High speed in Italy. One that works.Leggi l’intervista in italiano a pagina 1 – English adaptation courtesy of Riccardo Piccinini
Elena Eugeni and Andrea D’Amely had the pleasure to interview Valerio di Donato, CEO of 34BigThings, Redout developers, a game that will come out on Nintendo Switch, that had quite a success on PC.
Nintendon: It seem like Nintendo audience is very interested in this type of games. Have you been inspired by F-Zero?
Valerio: Yes, everyone in the studio grew up with Wipeout and F-Zero, our team is even divided in two factions, so it was complicated for us to find a balanced solution. This factor is what gave a strong identity to the game: we are neither Wipeout, nor F-Zero and we didn’t simply combine the two games. We have our own driving model, that works great on consoles.
Nintendon: You strived to find balance taking inspiration by your personal experiences, but in regards to difficulty, what was your design goal?
Valerio: The title launch was very interesting, because we set the difficulty bar very high. The first 20 races were almost unplayable due to the difficulty. However, this factor forced the players to learn the mechanics, to learn how not to loose speed and how to use power ups to improve the vehicle. Who played at the beginning was probably a true hardcore fan and wanted that kind of experience.
Nintendon: It is still a complex game?
Valerio: It’s not a casual game, but we try to stay between the Arcade and Simulation genres, trying to have a realistic and accurate physics model.
Nintendon:
You have a big PC community and you even implemented tournaments with prizes. I understand that there are special visual customization as rewards?
Valerio: We offered a custom color as a reward for the tournament winner.
Nintendon: I think it’s a great idea, what about on Consoles?
Valerio: At the moment is a PC only deal because we are using a Steam function to make it work.
Nintendon: Will there be occasional tournaments, without prizes, with leaderboards?
Valerio: Absolutely. We already have a global leaderboard that will continue to be important. Our hardcore gamers try every day to dominate the board.
Nintendon
: Talking about the Switch experience, has it been difficult to port the game on the Nintendo Platform?
Valerio: On the bureaucratic side we had some difficulty, but we had none on the development side. Nintendo is the most comfortable Platform to work on, its development process is simplified compared to Xbox or Playstation. The console has other problematics: being non standard, one must rethink some of the game mechanics to better suit the system.
Nintendon: Do you think it can work out well on a portable device?
Valerio: I grew up with Wipeout on PSP and I think that the best Platform to play a game like Redout is mobile, meaning a Handheld console, due to the fact that you need proper controls. I hope that the Switch version will be Redout’s best version yet.
Nintendon
: Will it be compatible with the various control options offered by Switch, like the Pro Controller?
Valerio: With the Pro, absolutely, for the Others we’ll see. In complete honesty, we are thinking about not allowing split screen in tablet mode. This is due to the fact that Redout is a very technical title, it needs the two analogs.
Nintendon: How was online on Nintendo?
Valerio: We have a division that works on that specifically and has still to encounter any difficulty bringing our netcode on Switch.
Nintendon: Speaking about the game soundtrack, is it true that the tracks are made by your own studio?
Valerio: We have a young composer that started his career making music for our game. The soundtrack fits the game,perfectly. It captures the soul of F-Zero and Redout, giving it a modern interpretation.
Nintendon:
Are there any DLC planned?
Valerio: We already have released 4 DLC, one of which is free.
Nintendon: Will they also be released on Switch?
Valerio: Yes, they are planned for all Platform in the near future. The PC version will receive a substantial update we’ve been working on for a bit now.
Nintendon:
Can we ask for the release date on Switch?
Valerio: I’d like to tell you (laughs)!
Nintendon: Not even an expected release window?
Valerio: We only work on the optimization for the console, to get more information on the relase you should ask our publisher. So, once the work is finished we will talk about it. We hope to release this year.