Category: Nintendo News

The Switch certainly isn’t short of top-quality indie games at present, and with so many titles hitting the eShop each week it can be hard to decide which ones are worth your time and money. Hopefully you consult our reviews to make your purchasing choices, but in the case of Gorogoa, you might find the story of the game’s development gives you enough reason to lay down your cash.

Gorogoa is a unique puzzle title from 43-year-old former software engineer Jason Roberts, and has been in development for the past seven years. Roberts has taken part in an extensive interview with Kotaku in which he talks about his struggles, aims and hopes for Gorogoa, and it’s well worth a look.

We won’t republish a lot of the interview as we’d thoroughly recommend that you give it a read, but it’s worth highlighting just how arduous the road to release has been for Roberts. He demoed the game in 2012 to a receptive audience, only to run out of money just a few years after, which caused things to stall – despite winning awards for the game’s design and look. The Indie Fund gave him another year of funding, but it would be publisher Annapurna Interactive which would step in to give the game the investment it needed to make it to the finish line.

I thought it was going to be a quick process. It took me too long. The fact that Annapurna could bring a dedicated marketing budget felt important. I needed a bad cop, or some tough love, to finish the game. I have that tendency to just… I don’t know. Maybe I would have just kept wandering, design-wise, until I ran out of money.

Gorogoa’s puzzles are unique to say the least; meticulously-designed and based on the idea of moving panels around the storybook-style screen:

I’m mostly interested in having things connect that are different from each other: different scales, different kinds of things. For a long time, I would think of elaborate puzzles, and they would have elaborate pieces that made them up, and that would cause me to make scenes around those pieces that didn’t really make sense.

Roberts also talks about the games which inspired his design process during development, and cites titles like Dear Esther and Gone Home:

A lot of games that push the boundary of what a video game is came along later and influenced my thinking. I feel like I’m at the point in video games as a medium where you have to justify… why there are mechanics at all. Why I didn’t want to just tell a story.

If you like your gaming experiences to be deep and meaningful, Gorogoa sounds like it could be just the ticket, as Roberts gets quite philosophical when discussing his work:

What do I like about puzzles? I think it has to do with the idea that there is hidden structure or meaning in the world. That if you can look at an ordinary piece of the world and rearrange the parts of it in just the right way, you would discover some hidden structure. And if you look out in the world and you don’t see that meaning there, that means that there has to be some challenge to finding it, to explain why you haven’t found it yet.

I think a lot of projects start with one little idea in a corner of something. You expand outward, and you sort of wander around until you hit a top-level idea that sort of unifies everything. You’re just trying to figure out what you’re making. 

If you don’t know where your destination is, you don’t know how long you have to wander.

Have you downloaded this intriguing game yet? We’re working on our review as we speak, but in the meantime, let us know your thoughts with a comment.

It’s been two years since an episode from The Legend Of Dark Witch series graced a Nintendo platform (episodes one and two were digital titles that shot their way onto the 3DS eShop), but The Legend Of Dark Witch 3 – Wisdom And Lunacy is almost ready to cast its own spell, compete with fresh moves, brand new effects and more.

A 2D, side-scrolling shooter in the vein of classic Mega Man, TLODW3 places you in the magical shoes of series regular Zizou, who returns to Earth to check everything is running smoothly, only to discover another witch is running amok. Cue platforming, bullet hell gunfights and plenty of big bosses to take down. TLODW3 is also the first instalment to feature 3D effects, so expect this one to look even more impressive.

Updates include the power to use magical items as much as you want (rather than being limited to a set number, as with previous entries) and a series of hidden Syega crystals to hunt down for added upgrades. There’s also a new move to add to your arsenal (the ‘Lord Attack’, perfect for closing the distance on enemies with a painful dash), and you’ll be able to make good use of it since the game features the most levels in the game’s history, as well as four difficulty settings for added replay value.

Has the The Legend Of Dark Witch 3 bewitched you with its 2D shooter visuals? It’ll be arriving on 21st December with a price tag of £9.99/$9.99.

Those that enjoy puzzles and more laid-back gaming have some excellent options on the Switch eShop, and it seems as if Sally’s Law will be added to the list.

Confirmed to be in the works for Switch back in November by its development team, Nanali Studios (based in Korea), Japanese publisher Polaris-X has since said it’s due for a Winter release on the eShop in Japan.

To date all mentions of this Switch version do highlight the Japanese store, but there’s scope for it to head to the West too; the game is already fully localised due to its release on PC / iOS and Android last year.

It looks rather interesting, and the mix of puzzles and storytelling seem to have gone down well among Steam users.

