The week before Affordable Space Adventures was published we got in touch with KnapNok Games and Nifflas in order to grasp the ideas that laid the foundation to their little masterpiece, which we awarded a big mark in our review. The danish developers told us who inspired the production, what’s the main aim behind the product, and the difficulties in developing it for the Wii U. What follows is the complete interview, courtesy of Dajana Dimovska CEO & Producer at Knapnok Games ApS.
Why “Affordable Space Adventures”? What’s the reason and meaning behind the title?
The idea behind the name is that in the game’s fiction there is this company called Uexplore that provides customers with extremely cheap spaceships for rent called Small Craft. They say these ships are very reliable but… cutting costs comes at a price.
Which author/artist inspired your videogame setting?
It would be unfair to name one single game as our inspiration, since there have been several titles that we have gained ideas from. “Insanely Twisted Planet” is one of them, for example, with its tiny flying saucer. “Artemis” for its multiplayer crew with different roles. And “Steel Batallion” with its customized complex controller that became the inspiration for the Small Craft’s Heads-Down Display.
How would you describe working with Nifflas and vice-versa?
It’s been a great collaboration! Nicklas Nygren has been friends with us for some years now. In fact, he was adding the finishing touches to his previous game Knytt Underground while working from our office. It was then one day when the Wii U came out and we were playing it at our office that we came up with the idea for the game.
What gameplay feature you are the most proud of?
Personally I am most proud of the co-op gameplay. Originally the game is designed as a single player game, but during the development we realized that by splitting out the controls to multiple people we instantly got a really interesting co-op mode. It was really easy to do, but the game feels really different whether you play in single player or co-op.
What type of gameplay mechanics from your past games, such as Spin the Bottle, Knytt Underground and NightSky, has Affordable Space Adventures has inherited?
KnapNok’s and Nifflas’ games are usually very different in nature. However I think that for Affordable Space Adventures we have managed to combine both styles really well. From Spin the Bottle we learned quite a lot about how to use the Wii U’s hardware to create new ways of controlling the game and achieving communication and interaction between players. Knytt Underground and Nightsky are very atmospheric games with worlds and environments that are very interesting to explore and feature atypical storytelling that, especially in the case of Knytt Underground, have a dash of humor to them. Affordable Space Adventures marries all these characteristics together for a game that is both novel in its control methods, gets players talking to each other in co-op, has beautiful levels to explore and a subtle humorous story.
What can you tell us about the storyline? Is there a “save the princess” approach, or you are thinking about something deeper?
We went for a way of telling the story that is not on your face. Sure, the game has some cutscenes, but they are told as commercials for this really cheap and shady company called Uexplore that rents out highly inexpensive spaceships. The rest of the story is all about the player’s personal experience as he traverses through this alien planet.
What about the soundtrack? Have you planned original songs or you are considering licensing?
All the soundtrack has been produced in-house by Nicklas Nygren and Sidsel Hermansen except for the intro and cutscenes, which is composed by Harry Damm (D Fast). Even though there’s much less music in Affordable Space Adventures than your usual game, the focus on sound effects is still really deep. Just the spaceship itself has more audio layers playing to make the ship engines and systems come alive than any of KnapNok’s or Nifflas’ games before.
Did you had to cut elements and features during development, or everything was smooth enough in order to fulfill your vision for the game?
We have a huge catalog of ideas we came up with during development that we for some way or another had to cut. I hope we will be able to realize some of those in the future in one way or another.
How hard is working on Wii U, as an indie developer?
We’re using Unity as the game’s engine, which makes the process of creating a game for Wii U noticeably smoother. In fact it’s thanks to tools like Unity that we are seeing so many indie games showing up on the eShop. Developing for a second screen is just a matter of having an extra camera on the scene. Implementing other features such as Miiverse integration is another story and a bit more complicated, but we still managed to do it without much trouble.
What kind of features are you planning for the Wii U GamePad, like off-TV play, gyrosensors, touch screen interface, microphone?
We’ve tried to use as many of the Wii U GamePad features as possible. So, for example, the gyroscope can be used to tilt the ship’s angle and is necessary to advance through certain sections of the game. And the touch-screen is definitely a major point of the game, since it acts as the ship’s heads-down display. This allows players to feel like they truly are inside the cockpit of a spaceship. However, due to this dual screen nature of the game, it was impossible to support off-TV gameplay as well without radically changing the game itself.
Have you thought about amiibo support? Is there some kind of Nintendo policy for their usage?
We haven’t made any plans for amiibo support at the moment. However we find them quite interesting and it’s definitely something that we would love to explore in the future, given the opportunity.
Why did you choose to develop a Wii U exclusive?
The Wii U GamePad is what allowed us to create the experience that we originally envisioned. Plain and simple. Without it, the game wouldn’t be the same. We needed something that could be transformed into the controller we wanted and provide all this granular control over the ship’s complex systems.