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Up Topic General / General / OC for WiiU?
- - By Sven2 [us] Date 2016-02-21 22:53
Hey, I just looked a bit at the Nintendo Developer's program, and saw that they are pushing smaller indie games a bit. We could apply and try to become a Nintendo-approved organization and then release OC for the WiiU!

The platform contains some sandbox-like games (like Mario Maker!) and the controls of the gamepad should work quite nicely for OC. License should be no problem if we make everyone visible in a huge credits scroller :-)

What do you think?
Parent - By Marky [de] Date 2016-02-21 22:58
Would be cool :)
Parent - By Isilkor Date 2016-02-21 23:55
I'm just going to incorporate this post by reference.
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Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2016-02-22 00:01
Yeah, that's pretty much the same as Steam, isn't it? Our better chance would have been to apply to the Google Summer of Code.
Parent - By Sven2 [us] Date 2016-02-22 00:10
I don't know about GSoC. I don't actually think we have a shortage of developers. And if we do, it's content developers rather than engine coders.

Our main shortage is players though.
Parent - - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2016-02-22 12:24 Edited 2016-02-22 12:27
I can't find any reliable statement on OpenGL support on the WiiU. Do you have the information perhaps?

Apart from that we need to make sure that Gamepad support works 100% fine. I.e. you can do everything in the game (not only play it but also use the menus) (granted, there is the touchscreen on Wii U). Especially our menus are very 'computery' and not optimised for ease of access like what console players are used to. With lack of animation or similar eye candies are menus are very conservative. ;) But that's something we can neglect.

Thinking of menus that would need attention, I immediately see three examples (but further thinking / looking through the game might turn up more): Player creation with mouse-centered inputs and player name selection (on Wii U you would probably use the current nintendo account name). Also the whole player selection subscreen which even on PC is not something tremendously handy (we skimmed a lot of features it was good for). Streamlining these menus may even be a good idea for PC. The last example is the ingame menu (or 'f' menu) which is even horrible on PC. It is kinda bad that a lot of options are in there but not in the main game options even if those only affect ingame visuals. It's also very tiny.

We would also have to work on the options menu in general, removing a lot of graphical features or customisable button specs and just use sane defaults.

And then we'd have to think about what we offer console players. Currently, without splitscreen, I'm thinking of singleplayer only. Hosting games on a console is just 'something you don't do' with these platforms. Port configuration is out of the question. Also, a lobby with chat and everything is again very PC-centered and chatting in general might not get approval by Nintendo (Nintendo shooter Splatoon won't have voice chat due to online negativity, creator says). It's also akward for console players to chat via virtual keyboard. Without any kind of matchmaking mechanism, I really think we are left with singleplayer / local multiplayer only.
The latter has be fixed at first.
The former requires us to exclude Arena.ocf and Parkour.ocf from Wii U builds and also make sure that things like Defense.ocf are absolutely fine with just one player. Everything else has to be hardened for 'no online help' gameplay. You can't just log in and ask where the secret lever in Treasure Hunt is.

We also have to think about the question if we really want to invest that much effort into the Wii U (or to be precise: the person(s) actually doing the work will have to think about this). The Wii U will very likely be decommissioned this year and due to lack of information you can't know if upwards compatibility is guaranteed.
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Parent - - By Sven2 [us] Date 2016-02-22 13:02

> I can't find any reliable statement on OpenGL support on the WiiU. Do you have the information perhaps?


I always assumed that. Here it says it's OpenGL (but consumers ask for DirectX for some reason): http://www.nintengen.com/2011/07/wii-us-opengl-will-have-similar-effects.html

> Thinking of menus that would need attention, I immediately see three examples


Concerning the contents of a console version: Yes it would be a reduced version mostly aimed at single player. I also think internet games aren't our strongest selling point because they tend to run so laggy when you just play with random people.

The main options menu would not be in the console version I think. The only options I could think of would be music on/off. And even that I wouldn't consider necessery.

It would require some polishing which isn't just "console only" (like e.g. the menus, as you mentioned). Improving the InGame options. But the amount of content is perfectly fine I think.

> We also have to think about the question if we really want to invest that much effort into the Wii U (or to be precise: the person(s) actually doing the work will have to think about this). The Wii U will very likely be decommissioned this year and due to lack of information you can't know if upwards compatibility is guaranteed.


That's sad. Maybe for the next console then? I don't think there are typically 180 degree changes between the APIs. I fear that if we never start to try and make a polished version, we will never have an attractive game. It's always more exciting to add cool new, experimental things than finishing the old gripes that have been around for years. But these old problems keep being mentioned in our (youtube) "reviews".
Parent - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2016-02-22 14:23
Yeah, I do see possible benefits. Streamlining menus and everything could have positive effects on the PC version as well. I pointed out that Wii U is most likely to be replaced around Christmas because that means we should try and finish a Wii U version earlier than that. Ideally.
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Up Topic General / General / OC for WiiU?

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