Is this a title you’re interested in playing on the Switch?

Update: Zen’s Mel Kirk has responded to this story stating that the “looks terrible” comment was attributed to a customer service representative and was in relation to a query from a buyer, rather than a reflection on the graphical quality of the game itself. 

In reflection of these comments, we’ve amended the title of this piece.

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Original Story: If you’ve already downloaded Zen Studio’s Pinball FX3 on Switch then you may be underwhelmed by the game’s performance in docked mode, where it runs at a sub-1080p resolution. Not only are the visuals lacking in definition, the 3D models are also missing graphical detail.

This has led to some buyers contacting the developer to ask if a fix is in the works – and thankfully, it is.

It’s great to hear that Zen Studio is addressing these concerns as we speak; you may want to hold off buying the game until the fix arrives, but the developer has stressed that you may not encounter these problems if you’re playing on a modest-sized television.

Let us know your thoughts on the game by posting a comment below.

Not all retro gaming AV cables are created equal, despite what you may have read or heard. Unlike HDMI – which is a digital signal – the analogue realm is subject to wild variances when it comes to quality, and the pursuit of the perfect audio visual setup has become the lifelong objective of many a retro gamer. Some will spend a small fortune on what were top-of-the-line professional video monitors back in the day, while others are happier to settle on upscalers like the Open Source Scan Converter, but there is a more reasonable option in the form of really good RGB SCART cables.

Now, SCART may not be a format you’re familiar with if you happen to live outside of Europe, but it is generally accepted to be the best option when it comes to getting a good image out of your vintage gaming tech. RGB SCART provides a sharp, colourful image on the right display, making older games look simply stunning. A sizeable market has grown as a result of the demand for good quality cables, and UK-based Retro Gaming Cables has been satisfying this demand for a good few years now.

The company prides itself on crafting excellent leads and cables for a dazzling array of classic systems, but its flagship range – dubbed “Packapunch” – takes things to the next level. These thick cables are constructed from the best components to protect against external magnetic interference and “crosstalk” between individual signals within the cable. The end result is picture and audio quality the likes of which we’ve personally not seen before, and believe us, we’ve spent a lot of cash on RGB SCART leads over the decades.

Even if you simply use the Packapunch cable on its own, you’ll unquestionably notice a big difference on your flatscreen TV. Colours look sharper, but the contrast is also vastly improved; the image may appear darker initially but soon you’ll be able to pick out fine pixel detail that simply wasn’t there before. A good example is the clouds in Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive; they looked white previously but, using one of these cables, it’s possible to see that they are made up of more than one colour. Combine the Packapunch cables with the aforementioned OSSC and you’ve basically got the ultimate setup, short of buying an expensive (and bulky) professional-grade CRT video monitor; the OSSC loves it when you fed in a really good RGB signal.

Packapunch cables are available for a wide range of systems, including the SNES, Mega Drive, Neo Geo, PC Engine, Dreamcast, Master System, Wii, PlayStation and GameCube – basically any console which is capable of outputting an RGB single. When the range was launched a few years back the prices were sky-high compared to bog-standard SCART leads, but more recently they’ve settled down slightly, with a typical cable costing around £30 including shipping. It should be noted that due to the highly specialised nature of these leads, they are often made to order.

While many people will be content to simply use whatever cables they have to hand in order to get their vintage systems up and running on modern TVs, it’s only when you see the massive gulf in quality between cheaper leads and premium products like the Packapunch that you realise how much visual fidelity you’re missing out on by pinching those pennies; sure, there are viable ways of getting retro games onto your television via HDMI (clone systems and the SNES Classic Mini, for starters) which provide excellent image quality for a reasonable price, but if you’re the kind if gamer who simply has to use the original hardware, you need these cables in your life.

We’re big fans of RIVE: Ultimate Edition on the Nintendo Switch, the explosive final hurrah from Two Tribes. It’s full of intense 60fps action that looks great on the system, and we didn’t hold back on the praise in our review.

Two Tribes has been working away on an update and has now pushed out version 1.21; the key addition is support for for video through the capture button, so if you do something amazing and want to capture the last 30 seconds you can.

Some other tweaks and improvements have been confirmed.

• Added video recording.
• Improved the checkpoint system, so there’s an even smaller chance you die, respawn and get stuck in a loop of hell in a loop of hell in a loop of hell.
• Improved support for Asian characters in the Leaderboards, like テ but not like Major Motoko Kusanagi.
• Your Achievements now survive the Reset Save Data option in the RIVE Settings menu. Deliberately want to get rid of them? The Delete Save Data option in the Switch System Settings is way more ruthless.
• Fixed an issue where foggy levels could look iffy after switching from TV mode to handheld/tabletop mode and vice versa. Now they look mesmerizing all of the time.
• Fixed an issue with positional audio effects, so their volume is no longer INCORRECTLY LOUD.
• Various other small fixes and improvements.

