PALGN: Firstly, can you please introduce yourself and your role on Pop?
NW: My name is Nic Watt and I am the Creative Director on Pop.
PALGN: Is Nnooo a one man development team?
NW: No there are currently four of us. The team is comprised of myself, fulfilling art and design roles and 3 engineers: Dom, Jasper and David. We also have a great partnership with Game Audio Australia who are creating all of the music and effects for us.
The blue reminds us of the ocean.
PALGN: Can you tell us a little bit about Pop?
NW: Pop is our first game as a company and is currently exclusive to Nintendo Wii and specifically WiiWare. As we are a new developer we wanted to make a game which was achievable for us in terms of scope and budget, particularly seeing as we are self-funding its development. Pop is designed to fit within the core dynamic of the Wii audience and is therefore intended to be very simple to pick up and play. However this simplicity does not mean that there is no depth or skill to the game. Instead we have worked hard to ensure that core and new gamers will find the experience rewarding. In particular we have what we consider to be a unique balancing system which allows those skilled at Pop to quickly move to the later levels while those who are new to it, or perhaps less experienced, will not be thrown into the deep-end. All of this is done with as little menu or interface as possible as we feel that too many options and buttons can be off-putting for the player.
In terms of gameplay the central premise to Pop is that you have to pop bubbles. The bubbles come in a variety of sizes from big to small and each reward a differing amount of points. The game also has a timer which counts toward zero. By popping bubbles you can gain more time and build up your score, furthermore by popping bubbles of the same colour in a row you can build up a chain. Chains will reward skilled players with more points and multipliers. There is a risk associated with building up a chain, however, in that while you have a chain on the go your points are stored in a tally. This means that until the you choses to break the chain you will receive no points or time. In this way the player must balance building up a large chain with popping bubbles of another colour to break the chain and gain the points and time stored in the tally.
Layered on top of this are powerups, bonus rounds which activate at the end of levels based on the players skill and a multiplayer mode in which players can join a game in progress at any point. The multiplayer game takes place on one screen allowing all 4 players to interact with each other both on the screen and off the screen (ie jostling each other). By having one screen for both the multiplayer
and single player we feel that Pop further breaks down the barriers to new games players reducing any potential confusion and letting them focus on the matter at hand, competing for points!
The purple reminds us of...a purple ocean?
PALGN: How long has Pop been in development?
NW: Pop has been in development since the end of April which was slightly before the public announcement of WiiWare.
PALGN: How much support have you had from Nintendo in developing Pop?
NW: Nintendo, their staff and the tools they supply have all been excellent. Pretty much as soon as we received our development kits we could get started with making the game. The support all developers receive from Nintendo is of a very high standard and there are many ways to find out about how to solve a problem or get help not only from Nintendo but also from other developers.
PALGN: Has pricing been determined for the game?
NW: Pricing is still something which is in discussion with Nintendo.
The Red reminds us of... never mind.
PALGN: What sort of multiplayer options will there be in Pop?
NW: We are planning to support 1-4 players simultaneously on one Wii. We would like to have included Wi-Fi multiplayer but as this is our first title we want to concentrate on making the game as fun as
possible.
PALGN: Will the game be available at the launch of the WiiWare service in Australia?
NW: As far as I am aware launch titles have not yet been decided. We would love to be one of the launch titles and will do our best to work with Nintendo in regards to that. It would be great if an Australian made title was there at launch on the Australian service so we will just have to wait and see.
PALGN: Are there any plans to bring Pop to any other platforms?
NW: At the moment we are focusing all our efforts to bring Pop to Wii but if it is successful we would love to release it on Nintendo DS and Apple's iPhone. Any future platforms would have to be informed by the platforms ability to support intuitive controls however.
PALGN would like to thank Nic for his time. We wish the team the best of luck with the promising project.
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