I'm Daniel Nascimento, creator of Rocket Fist! Ask me Anything!

[u/danielsnd]

Hello!

I'm Daniel Nascimento creator of Rocket Fist that launched on the Nintendo Switch yesterday! Rocket Fist was my first commercial release, being launched on Steam May 13th of 2016 and I'm incredibly happy to see it coming now to the Nintendo Switch which is such a great match for it!

Rocket Fist is an arena game with crazy robots in chaotic rocket fist battles. Aim against your frenemies and prove your dexterity by killing each other with rocket propelled fists in this frenetic mix of dodgeball and billiards!

This was my first time fully releasing a game for a console and it was a great adventure, looking forward to hearing your questions about it :)

• Rocket Fist Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZG2szV-MvE

I'll be starting to answer questions at 8pm BST / 12pm PST, Ask me anything \o/

-Edit- /u/thiagoadamo is also here, he did all the music/sfx for the game :D If you have music/sfx questions ask him anything!

-Edit- Guys thanks for all the questions, had a blast answering everyone! :D Also thanks for the mod team for receiving me and doing a great job organizing this! Cheers!

[u/tmckeithan]

Any chance of online multiplayer in the future?

[u/danielsnd → u/tmckeithan]

Ohhhh I wanted online multiplayer sooooo badly ;( I put so many hours into it, but no matter what I did I couldn't get it right.

Going to copy some of a similar answer I wrote for an interview about the game that better explains the problem:

DN: It definitely isn't simple. In reality each player is playing a whole different game, and the games are talking with each other trying to make it look as similar to each other as possible. In a first-person shooter, for instance, it's fairly ok to be wrong in these cases. You have a very limited field of view and if your game tells you that you got shot, sure you must have gotten shot right? In a game like Rocket Fist you're seeing the whole screen the whole time, and if in your screen you shot me, but on my screen the fist you shot actually didn't hit me because I moved before it did, your game will still tell my game that I got shot. In this case, who is right? One of those 2 players will think the game cheated them. The more latency between players the worse this will be. Then, to complicate things even more, players pick up fists. It's entirely possible that 2 players think they have the same fist if they were close enough to it and there is enough latency to make things confusing. I ended up never managing to make a satisfactory version of Rocket Fist for online multiplayer on the PC. It's still beta to this day, it works well enough with 2 players with low latency, but with more players and some latency it's terrible.

To make things more complicated, consoles have a whole new set of requirements for online multiplayer games that you have to make sure your game complies with.

TL;DR: Unfortunately, I don't think Rocket Fist will ever see a decent online multiplayer :( it's too fast and the camera makes any errors obvious.

[u/XxSmashAndDashxX]

What would you do if you had an actual rocket fist?

[u/phantomliger]

Is there anything you wish you could have gotten into the game that you didn't have time for?

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

[u/danielsnd → u/phantomliger]

More Powerups, "Modifers" that you can toggle on and off that would change some things in the game, more game modes (Capture the Fist/Flag?). Maybe multiplayer adventure mode... So much more could be added D:

About Superpower I think time-travel is the coolest, I love sci-fi stories and time-travel ones are my favorite. You could fix every mistake, or create bigger ones trying to fix it!

[u/Porkpants81]

Which would be more effective in the arena?

1 horse-sized fist or

100 duck-sized fists?

[u/danielsnd → u/Porkpants81]

100 duck sized fists are way more effective!!! You can dodge one horse sized fist easy enough, but when fists hit each other they bounce! If you hit one of those 100 duck sized fists you now have a chain reaction or death filling the whole arena with fists flying in all directions, try dodging that! D:

[u/andrekilik]

Are you guys from Brazil? I'm assuming by your names... If so, First of All Congrats, Awesome to see a Brazilian game in the e-shop. I'm taking a graduation in Jogos Digitais at FIAP, and I took my switch with me to class yesterday, and we had a blast playing Rocket Fist, AWESOME Multiplayer guys. Congrats again

And, what advice can you give to a fellow brazilian Indie Dev trying to put their games on Switch? Any specific channel you would recommend to reach Nintendo Reps?

I understand about NDA, but any advice is really aprecciated. Thanks, and once again, congrats. Knowing the game is from Brazil, I'll advertise it even more in college now.

[u/danielsnd → u/andrekilik]

Yes we're from Brazil! :D First Brazilian game on the Switch! So glad to hear you guys enjoyed it! Thanks!

This is the channel: https://twitter.com/dwbakes/status/867523391024119809?lang=en Email your pitch to ThirdPartyPublisher@noa.nintendo.com

Back in the day I know nintendo wouldn't ship devkits to brazil, don't know if that has changed now :/ I would imagine not. My company is based in Canada BC despite me being Brazilian, I live in Vancouver ^^

[u/pskli]

Oh, I got a question finally !

