Star Fox 2 Developer Has A "Great" Idea For Switch, But Needs A Publisher

If it's truly "a great idea" they'll have no problem finding a publisher.

I wish him the best.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Not as easy as you think it is. Even great ideas might not find a publisher.

It'd be nice to actually know what his "great idea" is beforehand. Just saying.

Regardless, I hope someone picks up their idea soon.

He's striking while the iron's hot! Yeah, good luck to the fella!

@MegaVel91 It's true. Many of my Indie Developer friends are not as lucky as me and have their hopes and ideas stomped into the ground. They become dead and buried like daffodils only to rise later and decay once again.

For every great idea from an Indie there are a 100 that perish and die.

What a sales pitch! "Hey our latest game just tanked after a year online, anyone wanna pick us up for a GREAT idea i have? Star Fox 2 is coming out 20 years after Nintendo scrapped it, my ideas are solid!"

Given that The Tomorrow Children was, frankly, a really good idea executed so poorly I still feel bad for paying into the "founders" edition of the game; I genuinely hope Q-games find their feet... and that their upcoming ideas don't get as shafted by poor communication and marketing as TTC seemed to.

@Grandpa_Pixel Being frank: I'm of the mind that anyone who thinks game development is easy at all, without mincing words: is stupidly foolish and has no idea what they are talking about.

the more switch games the better!!!

yeah its called star fox 2 hd lol

@MegaVel91 From my personal experience it is not. Even as a hobbyist developer, I barely have any evenings to myself. The life of a developer is not for the weak of heart. It requires a lot of strength to go on through.

It will be worth it next year for me though ^_^

@Grandpa_Pixel How so?

Having an idea is definitely the first step.

@MegaVel91 I release my own game. It won't sell millions but I make games to improve my development skills. And next year is a massive leg-up for me compared to last year.

I'm a developer for passion rather than for money ^_^

There's always kickstarter!

@Grandpa_Pixel what's your game you have made

@SLIGEACH_EIRE ideally, yes. But looking back at Mike Oldfield's road to the first Tubular Bells, I'm inclined to doubt this.

@Grandpa_Pixel Kinda wish I had that mindset anymore tbh

@RedMageLanakyn LOL, to be fair Nintendo didn't scrap it because it was bad, they tabled it because despite maxing the hardware to the nines, it visually looked worse than 3D games on the new Playstation hardware, so they wanted to suppress it to not tarnish the brand with SNES level visuals, and just make a new one for their own new hardware when it released.

@NEStalgia Eh, that's fair. Just a weird sales pitch from a guy who really hasn't done a whole lot in the past 20 years.

@Grandpa_Pixel Same here, man!

@NEStalgia I thought it was common lore at this point that Nintendo wanted to have a clear cut between the 2D SNES and the 3D N64? StarFox 2 was shelved because while finished Nintendo wanted to push the N64 as the new 3D powerhouse and the SNES as the budget 2D machine. That is why we got DKC3 and a few late Square RPGs in Japan, but not StarFox 2.

The game is finished and could be great! Just was a victim of the shifting tides and business plans.

Based on what I have read Dylan Cuthbert seems to be a great guy and very gracious of his opportunities. I don't think I have ever read an article where he has bad mouthed a partner or publisher he has worked with. I hope he gets his project greenlit so I can enjoy it on my Switch!

This would be a prime opportunity for the Nindies guys to reach out to him.

@Wexter Pretty much, yeah. But specifically, the flat shaded wire frame 14fps Mode 7 looked really backward next to Playstation (and even moreso next to the upcoming N64.) Releasing that at the time would have made StarFox look very behind the times as a brand, so they tabled it and worked on the updated StarFox 64.

The Irony is the SF2 gameplay is arguably a much better game than the short on-rails 64, though 64 fit the mood of the time better.

Yeah according to him, Star Fox Command was also a "great idea", so i'd rather never see him in any leading roles for a Star Fox game ever again but, then again, Star Fox has fallen so low over the years that not even Nintendo wants to mess with it no more, and Kamiya didn't get a chance to work on Star Fox like he wanted.

So i guess there's nothing good we can expect from another Star Fox title but only to hope for the best...

@RedMageLanakyn

lol THIS so much.

