Brian Provinciano, creator of Retro City Rampage and the upcoming Nintendo Switch timed exclusive, Shakedown: Hawaii held an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) on /r/Nintendo.
In this AMA, Brian addressed many questions including why the game was previously mentioned to release in April according to the Nindies showcase in February, Brian replied saying that is was a miscommunication and they did try to comply with the announcement schedule but it wasn’t possible, neither did they want to rush development. As Brian mentioned, Shakedown: Hawaii’s development has progressed organically and they’d rather have it working well once it’s officially launched.
The inspiration behind Shakedown: Hawaii’s location was Brian’s love for Hawaii and his familiarity with it.
The internal release window for Shakedown: Hawaii is to be out as soon as the game is ready, however, as Brian mentioned, they can’t commit to a release window schedule yet.
We’ve picked some of the most notable questions.
Read them here:
Q. Are we allowed to ask for the Shakedown Hawaii release date?
A. The internal release date’s “asap”, but I can’t commit to a specific window yet. When it’s content complete or around beta, I’ll have a straighter line to the finish and be able to more clearly estimate. I want it to be done ASAP, but also want it to be great. RCR was a bit rushed out and it caused a lot of stress for me, and I wound up spending a very long time post-launch updating and tweaking it. I’d like SH to come out of the gate in a good state 🙂Q. Whose idea was it to give an April release date when the game was shown in the Nindies showcase? Yours or Nintendo’s? As it was clearly not going to make that date as you were still hiring additional staff at the time of the showcase?
A. It was a miscommunication. Of course, I was doing everything possible to get the game done ASAP, but some wires got crossed and I saw that announcement in that video at the same time as everyone else. With that having been announced, I did my best to see if the game’s development could be sped up to TRY and make that date simply because it was out there, but it wasn’t possible. I’m glad I didn’t rush the game out, because it’s REALLY come together far far more since then. It’s a very organic process of things falling into place, missions naturally working into the other missions, connective tissue fitting them together, etc.Q. What convinced you to set the game in Hawaii?
A. I love Hawaii and it’s fun to make miniature versions in a game of places you’re familiar with. At one point I tinkered with creating a version of the city I grew up in, but it wasn’t as colourful as Hawaii. I also wanted to avoid the big cities most games go with (ie. NY, LA) just to do something different.Q. So Retro City Rampage looked like a NES game, Shakedown:Hawaii looks like a SNES game, are there plans to make a sequel that looks like a N64 game?
A. Not at the moment, but hard to predict where I’ll be when SH’s finished. Before RCR was finished, I had a ton of ideas for other games I was certain I’d do, but once I finished it I was tired and not ready to do them, then other ideas bubbled up to the top.Q. If the 3DS version of Shakedown Hawaii comes out, is it only going to support the New 3DS/2DS or will i be able to play the game on the old 2DS, and will it run a solid framerate like Retro City Rampage did?
A. Yup, it’s designed to work on the old 3DS/2DS as well. I scrapped the software renderer code and implemented a hardware renderer just for 3DS/2DS, which means not only will it have the nice framerate, unlike RCR, it can also run optionally in a zoomed out 1:1 pixel mode: https://goo.gl/JhUhxtQ. I’ve always wondered how is the process of porting a game to multiple consoles? Any problems arise getting your games onto all those platforms you listed?
A. It’s a lot easier now — gets easier in general the more I port it. I built the game from scratch in C++, so I was able to easily separate the code that’s platform specific, and the code that’s general, then for the most part just need to write the new platform specific part. There are of course little things, like having to refactor UI for the two 3DS screens or such, but in general it’s pretty smooth. Little things arise with different architectures, such as when the game’s only run on 32-bit systems then 64-bit comes along, or byte ordering, or requiring file sizes to be in blocks on 64 bytes or something — but after a while, you have systems in place to flip the switches necessary for each platform. You just say “okay, enable 64-bit stuff for this” “disable that alternate byte ordering for this”, etc. in a config.
The AMA is still happening right now, head over to /r/Nintendo to submit your questions.
Source: /r/Nintendo
