ollibald

The art director for rain games/teslagrad here-
It's not a Limited Run release, we're working with Soedesco!

the release will cover both US and Europe regions.

Both of these art variants are works in progress, still painting stuff, so who knows how the box art will end up in the end:)

PS-this is still pretty early in development , so most of the assets seen in the footage here is previz/stuff. hopefully we'll have something playable for gdc!

we're also still working on a patch for wttw switch to fix some frame drops and visual issues, plus finishing up the wii u port.
once we finish a game, we usually put tech folks on porting duties and art/game designers on concept work for a while, so this is mostly implemented by the art staff so far

@JayJ i think it looks a lot better in motion than it does in stills, myself (and i'm the art director of the game)

@Pod thanks:D

@Bunkerneath

good news, it's actually priced $14.99!
there was a mixup with the pricing during submission, but we're fixing it before release.

Heh, i was sure the "intergalactic racing" one would be rock n roll racing

it's not canceled, i'm the art director. we just want to release a stable version rather than a slightly shabby version.
(wii u retail is definitely dead though, even if we tried our hardest to make it happen!)

switch will probably happen down the line;)

@XenoShaun
we wanted to make a retail edition for wii u too, but stores have basically stopped giving shelf space to wii u at this point. Even back in 2015 when we released teslagrad physically in europe, US retailers backed out before release due to shelf space reduction for wii u games (this is one of many reasons the wii u got poor third party support from retail-focused companies imo)

@XenoShaun switch carts are far more expensive to produce than discs and most stores still want the same share of the profits as in other units, so most of the costs aren't "fake switch taxes", just narrow margins that can't be cut much further.

this is gonna sound weird, but developers actually already earn less on physical releases than digital units despite the price being higher, due to the costs of transport, manifacturing and sharing the profits between more parties!

@MrGamerClock64 i wouldn't rule out a switch version at all, but the wii u version will definitely not be cancelled-it's basically 98% done. it's just some changes to how we're rendering the lighting, level shading and sfx into a single pass rather than separate render passes, which gets rid of framerate issues in a few of the busier areas. by our estimates fixes will take about 2 weeks(give or take, you can never be 100% sure with these things) followed by nintendo's internal approval process, which can take 2-4 weeks depending on a few factors.

I refuse to confirm these virtual boy rumors

Miyamoto has called him a "weird old guy" and "ossan"(middle-aged man) in interviews at various points though, so he's clearly a bit flexible here:)

In my experience, retailers will often use a random placeholder price and made up release date if they don't have the info available when they're setting up a page, so wouldn't put too much stock in this being accurate

Loved this article, the rare angle really made it stand out. Good job, McFerran!

Seems like a very smart marketing decision for the xmas season, given that nintendo targets a family audience- I think a lot of 20-30 year olds will buy this as a nostalgia piece for their parents who haven't owned a console since the 80s.

It's a good way to get a slice of virtual console to folks who wouldn't buy a modern console to emulate classics,but wouldn't mind having a tiny dedicated device

Give Teslagrad a shot!

Btw, from what i understand gold coins are awarded based on the original price of the games, not the discounted price- so you get 20 coins even though the game is under $10.

Glad you think so!

Feel free to check it out, folks! It's been a while since the last time it was discounted on Wii U

as part of a smallish indie team (not the source in the article), i'd like to pitch in and say that console marketplaces accepting IARC would be awesome news indeed-we probably wouldn't have had to wait for years to see games (1001 spikes, i'm looking at you) on 3ds in europe if IARC ratings were enough to launch a game here.

For us it's not even that much about the cost of rating -though that certainly stings a bit- but that every ratings process can take a lot of time and manpower, often taking away weeks that could be better spent making games.

so far there's been a few delays with the us physical release as our publisher/distributor is trying to get it into as many us stores as possible (well, possible for a limited release, anyway:)

There were a small batch of copies released in europe last week, but there's still a lot of places it hasn't launched. physical distribution is a strange beast when you're a small indie!

Btw, the disc release comes pre-patched, which is another reason it's not out yet in the us. The patch approval process took a bit longer than expected!

@TreonsRealm @Samuel-Flutter sorry for the wait!

