DrinkBox talks Guacamelee’s Wii U features and origins, potential 3DS version
At GDC last week, NintendoWorldReport spoke with animator Augusto Quijano and co-founders Chris Harvey and Ryan MacLean from DrinkBox Studios. The three touched on what the Wii U version of Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition will offer and how it came to be, the possibility of a 3DS port, and more.
Check out a few excerpts from the interview below. You can also find the full discussion here.
Harvey on any Wii U-exclusive features…
The game is the same, but we’ve been using the Wii U Pad as map, or you can swap and play exclusively on the GamePad.
Harvey on whether the Wii U version has began development…
Yeah, actually the game’s been working for awhile and also, we’re working with Broken Rules; they’re helping us put it through lot check because it’s a lot of versions to come out at once. So yeah, they’re helping us with that.
Harvey on how DrinkBox decided they wanted to put the game out on Wii U…
The decision process is multi-pronged. Okay, there’s business case: Can you make money doing this? And then there’s like the–I would call it passion case which is, to put a game out on a Nintendo console is sort of a big, kind of professional goal, right? And we got a Wii U dev kit awhile ago, and so first we had to get it working, so then I just kept working on it on the side, on the side, on the side, on the side, until finally it was going. And then it was like, “Oh, well it’s already working, so we should definitely put it out, right?” (Laughs)
Harvey on who contacted who first: Nintendo or DrinkBox…
We contacted them. We’ve talked to them about various projects at various times. We’ve gone back and forth a bit about it, but I think that the key thing is we talked to them saying, “Well, we’re thinking of bringing one of our titles there, and we’ve got a dev kit.” But no, they didn’t directly approach us about it. It was more us approaching them.
Harvey on whether there were other titles DrinkBox was considering…
I think right now this is pretty much it.
Harvey/MacLean on a potential 3DS version…
CH: I would really like to do that.
RM: We have our hands full with the four platforms we’re doing already. Plus we have other stuff we’re working on internally, and we’re just a small studio. But, you never know what can happen in the future.
CH: Yeah, I would really like to do that. Once those go out, we can look into it.
Harvey on what he believes makes the Wii U attractive to indie devs…
Well, first of all, just on the practical side, Nintendo has become a lot more open in letting games onto their platform, so that immediately makes it attractive. If we can get there, it’s attractive. I think, just also as a dev, not specifically an indie dev — you know, the Wii U is obviously struggling a bit, but having grown up with Nintendo games, it has that cachet. I would really like to get games on there and be able to say that when I am 65, “Yeah, we put out some games on Nintendo.”
