Run from the App Store or Google Play right now for £1.99 / $2.99