@Yalaa Kamiya was busy with Scalebound at the time of StarFox Zero's development and it was commanding a lot of his time. I'm sure he is quite upset that he missed out on his chance to work on the title and he already could not talk about it because P-Games was working on it so it was probably very frustrating for him to get those questions about him working on one. I'm sure he would still jump at the chance if Nintendo asked him.

@Anguspuss I am focusing on two passions of mine. 16-bit games and superheroes. So I am developing a 16-bit RPG inspired by Doctor Who, 16-Bit RPGs and the Batman Arkham series

Lately I have been coding the cutscenes annd I must say since my last RPG it is definitely better. It is all about the learning

@Wexter I wonder if SF Zero would have turned out a better game had Kamiya been leading the project.

Of course it's not all Platinum Games' fault since Miyamoto felt it was so necessary for yet another reboot and "innovative" controls.

@Grandpa_Pixel as a Dr Who fan & old enough to be 16 bit fan ill volunteer myself as a playtester. :}

@NEStalgia While yes that is the most accepted and certainly logical explanation for Nintendo cancelling Star Fox 2, you've got to wonder Why Nintendo decided to make Star Fox 64 another linear on rails shooter instead of the tactical choose your path game that was Star Fox 2.

Not only that but they also rebooted the game and never revisited this tactics focused style of gameplay until Command on DS and it was quickly ignored for Star Fox 64 3D and only now after 20 years are they releasing Star Fox 2 which is not even the finished version.

Can we get a remaster of Star Fox DS on the Switch with physical controls?

@Yalaa That's a good question! If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the "on rails" idea allowed a more cinematic presentation, and considering they were up against Sony's fusion of cinematics and gaming, they wanted to aim more squarely at what Sony was doing, so the linear approach was needed. I suspect Miyamoto also has a thing for the cinematic idea for StarFox since even up to Zero he continues with it, and based the whole concept on a puppet TV show even on SNES. It may also be that they just wanted to play it safe. SF worked on SNES...they wanted to introduce it as a showcase for "proper" 3D. Why risk messing with the formula? The N64's memory limitations could have played a role too.

It's possible they're testing the waters for the future of Star Fox too. "Zelda worked with a major redesign....lets see how people react to rethinks of other franchises!"

All speculation and theory of course.

Starfox 1 remake

@Grandpa_Pixel Wow that's awesome! I'm trying to get into game development, but I need to find a solid laptop so that I can really get going! Do you happen to know any good brands or have any tips for a beginner such as I?

@Grandpa_Pixel What tools are you using? I'm getting ready for Ludum Dare in a couple of weeks so is there any advice you can give me thanks.

I don't get why people loved this game so much. other than looking more 3D than everything else at the time

To me this Star Fox is my least fav game on the SNES Classic

Much better than a dev moaning they can't port a game across because of power boo hoo.

The thing is if he goes to a major third party publisher with his great idea, they'll quickly turn his great idea into being about a brooding wise cracking anti hero in a post apocalyptic world, involved in killing zombies from behind cover and occasional QTE set pieces interspersed with 46GB of cut scenes. And then people in here will fight about why it's not coming to the Switch.

Do it Nintendo!! So more third parties can complain about they not selling and you don't promoting them. Even though its games aren't quite that good.

read Cuthbert's Q-Games as "Qbert's Cuth-Games."

@MegaVel91 Yeah. Great ideas are often risky and require a lot of work so I would say it is tougher for great ideas.

@ValhallaOutcast "I don't get why people loved this game so much. other than looking more 3D than everything else at the time"

The way I remember it, that was it, really. Like the jump from SD to HD 10 years ago, to maybe the jump from HD to UHD now, that's what it was like experiencing the jump from 2D to 3D games. Starfox represented arcade-like 3D graphics in a cartridge.

From the late 80's going into the 90's, arcade games, because they were still relevant and they actually lead the industry in gaming technology, began rolling out with more and faster shaded, and later textured, polygons. From the vector (essentially wireframe 3D) games in the 80's like Atari's Tempest, Star Wars, and Major HAVOC. To the late 80's to early 90's shaded poly games like Atari's Hard Drivin', its sequel Race Drivin', "I, Robot", and Namco's Starblade:

^^This right here. This is the game that inspired Starfox without a doubt. Some enemies look and behave almost identical to Starfox. Check out the 'SCRAMBLE' launch sequence at 0:41. Heck, look at the spiraling descent onto planet Redeye starting at 7:42. It's literally the same camera motion as approaching Venom's surface in Starfox's main route, but smoother!

