Team Kakumei becomes official Wii U dev, Wrecking Balls Arena DX heading to the eShop
We are officially a Wii U developer now. More news coming in the future!
— Team Kakumei (@TeamKakumei) January 19, 2014
Team Kakumei confirmed on Twitter yesterday that the indie group is now an official Wii U developer. The studio’s first order of business will be to bring the Ouya title Wrecking Balls Arena over to the eShop as “Wrecking Balls Arena DX”.
Wrecking Balls Arena DX can be considered a sequel/expansion to the initial game. It will sport new stages, items and gameplay elements. As of now, a tentative 2014 release is planned.
Team Kakumei staffer Jonathon Bont spoke about the ease in which the group became a Wii U developer on Twitter, commenting:
Also, think about it… Nintendo just let an 18-year-old college freshman like me join their Developer Program (plus the other 2 members of Team Kakumei), and all I personally had was a few years of game making experience including some Flash MX, Unity, and Android (OUYA) development as well as being the main developer of the original Wrecking Balls Arena on OUYA. We didn’t have to have an office, any previous experience working at a “real” game company, etc.
Say what you will about Nintendo’s “outdated/ignorant” practices and policies in some areas right now, but if what I just said isn’t an indication of just how open they’re becoming towards indie/garage developers, then I don’t know what is. Currently we haven’t purchased the necessary dev hardware (we can’t say much about all that; NDA), but we’re certainly getting a head-start by beginning work on the “Wii U enhanced” version of WBA: DX in Unity before then.
