Production of "Peggle 2" began in the spring of 2012. Microsoft partnered with Electronic Arts to develop "Peggle 2" as a timed exclusive for the release of the Xbox One console. For "Peggle 2", lead artist Drew Robertson went for a "beautiful" look, a decision inspired by listening to some of the game's orchestral pieces that were completed before art production began. He described the stylistic influences as a mixture of Disney films and campy science fiction flicks; the power-ups, in particular, were inspired by traits of the characters in this type of media, such as the Yeti's dancing being based on the dancing hippo from "Fantasia" (1940) and Luna's power-up being inspired by Lydia from "Beetlejuice" (1989). The art team, although not working with any story, also went for a "sense of progression" and "sort of logic" with the look of each level. Only one Peggle master was taken from the original game, the unicorn Bjorn. For conceiving the other masters that had "soul" to them, Robertson took pictures of cryptids and other fantastical creatures and taped them on a studio room wall; using these, music and sounds from the audio team, a hidden backstory made up by Robertson about magical beings with powers that can release happiness to the world via pegs, the artists "dream[t]" new characters. Luna was originally meant to be the fourth master, but after realizing her power-up had the most difficult learning curve, she was chosen as the last master. Sylvain Dubrofsky, a worker at Harmonix who admitted to "Peggle" being his favorite PopCap game, was hired as lead level designer for "Peggle 2" in September 2012. With no experience making a "Peggle" map before, he studied levels of previous "Peggle" games for weeks before beginning the level designs. As he described one major lesson in creating the levels, "You have to diagonally stagger the pegs if you want them to fall and keep bouncing. Big drains where the ball just falls and doesn't bounce back up are not fun." Steve Notley, who worked on prior "Peggle" games, also helped Dubrofsky with the levels in "Peggle 2". The designers kept in mind the mixture of skill and luck that defined "Peggle"'s difficulty when creating additional mechanics, including the aiming feature and new power-ups.