@Samuel-Flutter yeah,the wii u disc version is produced and ready to go, we're working with our partner soedesco on getting into enough retail locations to get a date cleared. Things get complex when you're a microstudio doing physical releases:)

cool effort! it seems weird that the sprites float in front of the level tiles though, it looks like they're suspended in mid air

There's this other funk track that predates the smb underground music with a very similar riff but i can't remember its name right now

also, this may have inspired the smb1 underground music

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFlsEBkPxs

Been saying that for a long time, just listen to this track: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=toonXjN2wTM

Pretty sure that's the main inspiration for both the main theme and dungeon music from zelda 1!

@ULTRA-64 there's no major features that differ from the eshop version, but it comes with some changes (that will be patched into the eshop version) preinstalled though- improved map system, support for more controller types, minor bug fixes etc

It's a pretty small print run, so it's mainly meant as a collector's item/a nod to die hard physical media fans. Re the price difference between physical and digital editions, making and distributing discs is fairly expensive- we actually make less money per copy sold on disc than on the eshop!

btw, we got a surprise email from ESRB this morning, they've reconsidered the Teen rating in the US. It'll take some time to get it updated across the board, but the new rating is E!
(the game can get thematically dark at points, but it's never gratuitous, so i think that's more fair)

definitely picking this up, brownie brown knows their stuff

@Kirk it gets a lot less puzzly once you start using the blink boots!

@jariw yeah, it's 1080p!

@Frapp cheers, i hope so too. Would be nice to be able to make more games!

i'm so picking up oot, havent had the time to play the 3ds version yet!

@MajinSoul If you're playing on the tv, we show the ingame map on the gamepad screen, but we support offscreen play as well.

@DarkCoolEdge
we have a really small one room office, so most of the time there's been 4 people working full time, with 4 more people working part time and a few others helping out from time to time. we started planning the game in 2010. we've spent about 27 thousand hours making it so far.

@AJWolfTill awesome, thanks a lot! it's taken a lot longer than we anticipated to get it ready for release, so it's quite a relief to finally be able to!

@Bluegreen we've been rated for australia, so i think it's releasing the same time there as well. i'll have to double check though, i try to avoid being the guy filling out the forms whenever i can

@Frapp
that's a perfectly valid stance, we wound up using the rates recommended to us and though i think it's worth the asking price i agree that uneven pricing across european markets isn't really ideal.
We'll probably do discount campaigns on the wii u version as well down the line, so i hope we'll reach a price point you'll find more agreeable then!

@luke88

hi! the price conversions in the various regions are calculated using a standardized recommended conversion rates sheet.
the price difference between pc and consoles is mainly to pay for six months of porting and bug fixes (unity simplifies the process but it's by no means a one button process), not to mention age ratings for every region, which is obligatory for console releases and can get pretty costly. nintendo recommends healthy pricing practices. Not going to elaborate too much on this, but the race to the bottom and "not buying till it's 75% off" trend in pc game pricing is pretty bad for indies.

@DarkCoolEdge thanks for that! really looking forward to seeing people outside of the office playing it with the gamepad:)

i think a lot of it has to do with the major geographical distances between populations in most of scandinavia. Most 3ds owners are pretty isolated up here and so there is less interest in social games and multiplayer to begin with- i live in one of largest norwegian cities and i'm lucky if i get four streetpass hits per week. i have a small circle of friends who own a 3ds, but so far none of them have shown any interest in TL because they can't see it gaining traction.

i'm aware tomodachi life is a single player experience, but a lot of its appeal has to do with the interactions with other peoples' miis. those have to be primarily people you know IRL for you to find their antics entertaining, and unless you make them from scratch, i'm guessing that requires meeting people you know who have a 3ds (and preferably plays tomodachi life) so i think it's a case of the entry barrier being too high.

simply put, i think tomodachi life needs to have some early influencers/missionaries for it to spread and it simply didn't get that kind of word of mouth up here because there's less local interaction between gamers, and if there is they are probably less open to non-traditional games like TL.

Super awesome game, this. It's well worth $70 but luckily it's bound to be cheaper on the vc:)