To celebrate today's release of Ghostfire Games' second WiiWare title, Rage of the Gladiator, we chatted with the company's CEO Ed Roman.

Rage of the Gladiator is a fantasy-based first-person fighting game that takes advantage of Wii MotionPlus. For more information, read our preview.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): How was Ghostfire Games started?

Ed Roman (ER): Our studio's goal is to make games that we really love, targeting the "casual core." Games that are simple to learn, but difficult to master. Games that we would play ourselves in our spare time. We also have quality of life in mind -- most game developers work crazy hours, and we wanted to have strong project management to avoid that, to reduce burn-out.

NWR: How satisfied were you with the performance of your WiiWare debut, Helix? Would you agree with its categorization as "Dance Dance Revolution for your arms"?

ER: We can't speak to the actual sales numbers, but financially we made enough money to continue development and move on to our second project, Rage of the Gladiator. Given that this was our first venture on this platform, I think that's pretty good. It got us the experience we needed to make a game of even higher caliber.

NWR: Did the concept of Rage of the Gladiator begin as something else? Did it change as development went on?

ER: The design was actually written about three years ago, and it's been evolving ever since.

NWR: How is the battle system similar to 'Punch-Out!!'? How is it different?

ER: The combat system was inspired by 1980s Punch-Out!!. We created the design before the new Wii Punch-Out!! was announced. It's different in the sense that it's not a boxing game (it's a fantasy fighting game) with a theme reminiscent of the movie 300. The bosses shoot projectiles and have fairly complex behaviors. You also have magic spells that you can cast. These are acquired through a tech-tree, similar to Diablo or World of Warcraft.

NWR: What are the challenges of making a first-person fighting game versus a traditional third-person fighting game? Is Rage of the Gladiator's roots closer to Doom or Street Fighter?

ER: It's actually a little easier to be first-person perspective since your character model doesn't occlude the boss. The boss can then express his attacks and it will be very clear to the player what he's doing. The downside to this model is that any camerawork needs to be done carefully to avoid motion sickness, since a lot of first-person perspective camera movement can lead to that if not done properly.

NWR: How do the sword controls compare to what we've already experienced in Wii Sports Resort, in terms of how you implemented them and how they are used in gameplay? Is it straightforward to interpret MotionPlus data into sword motions, or did you find a lot of room to interpret actions and design the interactions?

ER: We quantize the user's swings into one of four directions (up, down, left, right). We do this because we want realistic animations for the bosses (the bosses react in the direction they're hit). If we allowed arbitrary swings, then this wouldn't be possible unless we had an animation system that was

much more advanced, and that would be mostly impossible for a 40MB WiiWare download. The other advantage of quantizing moves into four swings is that it makes the user more easily able to "understand" how to solve a particular boss. Think of each boss as a mini-puzzle game where you need the right

timing, as well as the right sequence of input (dodge left, dodge right, jump, shield block, or one of four directional swings). By limiting the swing direction to one of four possibilities, the player has a much easier time trying out the various possibilities to solve the "boss puzzle."

NWR: How do the different bosses differ? What ones stick out in your mind?

ER: Some bosses are melee fighters. Others cast spells and have projectiles. Yet others summon obstacles that appear to your left/right (making it impossible to dodge in that direction without damaging yourself). Some bosses require memorization of their attacks. We even have a couple of

bosses that grow to gargantuan size in phase three of their battle!

NWR: Was there any concern when High Voltage revealed the direction change of Gladiator A.D. (to a fantasy-based setting under the name of Tournament of Legends) to be more like the game you were already making?

ER: We were flattered. It gives us confidence that we chose a smart direction with our game and that others feel that this type of game is needed in the marketplace.

NWR: Were you able to get everything into the game that you were originally hoping to? If not, what where you unable to include that you would like to see in a possible sequel?

ER: Yes, we actually got more into the game than we had hoped. The original plan was a six-month project, and we extended it to one and a half years. We are really happy with the result.

NWR: Now that Rage of the Gladiator is being released, what's next for Ghostfire games? Are you sticking with WiiWare?

ER: We need to see what sales looks like. If sales are strong then we hope to continue WiiWare game development.

Thanks to Ed Roman, Scott Merriam, and the rest of Ghostfire Games!