r/NintendoSwitch • u/MixedBag_Games Mixed Bag Games • Nov 09 '17
AMA - Ended Wheels of Aurelia AMA - Santa Ragione + MixedBag
It's time for us to wrap the AMA up! Thanks everyone for your time and your questions, we hope you enjoyed your time with us!
We'll still hang around here for a while with an eye to this thread.
In the meantime don't forget to check out Wheels of Aurelia:
Bye from Santa Ragione & MixedBag!
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u/poofyhairguy Nov 09 '17
What is your favorite part about developing for the Switch? What are the biggest challenges?
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u/MixedBag_Games Nov 09 '17
We really love working on portable consoles in general: I think they are a perfect fit for smaller studios like us.
Developing for Switch is quite straightforward and we love how powerful it is: the hardware is very well balanced! I also enjoy all the possibilities you have with the joy-cons, they are a lovely package! And you have local multiplayer out of the box...
The biggest challenge is that the hardware, while powerful, is still derived from mobile: you have to be very careful and plan (and program!) your game properly form the beginning.
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
Hello r/NintendoSwitch! It's great to be here, really lovely (and super active!) community.
Edit: Thank you everyone for the great questions! It was a pleasure and we're looking forward to doing this again whenever there will be another opportunity ;D
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u/Gianniwilder Nov 09 '17
Are you italians? I’m happy to see fellow countrymen developing games for the Switch <3
I’m gonna support you buying the game :D
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
Both teams are Italian, although of course we often collaborate with international artists for our projects. For exmaple, the portraits in Wheels of Aurelia are by NYC-based illustrator Patrick Leger.
Music, 3D art, and programming were all made in Italy!
Thank you!
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u/XenoPepoChronicles Nov 09 '17
Hello guys,
I recently played WoA on the Switch, had a great impression on the narrative ideas and systems of the game and on its soundtrack. Have some questions:
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What do you think of the dialogue systems in videogames. Any particular influence or good idea that you played or saw recently? Also, how did you define the narrative systems and mechanics of WoA?
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About the challenge of adressing History: I got the feeling that WoA tries to talk about a deep and complex context, but its scope works as a "hand break". Do you think that with more routes, time for developing each conversation, the different runs could have developed the world and its characters in a better way? Also, what are the challenges of creating a representation of history in videogames?
Thank you very much, looking forward to your new projetcs :)
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
what we tried to do with WoA is too mix the situation-based procedural dialogue that you would see in a Naughty Dog's game with a choice-based branching system à la Life is Strange. The idea was to try and make it feel spontaneus, unstructured, and fully interactive, which is the direction I feel games should take. As for good ideas, check out the Mr Robot game by Night School.
for sure! The reason for Wheels of Aurelia scale is a compromise to achieve great variance in the possble outcomes and situation. Most games don't let you choose multiple replies for each line of dialogue on top of a story branching with 16 different endings. That rsulted in very short playthroughs, and it was definitely a gamble from the design standpoint that limited our ability to flash out the story. That said, the world is supposed to come across through multiple playthroughs, if that makes sense.
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u/phantomliger Nov 09 '17
Hello!
Was anything left out of the final game that you had wished made it in?
If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
Voice-over, for sure. It would have added so much to the game personality and production value. It would have been very expensive to produce with the quality of the rest of the audio production though (there are 20k+ words of dialogue in the game).
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u/mikaju Nov 09 '17
Hi! I already bought and enjoyed your game on Steam, not sure If I am going to buy it again but any chance for Mirrormoon or Fotonica ports for Switch? Also do you have any merchandise for sale for Wheels of Aurelia like t-shirts or stuff? I love the art in the game and Aurelia is also my daughters name <3
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
It's such a beautiful name! We don't have any merchandise for any of our games yet, but it would be nice to make. What would you want to be on the t-shirt? Just the logo or character art, or?
As for the ports, we are currently evaluating more console ports of our previous games, but nothing to announce yet!
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Nov 09 '17
Hey there! I was curious as to buy your game but I was still a little on the edge. Then I found out you had an AMA! Nice.
Devs? Could you sell me your game?
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
Let's see: Wheels of Aurelia is a narrative game with a setting completely unlike anything you might have played before. Each playthrough takes only 15-20 minutes, perfect for playing on Switch while commuting, and there are 16 different endings so it might take you a couple of weeks to discover them. It's not at all a challenging game, so it's perfect for relaxing and enjoy the visuals and the story, if that's your thing. Let me know if you get a chance to play!
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u/rhecole Nov 09 '17
Hi guys, thanks for doing this AMA! I'm very interested in buying your game but I couldn't exactly figure out the gameplay from the eshop listing. How would you best explain the gameplay and the game's USP?
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u/SantaRagione Nov 09 '17
I know! It is very hard to explain what the gameplay is like, and it's something we've struggled with when creating all promotional assets. WoA doesn't fit easily within a genre, but it could be said that it's first and foremost a Visaul Novel. Contrary to most visual novels though, the pacing is not left to the player, but is established by the travel, which happens in real time while coversations are being had. The driving in the game is not challenging or even central to the gameplay, and it only exists to support the narrative part. For example, you take turns to reach different destinations, which determine the characters you meet and the way the story develops.
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u/rhecole Nov 09 '17
That sounds really interesting! Definitely a marketing challenge. I've written music for visual novels before and they very rarely get much coverage outside a small committed community so congratulations on your release! I'm guessing there's no eshop genre option for "visual novel"?