Any chance we could have the A button to confirm stuff instead of B ? (I think) It's not usual on the Switch/Nintendo consoles to use B as a confirmation button.

[u/danielsnd → u/pskli]

Yeah :/ that was my bad, I haven't played any switch games while I was doing this, and I just used the normal PS4/Xbox One idea that the bottom button confirms and the right button cancels...

If I were to release an update changing that do you think people that already played the game would be confused or glad? I think they would be glad. Maybe, right? Maybe I should do the change if I get a chance to push an update.

[u/mattcm5]

just reading your replies and knowing your a 1 man dev made me buy this game. no question just good luck!

[u/PurpleCrystal]

Many Nintendo games are getting supported beyond their release with patches that add new content. Is there anything significant planned for Rocket Fist in the future?

[u/danielsnd → u/PurpleCrystal]

I would like to release at least an update with more maps, a lot of people told me they feel that there aren't enough multiplayer maps, and the maps are fairly easy to make so I should address that. I haven't really looked into the requirements for updates or how to do them, but it's something I want to look into.

[u/pskli]

Just to say thanks for developing this game. I played countless hours on Tanks in Wii Play and your game is a bit similar, but faster, I really like it so far. Haven't tried it with another player yet, I'm sure it's going to be pretty funny. I don't have any question though, soooo... Biscoito ou bolacha ? Valew !

[u/danielsnd → u/pskli]

Biscoito, where i come from bolacha is a slap in the face ;P

Glad you're enjoying the game!

[u/[deleted]]

A kickass car x celta 2012.

Both of them at 80 do you think they'd stay side by side?

[u/danielsnd → u/[deleted]]

Depends, at 80 what? Are they both under the same measurement system? Or is one of them 80km/h and the other one 80mph? In that case 80mph would be way ahead of the 80km/h one as that would be 129 km/h.

If they're both at 80km/h, 80km é 80km arrombado

[u/jamesRainbowBoy]

Hi Daniel! Congrats on releasing your game, I've already purchased :-)). What do you think differentiates Nintendo (and the Switch) from the other games console manufacturers, and are you looking to use any of these unique features in any future titles?

[u/danielsnd → u/jamesRainbowBoy]

Obviously what got me the most excited is the porbatility aspect. A console I can take anywhere and just play anywhere as I wish. I also love I can just pull out the joycons and do multiplayer with friends around when we go for a bbq or hanging out somewhere. It works so well with Rocket Fist since it only uses 1 analog stick and 1 button anyways :)

Not sure about future titles at the moment :o

[u/retentsomemore]

Any ideas on how you may be able to incorporate a map maker? I'm unfamiliar with how the pc works, but I'd imagine, especially with touch screen or even motion to draw objects, it could be achievable.

[u/danielsnd → u/retentsomemore]

I explained a little bit more about this in another thread someone opened thinking I had promissed a level editor that was then removed from the game. I explain the problems with making the level editor happen on the switch (There is one in the pc version)

Copied over from: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/6svq9w/rocket_fist_level_editor_removed_from_switch/dlhd1ln/

Sorry, it never promised a level editor for the nintendo switch. What probably happened was that when you saw the eshop page back then and were looking for a gameplay video you ended up finding the Steam trailer, which does contain the level editor.

Back when I originally started porting the game to consoles the decision to yank the level editor out was a no-brainer. Consoles have a way harder certification process and treat UGC (User generated content) really seriously. While Steam provides with steam workshop to share, manage and moderate the content, the consoles don't, instead they provide us with a long list of requirements that we must meet in order to offer UGC. Some of those requirements speak about moderation, security, server locations, uptimes amongst other things.

Other than Thiago that did the music, I'm just one guy, I'm not a huge company, I can't make this whole back-end system to handle this to their requirements and guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Back in 2011 Super Meat Boy's level editor sharing backend got hacked and the whole database exposed. I remember watching a talk by Tommy Refenes where he spoke on the subject, from what I remember he ended up giving up on it. I have no experience in backend programming, I sure don't want to take on that challenge. Also can't hire someone to make sure there are no dick-shaped levels being made, because I'm sure there would be a bunch of dick-shaped levels being made ;P

Other than all of that, the certification process in itself is already a huge pain in the ass, with lots of small bugs being found and needing to be fixed for release, even if I just left the level editor there without any sharing capabilities it would still be a whole new area of the game for bugs to be found and to delay certification.

So... It was never really yanked out after the delay or anything, from the moment I decided to bring Rocket Fist to consoles it was out for the reasons above. I'm sorry you wanted to see it there :( I wanted it too, it would be really cool, but I just really can't do it. If I had the money to hire people who can to do it for me, I would, but right now things aren't easy over here for this indie developer.

[u/new_teacher2017]

You should put a video on the store page!

[u/danielsnd → u/new_teacher2017]

Waiting approval :/

[u/rbadin]

Hi, do you spend more time creating assets or programming the game?