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Cloudberry Kingdom - The Mario influence, working with Nintendo, off-TV play
A portion of a GenGame interview with Pwnee's TJ Lutz...
GG: Speaking of giving each other crap, I have to ask the question that’s on everyone’s minds: Just what in the heck is a cloudberry, and why is it in the title of an insanely difficult video game? ‘Cloudberry’ doesn’t exactly bring a test of endurance to mind!
TJ: A cloudberry is a fruit native to Sweden. Sort of similar to a raspberry or blackberry. We want to eat one pretty bad, because we have no idea what it might taste like. But it looks delicious!
It sort of started as an inside joke between the two of us. We were making a game that felt like Mario to us, and we really wanted our princess to have a little sidekick guy like Toad (The coolest Mario character ever). We were trying to find some silly hat that we could put on someone to make them cute, and hopped on Wikipedia to look up different foods. Finally, we hit a list of berries and found a Cloudberry. We had no idea what it was, but it looked neat. We sort of gravitated to it, and since Toad is from the Mushroom Kingdom, we thought it would be silly to say that this dude is from the Cloudberry Kingdom.
After that, the name just sort of stuck. We did find it ironic that the thing was so cute, and the artstyle was so happy…but the game was super intense. We like it that way!
GG: Nintendo Wii U is one of the platforms that Cloudberry Kingdom is slated to release on. In the past, Nintendo had a somewhat negative reputation regarding their relations with indie developers and WiiWare, but they’ve been trying to change that with Wii U’s eShop. What has your relationship with Nintendo been like, and how does it compare to other platforms like XBLA or Steam?
TJ: Nintendo has been fantastic to work with since day 1. They have really been super helpful with everything… I really don’t have anything negative to say about them at all. I assume the rumors of their reputation must have been true in the past, but wow. I would never have expected it to be the case with the way they are now. They are really reaching out to indies in a way that make me feel good inside. Also, we love Dan.
And I don’t want to give Nintendo the full spotlight here. Sony has also been awesome to work with and equally, if not more indie friendly. Sony has really been a huge help to us as well.
Really, every platform we’ve dealt with has had their own unique style to the way they handle things, but we haven’t had a negative experience with any of them. Each one of them has their quirks and hoops to jump through, but overall they have all been pretty good to us. I could go on for pages about each individual one, but that wouldn’t be a very good read.
GG: Glad to hear it’s been a pleasant experience for you! So Wii U offers some unique potential with the GamePad’s touch screen. Any special features planned for the Wii U version?
TJ: Unfortunately we weren’t able to do anything too fancy with the Wii U version of Cloudberry Kingdom. Since we are shooting for a release on all systems at the same time, feature parity was something that we had to keep our eyes on. We still have a few ideas in mind that we would like to be able to add to the Wii U version in the future, but we will have to see how that all plays out. The one thing we were able to sneak in was off-screen play. So if somebody ABSOLUTELY MUST watch their show on TV, you can still have fun with Cloudberry Kingdom!
Full interview here (thanks Ben!)
GG: Speaking of giving each other crap, I have to ask the question that’s on everyone’s minds: Just what in the heck is a cloudberry, and why is it in the title of an insanely difficult video game? ‘Cloudberry’ doesn’t exactly bring a test of endurance to mind!
TJ: A cloudberry is a fruit native to Sweden. Sort of similar to a raspberry or blackberry. We want to eat one pretty bad, because we have no idea what it might taste like. But it looks delicious!
It sort of started as an inside joke between the two of us. We were making a game that felt like Mario to us, and we really wanted our princess to have a little sidekick guy like Toad (The coolest Mario character ever). We were trying to find some silly hat that we could put on someone to make them cute, and hopped on Wikipedia to look up different foods. Finally, we hit a list of berries and found a Cloudberry. We had no idea what it was, but it looked neat. We sort of gravitated to it, and since Toad is from the Mushroom Kingdom, we thought it would be silly to say that this dude is from the Cloudberry Kingdom.
After that, the name just sort of stuck. We did find it ironic that the thing was so cute, and the artstyle was so happy…but the game was super intense. We like it that way!
GG: Nintendo Wii U is one of the platforms that Cloudberry Kingdom is slated to release on. In the past, Nintendo had a somewhat negative reputation regarding their relations with indie developers and WiiWare, but they’ve been trying to change that with Wii U’s eShop. What has your relationship with Nintendo been like, and how does it compare to other platforms like XBLA or Steam?
TJ: Nintendo has been fantastic to work with since day 1. They have really been super helpful with everything… I really don’t have anything negative to say about them at all. I assume the rumors of their reputation must have been true in the past, but wow. I would never have expected it to be the case with the way they are now. They are really reaching out to indies in a way that make me feel good inside. Also, we love Dan.
And I don’t want to give Nintendo the full spotlight here. Sony has also been awesome to work with and equally, if not more indie friendly. Sony has really been a huge help to us as well.
Really, every platform we’ve dealt with has had their own unique style to the way they handle things, but we haven’t had a negative experience with any of them. Each one of them has their quirks and hoops to jump through, but overall they have all been pretty good to us. I could go on for pages about each individual one, but that wouldn’t be a very good read.
GG: Glad to hear it’s been a pleasant experience for you! So Wii U offers some unique potential with the GamePad’s touch screen. Any special features planned for the Wii U version?
TJ: Unfortunately we weren’t able to do anything too fancy with the Wii U version of Cloudberry Kingdom. Since we are shooting for a release on all systems at the same time, feature parity was something that we had to keep our eyes on. We still have a few ideas in mind that we would like to be able to add to the Wii U version in the future, but we will have to see how that all plays out. The one thing we were able to sneak in was off-screen play. So if somebody ABSOLUTELY MUST watch their show on TV, you can still have fun with Cloudberry Kingdom!