Nintendo Everything interviews Broken Rules – Chasing Aurora, possible follow-up, piracy, and more

Some of the Wii owners out there may remember Broken Rules for its creative and stylish WiiWare title, And Yet It Moves. Fortunately, the studio is back with a brand new game, this time for Wii U: Chasing Auoura.

We recently caught up with Broken Rules’ Martin Pichlmair to find out more about the upcoming eShop game. Pichlmair was able to discuss the origins of the project, confirmed Off-TV Play, hinted at a possible sequel for Wii U, and more.

Aside from Chasing Aurora and Wii U, Pichlmair commented on why Broken Rules has focused on 2D games, commented on piracy, and even explained how the studio picked the URL for its website!

Head past the break for the interview.

Nintendo Everything: How was your showing at PAX Prime? How did people seem to react to Chasing Aurora?

Martin Pichlmair: People loved Chasing Aurora. A multiplayer game is of course a great fit for PAX. And showing a game on a console that has not launched yet made it even more interesting.

NE: What are your impressions of Wii U?

MP: Developing for the Wii U is great. The console yields so many opportunities that it was a joy to design a game for this new platform. It’s really more a matter of deciding which of the many features fit best to your game. I think the console is a huge step forward for Nintendo and I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in the wild.

NE: What was behind the decision to bring Chasing Aurora to Wii U?

MP: We stayed in contact with Nintendo after launching And Yet It Moves on WiiWare. When the opportunity came up to launch it together with a new platform we could not let it slip past. The timing was perfect since we always wanted to make a multiplayer-heavy game and a home console is the perfect fit for this kind of gameplay.

NE: How has it been working with Nintendo once again? What did they say when you approached them with the idea of making Chasing Aurora for the upcoming console?

MP: Actually they were immediately interested and sent us a dev kit right away. Working with Nintendo is great since they have a couple of exceptional people that truly understand games. Nintendo supports us in marketing and tech and gives us all the freedom we want in design.

NE: Here’s an obligatory question: How does the Wii U handle things from a technical standpoint?

MP: I can not talk about the technical side of Wii U development apart from stating that it is quite comfortable to develop for it.

NE: Can you talk about Chasing Aurora’s single-player experience a bit? Will it support the “Off-TV Play” feature, allowing players to switch the action between the TV and GamePad at any time?

MP: The single player mode in Chasing Aurora can be played on the TV, the GamePad or both. I personally enjoy it most on the GamePad alone because it requires a lot of focus and the GamePad makes it easier to keep the whole screen in your field of vision.

NE: It’s probably too soon to be asking this, but will you consider creating more games for Wii U in the future?

MP: Chasing Aurora was conceived as the first game in a series of games. While we have nothing to announce at the moment, I can assure you that we’re already working on the second part and it’s running on the Wii U hardware.

NE: Do you think that having a “timeless” art style (various Zelda games, Okami, etc.) is important for making a memorable game? How do you feel about ultra-realism in games? That is, do you think you’d ever do something “UN-artistic?”

MP: We made the decision to focus on 2D games because we’re a small studio and 3D is just so much more work. When you’re working in 2D, having a striking art style is important because realism is simply not an option. Since we also want to steer clear of the masses of retro-srtyled 2D games out there we pretty much had to arrive at a quite unique style. I do not think that Chasing Aurora is particularly “artsy”. We aimed for a recognisable look and I think we’ve achieved that. As for the future: We want to make games that stand out so it would surprise me a lot if we ever make a boring looking game.

NE: I’m genuinely curious: Who came up with the idea for your website’s URL? It is certainly rather clever!

MP: Brokenrules.com was already domain-grabbed. Broken-rules.com was occupied by a punk band called Broken Rules. Interestingly there’s a punk band called Chasing Aurora, too. Does that say something about us or are there simply too many punk bands on this planet?

NE: You’ve said in the past that you’re “against” game piracy, but you believe that developers and publishers are fighting it incorrectly. Are they just not using enough cannons?

MP: I think piracy – though I’d rather call it “illegal copying” – is a logical conclusion of our technical development. Copying data does not cost anything and prices for downloads are just legitimised by artificial scarcity. If we could make a living while having our games distributed for free we’d be glad to support piracy. Sadly we have to pay rents and taxes. The problem is more that the industry is using the wrong cannons. DRM is cumbersome. A mandatory always-on internet connection is nasty. A lot of free-to-play games are insults to the player with their cheap Skinner box game design. So what’s the solution? Steam and iTunes demonstrate that service is the solution. If you offer a comfortable way of buying and playing games and add social features people are glad to pay for your wares. It’s that simple.

NE: Another question on piracy: Do you think it is justified for publishers like Activision and EA to complain about piracy when their games are continuing to break sales records and sell multiple millions of copies year after year?

MP: I think it is never right to complain about piracy. A pirated copy is not a lost sale because the guy who downloaded your game would not have bought it in the first place. Maybe he lives in a country where he can’t legally acquire your game. Maybe he simply can not afford it. No matter what, he’s an unlikely customer. Appealing to him is alright but you should neither treat him as a thief nor complain about his existence. Much rather, you should act responsibly and help make the world a place where everyone can afford to buy the games he wants to play and gladly pays for them. Yes, we’re idealistic here at Broken Rules.

We’d like to thank Martin and Broken Rules as a whole for taking the time to answer our questions!