Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Weekly Screenshot, Wii U eShop | 3 Comments

As we’ve done for the last two weeks, today we have another exclusive screenshot of the upcoming Wii U eShop game Art of Balance from our friends at Shin’en. They’ll be showing off some genuinely neat stuff this time around, including some changes to the core user-interface and some of the small graphical touches that their known for putting in all of their games. Like before, the following quote comes from Mr. Manfred Linzer over at the developer, and you can look at the screenshot he’s talking about above:

Hi guys! Another week, another screen from our upcoming beautiful Wii U game called “Art of Balance”. This time I’ll show you a screen from the 2nd world.

When creating the Wii U version we thought about how we could make the game feel more ‘real’; a subtle but nice change was how to pick the shapes. On 3DS and Wii, the shapes were simply picked from a 2D HUD Layer and then projected into the 3D screen. On Wii U, we placed the shapes directly on the table, so you can select them with your GamePad or Wii Remote. This feels very natural and gives a more ‘solid world’ feeling.

Also we wanted the game to feel ‘gemuetlich’ as we say in German, so the levels should feel warm and inviting. Besides choosing the correct lighting and props, we figured out that it was important not to have that typical ‘clean’ computer rendering style, so we tried to give everything little imperfections. Just look at the table – all of the little scratches and variations in particular. This is used on every asset in the game. It’s very subtle, but gives that little extra touch we wanted.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Weekly Screenshot, Wii U eShop | 4 Comments

Hey all, it’s Brian and Austin from Nintendo Everything here to re-welcome Manfred from Shin’en back with yet another screenshot from the upcoming Wii U release of Art of Balance! He’s got plenty to say about what graphical details they’re implementing for the menus in the game, so revel in the relaxing room where you select your levels and read up about how it came to be below! Unless you’d rather simply revel at the picture. That’s okay too.

Hi guys, it’s Manfred from Shin’en again with another fresh shot from Art of Balance Wii U. This time we’ll show you one of the the level selection screens.

When developing the original game on Wii, we realized that a simple 2D grid would be good enough for a level select menu, but that in itself was too boring. So we came up with the idea of stacked boxes in a lush 3D environment. We think coming back to the this beautiful menu gives players a nice break after solving a level. On Wii U, we had tons of performance to waste on this screen so we implemented quite a number of effects.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Weekly Screenshot, Wii U eShop | 7 Comments

Nintendo Everything is introducing another new developer-centric feature called “Weekly Screenshot”. Each week, developers will share new photos from their games and talk a bit about what’s going on in the image, how it was made, or what it means for the experience of playing. You know how Masahiro Sakurai shares new screenshots from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS every weekday? Our feature is similar, though again, new images will only appear each week.

Art of Balance developer Shin’en is kicking things off with weekly looks at their title, which is coming out on the Wii U eShop in the near future. The studio will share one new image each Tuesday and intends to briefly discuss some of the tech being used.

In any case, on with the screenshot!

Hi guys, it’s Manfred from Shin’en. First of all, thanks to Brian for the opportunity to show our fans on Nintendo Everything some images of our soon to be released Wii U eShop game “Art of Balance”. The “Art of Balance” series is known on Wii and 3DS for its perfect gameplay. For the Wii U version, we wanted to create more then just an HD update. So we added new local and online mutliplayer modes, along with a complete new look for the game that makes the Wii U really shine. 200 levels from the Wii and 3DS version are included, but now you can even play them with your family, friends, and even online.

Each week, we will present a new shot and will talk a bit about the game and tech we’re using.

Above you can find the first shot featuring the hub for the eight worlds you can play. We used high dynamic range rendering– which gives us those nice sun sparkles on the ocean– and the ocean uses a dynamic wave simulation. Soft shadows are also used to connect everything, and if you look closely you can even see real-time reflections. Volumetric sun rays have been implemented to give an extra touch of softness.

That’s all for today. See you next week!

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 4 Comments

Several months ago, Shin’en revealed that the company was hard at work on its second-generation engine for Wii U. Both of the studio’s upcoming titles for the console – Art of Balance and FAST Racing Neo – are taking advantage of the upgraded tech, Manfred Linzer confirmed to us.

Linzer, CEO of Shin’en, said that the two games are actually just using “a subset of our new engine”. However, “we are pretty happy with the results,” he told us.

Linzer explained, “With FRN we wanted to get more realism. That was not possible with our old tech. So we implemented a lot of new stuff that allows us to get there. We are still learning but we think we are on a good way to create a really special Wii U game.”

While Art of Balance and FAST Racing Neo are taking advantage of the new engine, “Art of Balance is more on the ‘stylized’ side and FAST more on the realism side.”

We are sworn to secrecy regarding the engine’s capabilities, but know that Shin’en has managed to implement a number of improvements and a few new graphical effects. Some of these were previously used “in an ad hoc way, and not in a unified system.” According to Linzer, “Now everything blends nicely together which we need to get on a new level.”

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Shin’en will have an update on Art of Balance for Wii U soon. New content will be released towards the end of March/early April, the studio confirmed on Twitter.

The tweet is as follows:

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Shin’en has opened the official Art of Balance Wii U site, accessible here. It features screenshots to view and general information about the game. More content will be added to the site in the months ahead.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii U eShop | 2 Comments

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 4 Comments

Shin’en has confirmed Art of Balance as its next game for the Wii U eShop. It’ll come with all levels found in the original release, as well as the following features:

• Off-TV play, as well as multiple control schemes supporting analogue, touch screen and Wii Remote options.
• Multiple online and local multiplayer modes that incorporate either competitive or co-operative play. Up to five players can take part in the various modes at once — one on GamePad, four on Wii Remotes — while up to 10 people can play across two Wii U systems in online matches.
• Online Leaderboards are included.
• HD visuals that incorporate all new graphics, designs and locations.
• More accurate physics that are processed at 240 frames-per-second (on 3DS the equivalent was often 30 frames-per-second.

Expect to see Art of Balance out on the Wii U eShop sometime in Q2 – so before the end of June.

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