Gurumin 3D - new trailer, Mastiff on 3DS version changes & port challenges

A portion of a NE interview with Mastiff...

NE: Aside from stereoscopic 3D, what else is new in Gurumin 3D? Is there any sort of new content compared to the Steam or original PSP version?

M: Yes, there are some new additions and improvements coming to Gurumin 3D. A few things like an improved in-game tutorial, improved menus, C-stick camera controls. We have also added more costumes for Parin to wear over the previously released versions.

But I want to stress how big a deal the 3D is. Gurumin has lots of open levels, lots of jumping horizontally and vertically, platforms, and lots of aerial multi-jumps/attacks. All of this makes it a great match for 3D. Its structure also makes it a great match for a portable unit.

NE: Can you talk a bit about the challenge of implementing 3D in Gurumin? Are the difficulties partially due to the fact that it wasn’t originally made as a stereoscopic 3D title?

M: Sure, and yes!

When making a PC title, memory and processor power are virtually infinite. The 3DS is a much smaller device and, since every frame needs to be drawn twice (once for each eye), it has to do a lot more work.

Fitting the 50 pounds of PC algorithm into the five pound 3DS sack required a tremendous amount of optimization. For example, if a level had a house in it, the PC version would simply draw the house on screen, all of it. That’s great if drawing the house has no computational cost (it’s not eating up computing cycles and thus slowing down the game) but in the 3DS we didn’t have that luxury. So, for example, instead of drawing a whole house we had to come up with a lot of tricks to draw only the part of the house the camera would see and leave the rest of the house undrawn.

The optimization was a long, difficult, painful process but I’m proud to say we got there, and now have a very responsive game with a smooth frame rate as a result. And as an added bonus I did learn how to say view Frustum Culling (the process of removing unnecessary stuff from in the modeled world) in Japanese. Shisuidai Karingu