So there you have it – it’s a game that certainly suits snappy video highlights due to all of its set-pieces. If you’ve played this let us know in the comments which set-pieces and sequences are your favourites.

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• by Damien McFerran
• 4 hours ago

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When the Nintendo Switch was first revealed to an unsuspecting world, it didn’t take long for people to make the connection that the attachment into which you slide the Joy-Con kinda looks like a cute puppy face with droopy ears. Shortly after, we got this successful Kickstarter.

Thankfully the dream of turning your controllers into pooches hasn’t died. Hyperkin has been beavering away in the background and may well have just perfected the concept as you can see in this new Amazon product listing.

Unlike the standard Joy-Con controller grip, this one is wider at the bottom to make the dog ears even more pronounced. It comes with three dog face stickers so you can express your individuality.

The Pupper Joy-Con group also charges your Joy-Con too, which is pretty cool. The Pupper will be available from 21st December and will cost $20 – which makes it quite a bit cheaper than the official charging grip, as well as cuter.

Do you plan to pick up one of these hot dogs?

Having already slashed up a storm on other platforms, the Fallen Legion series is finally making a beeline for Nintendo Switch – and its arriving in 2018. The new Rise Of Glory collection will unite Fallen Legion: Sins Of The Empire and Fallen: Legion: Flames Of Rebellion (which were previously released on PS4 and PS Vita respectively) for the very first time, as well as packing in new routes and extra content to make the fresh collection all the more appetising to new and old fans alike.

The Fallen Legion games tell the story of a war for the land of Fenumia, with each game following the same conflict from the perspective of each side (in this case it’s Princess Cecille’s story in Sins Of The Empire and the man leading the coup against her, Legatus Laendur in Flames Of Rebellion). It’s a neat little concept, with control of your 2D squad locked to the face buttons. Add in the ability to choose the path of each game’s story via decision-based cards and you’ve got one fast-paced tactical RPG on Switch.

What do you make of YummyYummyTummy Inc’s (yes, that’s really the developer’s name) new collection? 2018 is shaping up nicely already…

There are plenty of dance-based games out there – with the likes of Just Dance 2017 and Just Dance 2018 having already moonwalked their way onto Switch – but the classic art of breakdancing is yet to have its proper time in the virtual spotlight. Well, one little indie is about to change all that, and with style, too. Welcome, to the world of Floor Kids.

With its eye-catching hand-drawn graphics by award-winning animator (and former bboy) JonJon set to an original soundtrack by world-renowned scratch DJ/producer Kid Koala, Floor Kids is set to make a big entrance on Switch. The duo have worked closely before with the Floor Kids, with them appearing in a number of short animations as well as being incorporated into some of Kid Koala’s live performances. So it seems a perfect fit to bring the hip-hop beats and that instantly recognisable art style together into a game that rewards creativity, originality and sick dance floor moves.

With Floor Kids out now in North America and due very soon in Europe, we sat down with JonJon and Kid Koala to talk musical influences, working on Switch and tips for any prospective bboys or bgirls out there…

Floor Kids’ soundtrack is phenomenal, and it’s such a huge part of the experience — can you tell us about the musical influences that went into it?

Kid Koala: Thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you enjoyed the music! I’ve been doing more film soundtrack and scoring work in recent years, so I kind of applied that “score to picture” mentality to Floor Kids. JonJon’s art style is very raw and scratchy, so I just tried to make music that would fit the visual world that he created. I pretty much used everything in my studio and tried to make tracks that had the energy of the bboy/bgirl events that I’ve deejayed at over the years. I have a vinyl cutting machine in my studio, so often I would play the instruments and then cut them on to vinyl to re-scratch them back into the track. That way you get that turntable push/pull and record dust into the mix, which I love. I got to use equipment from every era because I’m a bit of a gear geek. Jon drew a venue that’s an old school video arcade, so I brought out the Commodore SID chip, 4 bit, 8 bit, synths for that. By the time the player gets to the Peace Summit, I wanted the music to feel like some insane “Final Boss Battle”. I laughed a lot making those tracks also (sometimes maniacally)  because the chorus sections are ridiculously difficult. During the menu music and story cut scenes, I made more mid-tempo tracks just give a little break from the uptempo battle tracks.  

