Furry Legends is a side-scrolling 2.5D platformer coming soon to WiiWare. NWR caught up with its producer, Lukasz Szczepanski, to discuss Gamelion and the game they’re creating.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): What is your role on the development team of Furry Legends?

Lukasz Szczepanski (LS): My name is Lukasz Szczepanski, I'm 26, and I'm the producer of Furry Legends. I keep track of the development and direction of the game. I manage the day-to-day tasks of the team, keep tabs on everything that is happening in and around the project, I order pizza, force overtime and give interviews. In general, if someone will be looking for someone to blame for Furry Legends, he'd be looking for me ;-)

NWR: Can you give a brief history of Gamelion?

LS: Gamelion was founded in 2002 and currently employs around 100 people in total, across all departments and two main production studios in Poland. Although most of our work in the past was done for mobile devices (including iPhone), we always wereworking with a multi-platform approach and entering the Wii market was a natural move for us. Beginning this year, we've been also approved by Sony for PlayStation development and you can also expect later this year games from us on those platforms.

NWR: Gamelion is known for creating games for cell phones and other mobile devices. What inspired the company to create a WiiWare title?

LS: We wanted to enter the console scene, and WiiWare was the perfect opportunity for us. With low entry barriers, and games which do not require Final Fantasy 13-like graphics, it was the perfect match.

NWR: When did Gamelion start developing Furry Legends, and how far is the team into development?

LS: We started the proper development of Furry Legends in January 2009, so far we're 7 months in.

NWR: Did any video games inspire Furry Legends?

LS: A lot. Fury of the Furries obviously. We loved the concept of fuzzy characters making their way through the world filled with danger. We have a bit of Sonic, with all the platforming, loops, speed and so on. Then we bolted on some LittleBigPlanet with the physics, puzzles and other stuff. Finally, there's some of LostWinds when it comes to the quality of the graphics and the 2.5D gameplay.

NWR: Are you familiar with the other ball-rolling WiiWare games, Niki Rock'n Ball and Night Game? If so, what are the differences between those games and Furry Legends?

LS: I think that Night Game is awesome. When we saw the trailers first, we were like 'Holy Crap! It's an artesque Furry Legends, we're doomed!'. I think that art direction, the general feeling of the evening ambience, and the music are really good. Our game is different in many ways of course. We have a compelling story, colorful, 3D world, funny characters, dialogues and so on. Night Game is a different, yet somewhat similar experience. I think we're approaching the rolling genre from two different directions. I'm a die-hard fan of Nicklas [Nygren’s] Knytt Stories, so I expect nothing less in terms of detail and ambience from Night Game.

Niki on the other hand, well, there's nothing really similar about these games, except that they're about a ball. I don't want to be overly critical about the BPlus' work, as indie devs shouldn't bash each other. Furry Legends is different in terms of gameplay, story, graphical quality, controls, level design, characters and so on. We've played Niki here, and we learned a couple of things we shouldn't do in our game.

On one of the websites, someone called us a 'bastard child of Niki and Lost Winds'. I think we're more of a child of Night Game and Lost Winds, really. Except the fact that we started the development way before Night Game was announced ;-) It's sort of a time paradox if you think about it ;-)

NWR: What are your thoughts on the current state of WiiWare?

LS: I think WiiWare is gaining some momentum now. There are many good titles coming to the platform in the next months. The addition of SD storage is a nice move too. I'd love to see some sort of SD-only downloads, where games would be 100meg-ish, so we can push in some more content, and create games worth those 2000 points. The problem with WiiWare, especially in Europe is the low penetration of WiFi connectivity among Wii users. Many people buy the console for Wii Sports, and maybe some budget Carnival Games, or Wii Fit.

Most of these people do not connect their consoles to the Internet. Wii has hit such [a] large audience, that a significant portion of the playerbase is not technically savvy enough to configure their WiFi (if they have one at that!) to work with their Wii, or the other way around. The lack of Ethernet port in the console itself is also a bit to blame, as not everyone has a WiFi connection around. I'm pretty sure that Nintendo will work something out to promote Wii connectivity, and WiiWare by extension. I think all WiiWare developers are counting on this.

NWR: What control schemes will Furry Legends support? More specifically, will motion control be available?

LS: We're aiming to provide the most natural controls for the platformer possible. You'll roll left and right by using the Nunchuk stick. Special powers will be selected using the Wii Remote Controller's D-pad, and activated by pressing Z on the Nunchuk. Jumping is performed by tapping the A button, and attacking requires you to hold the B button and swing your Wii Remote controller in the direction of the enemy on screen. That's about it! We've tried a lot of motion-enabled control schemes, but in the end we couldn't come up with something that's ergonomic for the player, and actually fun to play. Thus we went with the regular platforming controls, and I think it will work for the best.

NWR: Is it difficult to create such colorful worlds given the small size limit on WiiWare?

LS: Our artists are experienced with low-poly modeling, so it's pretty natural for them. But we're cutting every face we're not using, removing every object which isn't seen, and we're reducing the number of objects in the game, while increasing their population among levels. We're working hard on having a low amount of textures, but having each texture with great quality. But in the end, the amount of levels is our ultimate limit. That's one of the reasons why Furry Legends will go sort of episodic.

NWR: What challenges have the team overcome while developing the title?

LS: Again, a lot! Basically, we have built our engine from the ground up, while having no previous experience with Wii or other consoles. The only thing we're using is Nintendo's NintendoWare which is a simple API which saves us from coding everything in assembler ;-) We had to come up with our own technology, our tools and general workflow. Getting the art production with the level technology took us a while. The first level took us about 5 months to complete, because of the instability of the solution and many bugs, odds, ends, you name it. Now that we're through with it, the work is much easier. Other achievement was an internal struggle to show the management that [a] game of such caliber cannot be done in 4 months start to finish. Ahead of us is still the QA, sound synchronization and certifying the game at Nintendo.

NWR: Did Nintendo of Europe or any branch of Nintendo provide any assistance or feedback during development?

LS:Yes, the guys at NOE are very helpful. There's a division of NOE called Mario Club Europe, and they take games from the developers, review them and give a really thorough feedback in form of written, structured documents. All of this for free. They're doing a great job and we're really grateful that we can use their help with our game.

NWR: Once Furry Legends is completed, will Gamelion consider creating another WiiWare game or a game for DSiWare?

LS: Yes! We have plans for the next WiiWare game, as well as a couple of ideas for DSiWare games. In fact, soon you should see some first productions branded by Gamelion on DSiWare.

NWR: What is the target release date for Furry Legends and which territories will it be released to?

LS: We're aiming at a mid-Q4 2009 release in EU and USA.

NWR: Do you or the development team have a message to NWR readers regarding the game?

LS: I'd like to thank the readers for their interest in the game, and for reading the article. The Furry Legends team at Gamelion is working hard to bring you a great game, and we're always eager to hear your feedback about the game. I'm often posting news about the game on our blog at http://devblog.furrylegends.com; check back often for new info! I'd like to thank NWR for having us for the interview!

Thanks to Lukasz and the team at Gamelion for this great interview!