Interview: Nnooo on Spirit Hunters, 3DS and more

We speak to Nic Watt from Nnooo about their next game, 3DS plans and Nnooos previous work

Firstly, let’s remind everyone who you are and what your company has done previously.

Our name is Nnooo, we are a new games development company based in Sydney, Australia. We released our first title, Pop, as a launch title for WiiWare in May 2008 and have since released Pop+ Solo, myNotebook: Blue, Red and Green and myPostcards for DSiWare. We are also working on 3 new myLifeCollected apps for DSiWare as well as 2 new games, one of which will be on both DSiWare and WiiWare while the other, Spirit Hunters Inc., is coming to DSiWare and hopefully the new 3DS.

Your last DSiWare title was myPostcards and, before that, myNotebook. How have they done?

myNotebook has done extremely well. We were the top paid application on DSiWare for the three weeks before Christmas last year and we have now reached a major milestone in terms of sales. myPostcards has started a little slower, however we are hopeful the coming Summer holidays in Europe, the USA and Canada will see an uplift in sales as we feel myPostcards will be great to take on holiday with you.

Are you surprised there aren’t more apps on DSiWare considering the success of non-game Apps on the iPhone?

For us, making apps served a couple of purposes. Firstly, myNotebook was a test to see if DSi users would be open to downloading apps. Secondly, and more importantly for us, it was also a way for us to quickly get to grips with the DSi hardware. myPostcards was then the next step in our learning process which was to bring us towards Spirit Hunters Inc.

I think for a lot of other developers, the concept of apps is something that many of them, like us, were unsure would prove successful. Luckily for us, we managed to move first!

So you’ve got a new game called Spirit Hunters Inc. for DSiWare, can you tell us all about it?

Spirit Hunters Inc. is a game idea that has been mulling around in my head for a while now. It first came to me while we were on holiday in the USA. I was out for a beautiful coastal walk and I started to think about how you could make a game which would encourage kids to explore the world around them. When the DSi came to life with its two cameras, I realised that the time might be right to start working on this game.

Spirit Hunters Inc. sees the user searching the real world for spirits and ghosts and then battling them. During the battle, the player has the choice of defeating the ghost for lots of experience or capturing it and getting a finders fee from Spirit Hunters Inc.

Spirit Hunters Inc. also sees you working for the mysterious Spirit Hunters Inc. agency. As you play the game, you will have to explore the real world to capture and defeat as many different types of ghost and spirits as you can. As you do you will not only move up levels and gain new abilities, you will also unlock more and more secrets about this mysterious company you find yourself working for.

The abilities align to one of six elements: Fire, Ice, Water, Light, Shadow or Fungal. Each one having strengths and weaknesses to each other. Furthermore, each ghost will be aligned to one or more of these elements so the player must choose abilities and tactics carefully when battling a ghost or spirit.

Augmented reality is something that we don’t see often; how did you decide to use this in the game?

It has been part of the concept from the start as we really want to encourage players to explore all over their local environments to see where spirits and ghosts might be hiding. It also opens up some great combat opportunities as the spirit can move off screen (i.e. run away) and so the player must turn around and search to track the ghost down again. We also feel that having the real world as the game world creates a unique attachment with the player that pre-generated worlds cannot. The player can literally find and battle ghosts anywhere.

So it comes in two versions? What’s different between the two?

We have not finalised or announced all the differences yet. However the basic idea is different ghosts and abilities in each version. Players can then create challenges and trade them with each other. If a ghost from one version is traded via a challenge, it can then be unlocked in the other.

100 monsters, RPG elements – sounds pretty packed for a download title.

Yeah it is pretty ambitious, but we think we can pull it off! The ghosts will come in different families so there will be likely 20-ish families of ghosts with each family having a ghost from each element as well as some elite or rare boss ones.

How far away is this game at this stage?

We are hoping to have Spirit Hunters out in the last quarter of 2010 and in particular late October (for Halloween) or early November. Still, it is early days so we don’t want to promise anything yet!

Are you surprised that there have only been a handful of games to make use of the Nintendo DSi cameras in a meaningful way?

I think it is hard to understand how to use all the features of new hardware quickly, which is why a lot of developers have shied away from it. For us, we think it is really important to make use of these special features as that is what got the user excited about the hardware in the first place. Which is also why we decided to make the myLifeCollected series as it allowed us to quickly try out each of the areas of the DSi without having to spend 9-12 months on each.

You’ve long spoken out about the price of registration for classification of games in Australia; do you believe we’ll see any progress on this?

I am hopeful we will, however I don’t think it is a great sign when the OFLC doesn’t bother to actually talk to developers like myself. I have emailed them with comments and would be more than happy to meet them to discuss my thoughts. However they do not seem interested.

Titles on the App Store don’t need to be classified. Do think we might see some changes if they hit such a larger distribution platform?

I think it will be interesting to see how this situation develops. Personally I think it is somewhat unfair that WiiWare and DSiWare developers must get their games rated by the ESRB, PEGI and OFLC and yet App Store developers don’t. If Apple had this policy, I personally think that quality would rise as you have to seriously think about how profitable your app will be if you are paying AUS$2,000 – AUS$4,000 for games ratings.

Are you and Nnooo excited for the 3DS?

Very, very excited!

Any thoughts about any 3DS games yet?

Well we hope that we can do an amazing version of Spirit Hunters Inc. for 3DS and one of our other games currently in development would work very well on 3DS. In terms of brand new ideas, we have a few, however until we see the final hardware and what it can do, none of them are final. For us it is really important to make sure the game uses the hardware effectively, otherwise the game could be on any platform.

Thanks to your readers for taking the time to read this and we hope you are all excited about Spirit Hunters Inc.!