But, also look at the presentation. A hulking environmental cabinet, surround sound, rumble motors in the seat, LOADS of voice samples (which was also a big thing before optical media made it trivial), LED lamps flashing everywhere, and the game image was reflected onto a large concave mirror to make the image bigger and more immersive (Those curved TVs out now? Yup, not an original concept).

What Starfox lacked in frame rate and environmental effects versus Starblade, Starfox had music, power ups, branching paths, actual flight controls along a path, characters, and a story. In all, a longer, more tailored for-home experience than Starblade and its 15-20 minute start-to-finish play session where you might go through the game again but more than likely you won't. Starfox was an evolution in the on-rails arcade game genre available to play in the comfort of your own home.

I really hope Nintendo themselves pick up a deal with Cuthbert #OldEmployee

@Grandpa_Pixel Do you happen to have any screenshots of your game? I would love to see one myself!

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Well, selling the idea shouldn't be understated as well.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Really naive thinking.

Indie developers don't need publishers. What's holding you back?

@aesc I have about 3 years of experience in a multiple areas and I'm interested in the whole process. Level design, graphic design(still needs a bit of work in my opinion), and I know how to code in C++ and C#. I currently want to make a platformer where you have to decide on whether you want improved speed, or jumping capabilities during certain situations. But my current PC is basically
a potato so I can't even run Unity on it.

@TenEighty That Nintendo owns the Star Fox IP and they would need to approve the game and would likely want to publish it?

Better to talk to sony and bring your great idea to ps4. More likely to get support from sony then nintendo.
Or better yet steam.

@brendon987 He said specifically that the idea is for Switch, likely heavily based around it's form factor.

There's no mention of PS4, so why on earth you would bring it up on a Nintendo site/article is beyond me.

Unless you are trolling, of course.

@Grandpa_Pixel

Out of curiosity are you a trained developer or self taught.

Why are people so negative about everything nintendo. It's the same across this whole site hardly a good word said.

It's called StarBox. Qbby + Starfox

@samuelvictor It was before SEGA's Star Wars, which came out in 1994 on SEGA's Model 1 arcade boards. Sadly, I never got a chance to play it. The only other predecessor I can see for Star Blade is Namco's Galaxian3, as it's kind of a rework of that game/attraction and it was made to about double the playtime of Galaxian3 (more time to drain your quarters, that is). Galaxian3 came out in 1990 and was originally an attraction at Namco's theme park, Wonder Eggs. It had seats for 28 players in a 360-degree wraparound projector theater. A few years later, the experience was shrunk down to a 6-player mini-theater for easier installation into smaller game rooms and arcades, but it was still huge.

Sorry for the delay! Coding and life got in the way! (Hey that rhymed )

@crackafreeze It's the only reason I would accept

@Anguspuss I am sure I could use a helping hand when it nears completion (Also, female Doctor? Awesome!)

@MegaVel91 I will admit there were times I almost gave up but being able to say "I MADE THAT" is a great motivation tool

@RyanSilberman Awesome what games are you making?

@GamePerson19 @nessisonett Two things I am glad I learnt at the start. Stick with 2D for the basics and use Game Maker Studio. 2D allows you to focus on gameplay and start getting into it straight away and Game Maker Studio prepares you for environments like Visual Studio and whatnot. I can easily recommend both!

@Dpullam Nothing yet as it is pre-Alpha but I will say for any sneak peaks we have done, the results have been fantastic compared to our last game ^_^

@easygoingthief Actually I am both. I self-taught myself in some languages and was taught in others at university. It made me a powerhouse at programming.

And thanks for the interest! It's times like these that give me and my team the drive to finish. If YoYoGames ever confirm Game Maker support for the Switch I will be porting every game we have to it. Even if it delays our current game!

@Grandpa_Pixel yes a woman doctor & amazing the sky didnt fall down or the world end. But number 13

@Grandpa_Pixel I'm using Visual Studio in school just now but never really thought it would be viable for creating games as we only really use it alongside databases to create quizzes and card games. Thanks for the tips though, I appreciate it.