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Interview - Goodbye Galaxy Games: A Tale of Fish, Koala, and Hacked Hello Kitty

by Tyler Ohlew - December 6, 2012, 9:57 am EST
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Our interview with Goodbye Galaxy Games' Hugo Smits, and his life as a DSiWare developer.

Hugo Smits delivers the type of content you want from an indie developer. At Goodbye Galaxy Games, Smits has created three puzzle-platformers that are more than just physics puzzlers with a distinct art style. Instead, Smits breaks down existing genres and twists them into new experiences. 

In his first title, Flipper, players transform the voxel-based world to reunite a boy with his fish. Flipper 2 bucked the tradition of sequels, putting the fish in the starring role in a WarioWare-style platformer. His most recent DSiWare game, Ace Mathician, is a favourite among some of the staff here at Nintendo World Report. In it, players control a koala in search of a bowl of fruit in each level. But it’s not as simple as running and jumping to your goal. The levels are broken, and players have to manipulate specific pieces of it by creating math equations that affect their placement.

We had a chance to interview Smits and get a closer look at what it takes to craft imaginative works and succeeding on Nintendo’s DSiWare service.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): What prompted you to begin developing for DSiWare?

Hugo Smits (HS): Back in 2008 I started a new studio, after working for multiple big studios, to create my own unique and original intellectual properties and games. I ended up with the Nintendo DS as a platform because the Nintendo crowd seemed really open to new ideas; besides that, I’m a huge Nintendo Game Boy/handheld lover too.

Anyway, in 2008 the financial crisis just hit home and publishers became really wary of new original IPs and games. Since the banks wouldn’t loan the publishers any money they had to put their own money on the line in an all-or-nothing bet. A risk they didn’t want to take.

I actually became really hopeless after shopping around a Flipper demo to multiple publishers, when finally I met some people from Nintendo! At first they were pretty mad at me, since I wasn’t a real licensed Nintendo developer but rather had just hacked my little sister's pink Hello Kitty DS. I begged them to play the demo; they did and liked it! Then they told me about this secret service called DSiWare that was going to come out in 2009 and that my game would be perfect for that!

And that’s how I made the switch from DS retail to DSiWare.

NWR: Could you describe your development process, from idea to development?

HS: It is different for almost every game I made. Mostly it starts with me getting a good idea. This can come from obvious places like my childhood, TV shows or games. Or completely different things like ‘programming’ (which was the basis for Ace Mathician).

I try to figure out what the core gameplay is going to be and then I mock-up some levels on a piece of paper. I do this to make sure the core gameplay is easy and simple to understand; if I can come up with a lot of fun and different levels quickly, I know it will work!

From that point it depends a little bit of where I’m located. I always want to create a quick prototype as soon as possible; playing is believing. But sometimes this is not possible. While on my Christmas holiday in Hungary I came up with Ace Mathician but I didn’t have a devkit or computer with me, which annoyed the heck out of me. I was constantly wondering if the concept would work!

You see, what you can come up with in your head or on paper might not work on a DS at all (for example some things are not as fun as you thought that they would be).

When I have a good prototype ready, I will polish it almost like if it would be the final game. At that point I will send out the demo to multiple publishers to see if they are interested.

I always like to work with publishers because they can give you feedback on things. It’s really easy to get tunnel vision when you’re working on a game by yourself!

After that I will work onto the final build. In this time most of the core gameplay is implanted and working. I will probably add some more enemies and of course finish and play all the levels.

The last stretch is to cross things off from my almost endless “to-do” list. It is really surprising how many things need to be done that you might not think of before you actually make a game. Here are some examples.

When you close the lid of the DS it will pause the game and go into sleep mode; this is not done automatically! It’s something I have to program (imagine my surprise when I closed the lid on the Flipper demo and the music kept playing). Also don’t forget to get the game out of sleep mode when you open the lid again.

When a save file becomes corrupted the game needs to be able to restore the SD card/system memory it saved on. There are lot of skills involved that go beyond normal game programming, it has been really educational!

NWR: What do you feel appeals to a Nintendo gamer? What draws their eye toward a title not made by Nintendo itself?

HS: The same as what draws players to titles that are made by Nintendo: unique ideas. You want to play generic shooters like Call of Duty? You can do that on Xbox 360 or PS3. If you want really creative and deep universes full of character and innovation, there is only one place to go: Nintendo.

My titles may not have the same polish or length as a real Nintendo title because I simply do not have the resources. But I try to make them at just as unique and innovating. I really believe that if you create something fresh and fun, players are more than willing to look through some of the rough spots in order to experience something new and hopefully amazing!

