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Although tactical shooter Battalion Wars II is out in the US already, us sorry Brits won’t be seeing the Wii title until next year. In part two of this interview series with Tancred Dyke-Wells, creative director of the game’s UK-based developer Kuju, VideoGamer.com chats GameCube 2.0, customer feedback and future development.
VideoGamer.com: How much better is the Wii than the GameCube?
Tancred Dyke-Wells: It varies. It’s somewhere in the factor of two really. But there’s so many different aspects to it. The way the memory works is different. There’s now some much faster memory. The overall amount of memory is much greater. And the CPU is faster. So factoring lots of all these elements into account it’s probably by a factor of two.
I have to say that I think a lot of developers really are under-exploiting. I think there are a lot of lazy titles on the Wii, quite simply. Not Nintendo titles but third party titles, which really don’t take full advantage of the machine. It’s a pretty good piece of kit and hopefully titles like Galaxy, Metroid and this show that and provide perhaps a bit of a wake-up call, perhaps serve a better bench mark than has been established to date.
VideoGamer.com: Why do you think that is?
TDW: I can only guess at what’s motivated the approach that some other publishers may have taken to the platform. But at least from Nintendo what you’re seeing is consistent flagship triple A titles. OK you might say there’s been a bit of a gap since perhaps in core gamer games from Nintendo – a bit of a hiatus in the release schedule, and then suddenly, it’s like waiting for a bus and then they all come along at once at this time of year, but I think you’re just seeing the fact that Nintendo won’t let stuff out of the door until it’s ready. And I think that’s applied to all their flagship titles. Not just us. We’re not the only title who’s had our development extended. I think it’s applied to those other big guns too. That’s all about respect for the consumer really and for their own stuff.
VideoGamer.com: And yet for some titles that seems to be less of a consideration.
TDW: There are some publishers that seem to be putting out some low quality material on the platform, ports and so on. But what success they’ll have with that approach I can only guess at. I can’t imagine it will be great. What I do know is that many publishers are now moving to Wii. They’re seeing that it’s a hugely popular machine. It’s leading the console race. Consumers out there have got it and want it. Hopefully perhaps reconsider the policy that some of them may have had and put out some high production value titles.
VideoGamer.com: Is there more we can get out of the Wii?
TDW: We’re running the juice out of it on this game I think. But having said that we do have some other work in development and we are continuing to advance the graphical standards that we’re achieving. I can’t say anything really about that. But, yeah, there is room to do more.
VideoGamer.com: Do you think Battalion Wars could ever be on a non-Nintendo machine?
TDW: Not really. No. Not in real world terms. It’s Nintendo’s game and it’s a very Nintendo game. We’ve tried to make a game that adheres to Nintendo’s philosophy of development.
VideoGamer.com: The concept came from you guys though.
TDW: Yeah. I guess originally it could have been picked up by someone else. That could have happened, but history didn’t go that way. Theoretically Battalion Wars 1 could have appeared on another platform I guess.
VideoGamer.com: How important is the game community to you?
TDW: The way we work at the moment we don’t have too much opportunity to provide much of a loop to feed back directly to consumers other than through this kind of format, interviews and so on. People know that we listen to what they say but we don’t have a website where we can chat.
VideoGamer.com: Why not have that?
TDW: Well basically Nintendo handles that side of things for us. It’s Nintendo that vocally engage with the community on our behalf. But we do directly absorb feedback from the community. And of course focus tests, we do get people in here and get them to play it and see what they like. We don’t design by committee. It is a vision led game. But we are very mindful of what the audience wants. It’s their money they’re spending, they’re buying an entertainment experience. It could have taken them a while to save up for it.
VideoGamer.com: What message would you send to fans of Battalion Wars?
TDW: We’ve been really delighted with the fan response to the US version. Both in terms of seeing the user ratings for the game and hearing people chat on forums about “oh I’m a four star general” and trash talking each other, it’s hugely rewarding for us, that’s what it’s all about really. It’s nice getting good review scores in press media but really it’s when the people have spent their money on it and they’re playing it at home and you’re hearing from them. Like they’re telling anecdotes about some cool thing that happened in co-op or online. That’s what makes it worthwhile. So yeah, we’re glad you like it. Just let us know what else you want because we’re listening.
VideoGamer.com: What kind of gamer is Battalion Wars for?
TDW: It’s not Wii Fitness, it’s a gamer’s game and I think it’s great that the Wii has gamers’ games, and I think it’s great that it’s reaching out to new audiences and is perhaps drawing in people through the broader audience stuff and maybe turning them on to things like Super Mario Galaxy. But let’s face it. It’s playing with toy soldiers, it’s quite a boy’s game and it’s a gamer’s game. But it’s all about fun.
This time around we tried to make it a lot more accessible. Instead of having X, Y and Z as a means by which you control your troops it’s just the big old A button that does everything. That was a real head scratcher believe it or not. It kind of seems obvious once it’s implemented, but condensing all that functionality down to one button took hours and hours.
VideoGamer.com: Was that your idea or Nintendo’s?
TDW: I think that was us. Yeah. I’m cautious about what we claim credit for and what we don’t. I’m pretty sure that was us. But of course Nintendo are involved and their involvement is weaved throughout the whole design process. You can’t necessarily separate out their stuff and our stuff. But yeah, their controller is not smothered in buttons, so it does force you to be a little bit more disciplined and elegant with your design solutions.
VideoGamer.com: Is it hard coming up with a control scheme that doesn’t feel tacked on?
TDW: Battalion Wars was on GameCube first. We did experiment with a lot of different control schemes, different means of dragging icons or commanding your troops. We tried not to use the motion sensing or whatever for the sake of it and just put in functionality that meant you could play the game. And if that meant that you didn’t have loads of arm-waving stuff then so be it. We wanted to make the best use of the controller for the game rather than including features for the sake of it.
VideoGamer.com: Most developers start working on follow-ups to games before the previous one is finished. Is that what’s happening here?
TDW: I suppose that’s confidential. We do have some other stuff going on as a studio not just with Nintendo but with another Japanese publisher, but we are a Wii-focused studio and a Nintendo hardware-focused studio, so I’m afraid that it’s a bit boring but I have to say watch this space. There’s more things coming from Kuju London which I think people are going to be really excited about and more than what you might expect.
VideoGamer.com: Thanks for your time Tancred.
For part one of our interview with Tancred Dyke-Wells, check out elsewhere on the site.
