N-Europe's Editor-in-Chief Tom Phillips recently got the chance to chat to the lovely Tyrone Rodriquez of WiiWare developer's Nicalis, and play their upcoming WiiWare title Night Sky. Almost monochromatic in colour, the title's striking visuals complement an addictively puzzling platformer...

Tom Phillips: Hey Tyrone, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your role in the development of the game?
Tyrone Rodriguez: Sure, I'm the producer of Night Sky, and I worked with Niklas Nygren who is the designer/director on the game.
Tom: About how long has it been in development now?
Tyrone: Nicholas created a pretty rough prototype around the tail end of 2007, we wrapped up in 2008 and we've been doing all the Wii development in 2009.
Tom: Are you at final build stage yet?
Tyrone: I wouldn't say final, I mean all the art and design is done, but in my terminology we're about sixty percent as we don't have the UI in and we have a few things we want to touch-up, but we should be done around December. [The release date] really depends on how long Nintendo takes once it's been submitted, but it shouldn't be too far behind that.
Tom: And what sort of price range are you aiming for?
Tyrone: We're trying to keep it competitive with other WiiWare games, so somewhere around 1000 Points we think is pretty fair, for the length of the game and the number of modes.
Tom: How long do you expect the game to last for the average gamer?
Tyrone: The average gamer or, like, one of your readers, are they pretty hardcore? *laughs*
Tom: *laughs* Some of our readers are pretty hardcore.
Tyrone: Yeah, well, you've been playing through the first level which takes about fifteen, twenty minutes, and they get progressively more difficult... I would say on Normal mode, the first play-through should take around two to five hours, depending on how well or badly you do solving all the puzzles. Then there's Hard mode, or 'Expert' as I like to call it which is significantly more difficult, even though you'll have the experience of playing it through on Normal.
Tom: What differences are there between Normal and Hard or 'Expert'?
Tyrone: I'll actually show you... [At this point Tyrone switches the game to 'Expert'] The main thing is the topography changes so now... it looks completely different.
Tom: That is completely different. Yeah, it's almost like a completely different level.
Tyrone: Did you ever play Zelda on the NES?
Tom: Yeah.
Tyrone: This is like the second quest. It's not just a bit harder, there's entirely different maps, kinda the same but in a different way, twisted around. And little touches too, this bit here where you have to balance on a mine cart, on Normal the cart is longer and you can stick to it easier. Little touches.

Roll round, bounce back, ride the windmill up... and you're away!

Tom: Great. I've played through about ten minutes or so now, how does the game progress later on?
Tyrone: Later on we introduce windmills, different ways of inverting gravity, you'll be inside vehicles - jeeps and a triangle with wheels on each end. Or this screen here with flippers [pinball machine-like], where suddenly you're not controlling the ball any more, it has its own momentum and you have to solve this puzzle. We really want to keep the player on-board with a variety of things to do. I hate clichés, but you really have to keep on your toes.
Tom: On WiiWare there are a couple of games coming out sort of like this gameplay-wise, you must know of Furry Legends -
Tyrone: That's a great looking game, yeh.
Tom: How do you feel Night Sky will stand out, apart from its art style, amongst other similar titles?
Tyrone: Well, Furry Legends, which I think looks like it'll have fantastic gameplay, they're 3D, they're character-based, they have a real adventure feel to it. It looks great to me, when it comes out I will pick it up, it feels like an adventure game, kind of like Lost Winds. Whereas Night Sky to me is monochromatic in its personality as it's about you and your experience with the game, that's how we're trying to set ourselves apart. Games for me are about your experience with them, and we're trying to give you a game where you can sit down, dim the lights, turn up your stereo, grab your beverage and just enjoy the experience.
Tom: What soundtrack does the game have? It's so noisy in here it is impossible to hear!
Tyrone: Right, well we contracted Chris Schlarb, this great experimental jazz musician from Long Beach, California, who's great at making really unique and ethereal atmospheres for games, he and Nicholas worked together to make this really ambient music - we have about a full hour of music in the game. Each level has about four or five tunes which are randomly selected. It's a little bit of a bummer you can't hear it now, but when you get the game at home you'll definitely be able to enjoy it.

Tyrone: Niklas, the designer/creator of the game, is very interested in Chinese shadow art. He's very good at creating ambient worlds, and he wanted to create one where you have the very stark blacks you see here, not a lot of colour. And I think he's done that really well and kept it playable. My initial concern was that if it was this dark, y'know, people wouldn't be able to play it very well, and tell the difference between what's what but...
Tom: ...but you really can, I think it looks stunning. How have you found developing for WiiWare, as opposed to a retail release?
Tyrone: I've been pretty surprised how positive an experience its been, especially working with Nintendo, it's been a lot of fun. Y'know it's really true what they said to us - if you believe in it, we'll believe in it and publish it and put it on the store. And they've been great people to work with, which for me is really important on a project like this.
Tom: We all hope Night Sky does well, do you have any plans for a sequel if so, or anything else in the pipeline?
Tyrone: It's really up to the game-players. If they accept it and it does well and we hear they want another one, then I'd be happy to do so, I know Niklas would be happy to design another. There's so many possibilities for this type of game, and we have a lot of ideas we could use for a sequel if there was one.
Tom: Which leads me on to my next question - if there was a sequel, what could you put in that would make things a bit different next time around?
Tyrone: I don't want to tell you too much stuff as I don't want to say what is or isn't in the game later on. But the idea of wind - things rolling across, wind effects on the ball, I would love to do something with that. I think there's a lot that could be done there.
Tom: I think Night Sky could be a great DSiWare game - any plans?
Tyrone: It would be a good DSiWare game. We don't have any plans right now, we're primarily just trying to wrap this Wii one up, but I think it could be a lot of fun.
Tom: Absolutely. And maybe multiplayer in a sequel?
Tyrone: That's also an possibility. We'd have loved to put in here, but, to be selfish, it's all about you and your experience with this one!
Tom: My experience with this game is I want to be playing it at home as soon as possible!

After this the interview descended into general chatter and us playing through some more of the game together - it really is a beautiful game to just sit and watch being played. The game itself is ridiculously addictive, just to play and see what comes next. Despite every screen being a new challenge, it feels so intuitive that while solutions to certain puzzles will require a bit of trial and error, the gamer is never left confused as to what's going on.

The version I played was without the motion-sensing controls - I was playing the game with the D-pad of the Wii-mote - though the final version will allow you to hold the Remote horizontally and tilt it to move. The D-pad controls will remain as an option however - apparently so gamers can play one-handed, with their beverage of choice in their other hand!

Many thanks again to Tyrone for his time - we'll be bringing you a final review of the game nearer its release!