NWR: How has your experience been as a DSiWare developer?

HS: Pretty good. I really like the Nintendo fan community, so many amazing people that love Nintendo. It’s a blast to chat with them!

Development itself is really great too. I’ve been working with Nintendo handhelds since the original Game Boy. Up until the DS, the Game Boy Advance had really been my favorite system to develop for. But the DSi really surpasses these. There is more than enough power and memory to basically work out whatever idea I can come up with. I can’t remember making any big changes because of hardware limitations.

On the publisher side of things, I really can’t complain. Nintendo has promoted all my games (Flipper 2 was on the top-screen for DSiWare during the holidays and Ace Mathician during the summer). All my games turned out to be top 10 sellers, so I’m pretty lucky and happy with this!

I share some of the complaints made by other developers about the shopping experience and from what I have seen a lot of those complaints are dealt with in the 3DS eShop. I especially like what I have seen from the eShop on Wii U. The bigger screen and touch input make it just so much easier to browse.

NWR: Despite a wide variety of formats, including iOS, you focus on DSiWare. What makes it so worthwhile to you?

HS: I don’t think there is any real money in iOS. Sure, if you invent the new Angry Birds you get rich. But how many of those examples do you know? How many apps are out there? Look at how little this percentage is, and the rest of apps don’t earn anything!

You don’t get rich from the eShop or DSiWare but you can make a steady stream of money that will enable you to pay the rent and make more games. And as long as I can make more games I’m happy!

NWR: Each of your games differs from the last, even Flipper 2 is wildly different from its predecessor. Do you enjoy bucking the trend of traditional sequels? Do you prefer constantly coming up with new products?

HS: I like coming up with new unique things! That’s not to say that I would never like to do a more traditional sequel. But at the moment I just have so many different game ideas for so many genres that it’s difficult not to make something new!

NWR: With the advent of the eShop, DSiWare has a larger audience than ever. But where does DSiWare exist going forward? Where would you like to see it go?

HS: The market is still quite small (compared to Apple’s iOS market for example). So, obviously I would like to see it grow. It’s something I’m sure will happen, since from this generation on, all Nintendo consoles (3DS and Wii U) can access an eShop. I think a large part of DS and DS Lite owners didn’t feel the need to upgrade to the DSi and thus missed out on DSiWare. Otherwise the DSiWare market would have been huge too.

So yeah, I’m pretty positive about the future of the eShop.

NWR: Moving forward, are you still considering DSiWare for future projects?

HS: I honestly didn’t want to do another DSiWare game, but then my girlfriend went to visit family for a few days and I had the whole house to myself. A few nights and bags of M&Ms later and a new DSiWare game was running on my devkit!

NWR: Do you have any interest in what Nicalis is doing with Ikachan, providing both a 3DS eShop and DSiWare version?

HS: Not really, because DSiWare is dying out. If you have to start now, developing a full-fledged 3DS game is much more useful. I mean, even when you don’t really want to use the 3D effect, you still have a bigger screen and you can do cooler effects.

About Ikachan, what I think happened is that it was already in development for DSiWare and they just also made it into a 3DS eShop game without canceling the DSiWare version. It’s nice for the people who don’t have a 3DS and still want new games, so it’s cool I guess.

NWR: So you think that the 3DS eShop is DSiWare's saving grace right now? Without the 3DS eShop, would DSiWare have died out?

HS: It’s not so much the eShop but rather the hardware that can access it. The Nintendo DS family is one of the best selling handhelds, but only the DSi could access the DSiWare store. Which means that the biggest part of the Nintendo DS family users couldn’t buy digital games.

Although users will not buy a completely new console (Nintendo DSi) to be able to buy a $2 game, they will probably buy a $2 game when they already have access to the store on their console. Which is something that is possible as of this generation (3DS and WiiU eShop).

Having a bigger market means more people that potentially buy your game. And that means more money which developers can invest into bigger and better eShop games!

NWR: What can you say about your next project?

HS: Not much except that it is true to the Goodbye Galaxy Games formula.

It’s a puzzle-platformer with cute pixel art. And it has some unique gameplay!

NWR: Any chance of more Ace Mathician in the future?

HS: If I ever make something for the Nintendo 3DS, it will probably be Ace Mathician 2. And that will probably be the first real sequel. Coding for the Nintendo 3DS is difficult, so I’m not sure when and how I will get onto that boat. But there are lot of things in Ace Mathician that I want to work on and add to the experience.

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