Dev speaks out on WiiWare

via Eurogamer


Nic Watt, creative director of Australian developer Nnooo Games, has spoken out on Nintendo's Wii Software Service, or WiiWare as it's known in the US and Japan.

As reported last month, Nnooo is developing a WiiWare game titled Pop. Speaking to Kotaku, Watt said Nintendo was willing to hand over without requiring a big up-front investment or an extensive demo of the game.

"Nintendo understand not only that small companies like ours cannot afford to create loads of demos in the hope of getting a game signed, but also that the Wii is quite unique," Watt observed, "And you really need to get access to the hardware to be able to make a decent game, demo or prototype."

According to Watt, Nintendo of America is overseeing the development of some Western WiiWare titles and will also handle acquisition and publishing. He said Nintendo is still deciding whether or not game demos will be made available, and confirmed that WiiWare titles will be on the low end of the price scale.

"The great thing about WiiWare and services like it is we can offer titles at a lower cost than their disc-based counterparts," Watt continued. "This means that an apparently simple title like Pop can be sold for a significantly less than the USD 40+ one would pay for a disc based game."

So how is Pop shaping up? "We are aiming for an experience which is simple to understand but gets under your skin and keeps you entranced for long periods of time," explained Watt.

"Like Every Extend Extra, Geometry Wars, Tetris and Lumines, Pop has waves of gameplay which get progressively more challenging and fast paced. It also has deep mechanics in its scoring which allow experienced players to not only score high but also jump past easy levels quickly so they can get to the harder ones."

Pop will launch around the same time as the WiiWare service, which is due to arrive in 2008