Chasing Aurora was a launch title on the Wii U eShop, bringing with it a focus on local multiplayer that was undoubtedly unique among its contemporaries. It's since become available as a demo and had a price promotion, though developer Broken Rules admitted earlier in the year that despite a welcome increase in sales it hadn't quite met expectations. In our interview with Broken Rules in the weeks after launch, Martin Pichlmair also explained plans to incorporate gamer feedback and improve the experience with updates, helped a great deal by the Wii U eShop having a relatively straight-forward infrastructure to allow changes.
The developer has been in touch to advise us that the planned update is now available in North America and PAL regions. Rather than just providing basic fixes it makes some fairly notable changes, so check out the details below.
Better Scoring in Tournament
All tournaments now follow a best-of-five structure. It levels the playing field and makes scoring easier to understand. It also gives you a chance to learn more about the level and game mode you are playing. When we started working on the update, we only implemented this for two player matches, but we quickly realized that we need it for all player counts. It really improved all our internal Tournament sessions, so be sure to invite your friends over again to give Chasing Aurora another go with the new scoring. Tournaments last longer now, though.
More Fun for Two Players
If you play Hide & Seek with two or three players the seeking players will get help from an AI controlled jackdaw. She will show you where the Golden Bird is and even try to carry the Gem to you. Watch out, Golden Bird!
In Freeze Tag, hitting the Freeze Bird with the burning Gem immediately ends the round. This gives a more level playing field, especially with two players.
You usually play Chasing Aurora with a friend or two, but a get together with five players is actually rather unusual. Nevertheless, the game was balanced for a high player count. Hide & Seek and Freeze Tag were geared towards four or five players. Not anymore!
Better Progress in Challenge
Challenge Mode is considerably more challenging now. You have to meet a certain number of points (1 star for easy tracks, 2 stars for medium and 3 stars for hard and beyond). If you’ve previously unlocked tracks they are open for being challenged again. We did not wipe you score, of course, and levels that you’ve already unlocked according to the new scoring are automatically unlocked in the update. If you want to brag to your friends that you unlocked all Challenge levels, you better practice flapping!
No More Framerate Hiccups and Faster Loading Times
We made sure that levels load quicker and run smooth at all times, no matter how much is going on on screen.
Play with Wii U Pro controller
We would have loved to include Wii U Pro controller support from the start. Sadly we didn’t get our hands on one until the Wii U actually launched. Chasing Aurora was already out by then. With the update you can use Nintendo’s newest controller to play Tournaments. In Challenge Mode, you can even turn off the TV, put the GamePad up on the table and lean back to play with the Wii U Pro controller. In our opinion, that’s the best way to play Challenge Mode.
Quite a few enhancements and tweaks based on feedback from gamers. Are you Chasing Aurora owners pleased with these changes, and if you don't have this one does the update tempt you into giving it a try? Let us know in the comments section.
[source brokenrulesgames.tumblr.com]
Comments 20
Cool as.
I'll download the update later and give the game another go.
Whats the price of the game right now? Is/was the price reduction limited time?
I'm glad to hear they fixed the framerate issues. That really killed the fun I was having with the game and led me to stop playing it. Slowdown was happening all the time. The game itself is really cool so I'll be downloading the update and hopefully there won't be any more framerate issues like they're saying.
Really excited to try this out!!
I should've grabbed this when it was on sale. I think I'm going to get it now anyway just to support Indie development. We can't really complain about a lack of games on the WiiU when there are all these little Indie gems out there, now can we?
I've always been interested in this and I can now actually get it but.... is there any point in getting it for single player elements?
They should have never shipped the game in the first place if they weren't satisfied with its quality.
Console game development appears to be just as crappy as PC gaming now. The game is not ready yet? SHIP IT!!!! We'll just patch it later. Let those suckers, errr customers pay to be our beta testers. Brilliant!
Cool I'll have to fire it up and see if those game modes feel more balanced in matches against my daughter.
@DrKarl I don't understand why people keep saying that like it's a fact.
Look at Bit Trip Runner 2. That had problems that couldn't be detected on development kits, and was only brought to their attention after it was released. They were satisfied with the quality, shipped it, then created a patch for it. Who's to say that they didn't see the problems before it shipped? Not all developers are out to make a game with as little effort as possible.
@LeVideoGamer
I don't understand what you are trying to say exactly. Regarding your point about Runner 2: If that is true regarding it working fine on development kits, than that furthers my argument.
Had the game been burned to disk or an eprom(cartridge era), it could have easily been tested on a non dev machine. Why doesn't Nintendo have a similar model in place for testing eShop content. Couldn't they use the download code system to get eShop titles onto a non dev machine for quality control? All I see is laziness due to the ability to "patch it later"
is there another way than launching a game to trigger the download of his update ?
@adrenochrome
No. But you can select "star software", quit the game and do other things. The update will still be downloading and you can install next time you play it.
@klautrec : thanks for your answer, i'll try this trick
i have another question :
is there a way to get both at the same time ? (screen blanking & switch off when finished)
Online multiplayer should have been included.
This is my most played eShop title to date, I really like the tension this game creates. You have to stay calm and not start flapping to much or you'll slow down. Too bad they didn't add the leaderboards though..
@DrKarl Creators are very rarely satisfied with their products after they ship them. It's just that now, they're capable of going back and fixing problems. I don't think developers have gotten lazier-if anything, this shift has made it more difficult for them to leave projects be and not continually go back to adjust them.
@Tomatoboxer Yeah, I know. George Lucas has proven this time and again.
Laziness was brought up to criticize the bug in Runner 2 that should have been caught before it ever shipped.
Demo? What demo?
online multiplayer dont make me laugh nintendo thinks online is using gba cable,with everyone sitting in same room lol.who works at nintendo not gamers.
players 5 thats a laugh if you have four wii motes and big living room.
Tap here to load 20 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...