How did the gameplay structure in Floor Kids inform your compositions?

Kid Koala: From deejaying at break events, I had a sense of how long dancers usually spent on the mat during a cipher. That’s how we set up the duration of one round. Normally you would just loop the break on 2 turntables and the dancers would go at it.  Each round has 2 “verse” sections, where the player is free to create their own dance routines. Then we added mini rhythm games in the “chorus” sections so you can hit stabs with the musicians (one of my favorite pastimes from playing with bands) before you go back to freestyle mode.

Lots of your musical work has involved either virtuality or multimodality, from Gorillaz and Deltron 3030 to film, fashion shows, and puppets with Vinyl Vaudeville — how are those projects similar (or different) to composing music for a video game? Are there any specific challenges or freedoms that come with making music for games?

Kid Koala: Games are very much a LIVE thing, so during the battles the point was to make tracks that would push the energy forward, and hopefully inspire the dancer/player to get in the moment and rock out. I had to imagine these tracks actually playing at break events. Or at least some motivational music for you to quickly clean your house!  For the story cut scenes, it was more about finding the right tones to match that particular moment in the story. In the menu music, it was about making tracks to give a little down time time or breathing room so you could explore the map, check the Breakdeck or get ready for the next round. At any rate, it’s all in the name of making some rad fun happen!

Doing the sound design and foley for the game was a new experience for me. It’s like creating audio sprinkles for a sonic ice cream sundae. I tried to create a set of sounds that would be fun, cut through the mix, fit the feeling of each move, and hopefully not get stale even if that sound was triggered hundreds of times in a round. My favorite moments in the game are the Strobe State Power Moves, Raquettes Super Worm, and Saboya’s Top Rock spins. We also made scanning through the Breakdeck cards a sort of scratch virtual instrument. I think I originally made over 300 slices of scratch sounds that would trigger randomly as you scrolled through the break deck. I’m not sure how many slices the coders ended up implementing, but you can have fun making your own scratch solo just by clicking, scanning through the cards with the left stick and L&R buttons.  That was something that just happened in the studio when we realized each card needed a sound and there was over a hundred different move cards. There were a lot of aha! moments where something the game engine required gave us an opportunity to do something a little bit creative.

One of the things that’s really impressed us about Floor Kids’ animations is the transitions between different moves. Since players are able to essentially string moves together however they like, how did you deal with those possibilities as an animator?

JonJon: The animator in me was like “oh noes.” The bboy in me was like “hells yeaah”.

Do you play rhythm games? What are a few of your favourites?

Kid Koala: No, but sometimes I’ll try to play Super Mario Bros. using the dance mat.

JonJon: I played Beat Sneak Bandit when we started developing for the game, but other than that I am definitely not the guy who sings rap at the local karaoke spot on Wednesday nights.

Do you feel any influence from video games (or video game music) on your other creative projects?

Kid Koala: Tetris, and it’s music, causes me low level anxiety, but I love it!

JonJon: My favorite games from childhood are NBA Jam, Star Fox, Star Fox 64, Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Tetris, NHL 94 and Street Fighter although I really suck at every single one of them. When I got older I played Tony Hawk and Bboy for PS2. One time I got addicted to Plants Vs Zombies. I’ve never played Super Time Force but I love watching it. I played a lot of Dr. Mario while working on Floor Kids on an NES emulator.

Kid Koala: I’ve been playing Castlevania since I was a kid.  I didn’t score Floor Kids as a side scroller soundtrack, but I’m sure that music is in my DNA by now.  

With both of you based in Montreal, are there elements of Floor Kids that reflect the Montreal break scene?

Kid Koala: I believe the Metro venue is my metro station.  But I think they would kick us out if you started a dance cipher on the platform like that.  

What do you hope players will experience as they play Floor Kids?

Kid Koala: Pure, uninhibited (funky) joy.

JonJon: Living vicariously through these characters to do the moves they could never hit. (If you can hit these moves in real life, whyyyy are you playing this gaaaaame? LOL)

If players get inspired by Floor Kids and want to take part in real life — either b-boying/b-girling or DJing — what’s the best way to jump in?

Kid Koala: For the starter DJs out there, I would suggest picking up one of these portable scratch turntables they’re making these days.  It’s an inexpensive way to get scratching right away to see if it’s a craft for you.  These new portables are light, have a built in fader or switch and can even be powered with batteries, so you can scratch at your next picnic!  AND they have headphone outs so you don’t annoy your parents, siblings, neighbors.

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We’d like to thank Kid Koala and JonJon for their time. Floor Kids is available to download from the Switch eShop in North America now.