Somebody Talk to Me,Damn it!: Interview series

This is the first in hopefully a series of interviews for Nintentofive. This time I'm proud to introduce friends of mine from Australia. They helped me out early on and now I hope the information provided will help just as much. Without further delay let me introduce the Independent video game company, Nnooo, to the mix!

Full Name and Location.

Nic Watt, Creative Director at Nnooo. We are based in Sydney, Australia

How did you guys come up with Nnooo for the name of the company?

I’m from Scotland and one of my first jobs in the industry saw me working at a games company in England. We used to play a lot of Mario Tennis on the N64 at lunch time and something I used to say a lot was “Nnooo” in a long, drawn out comic book way (with my Scottish accent). The guys on the team thought it was funny so it stuck and has progressed to become the company name!

How did you guys decide that game design/development was the right fit?

Each time we start on a game concept I spend a lot of time living with the game in my head before we actually start making it. So I have played it in my mind a lot before even start making it.

When we are able to start working on an idea we prototype a lot of the core features before we start on full development so we can tell quickly if something is fun or not.

Regular 3DS or 3DS XL?

3DS XL! It is amazing, the bigger screen and sexy curves make all the difference!

When was the moment that you felt that Nnooo had arrived on the scene?

When Pop was chosen as a launch title for WiiWare and we were invited to the WiiWare launch press event in San Francisco.

Last Wii game played?

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword I think.

Last NES game played?

I didn’t really own a NES but I did play on one at a friend of the family’s house in the 1980s and I think it would have been ExciteBike. More recently I have played a bit on each of the Ambassador Games for purchasing a 3DS early, so probably Zelda 2.

Mario fan or Luigi fan?

Mario! He is cuter and has a more developed character. I do have a soft spot for Luigi and would like to see him in more games.

Looks like you guys have been busy recently. What do you think is the reason for the success?

Thanks! We have been super busy. I think in terms of success we have been blown away by how all of our software has been received and have been particularly fortunate that pretty much all of them have sold more than we spent developing them.

I put a lot of this down to the fact that we don’t rush software out and we spend a lot of time trying to make interesting uses of the hardware as well as really well polished software.

Easier or harder to be an independent video game company?

Harder. Mainly in the money and getting noticed (marketing) departments!!

I’m sure there are pros and cons for being independent, could you go into an example for a pro as well as a con.

Pro: We can make what we want, how we want and release it when we want!

Con: It is much harder to get noticed by the press and we are very close to the edge in terms of cash flow so if one game fails or is pirated a lot then we could lose everything.

Have heard you guys are working on a Wii-U project, care to talk about that?

Our Wii U projects are in conceptual stages at the moment while we put the finishing touches to escapeVektor (which we hope to release later this year). We plan to start prototyping them really soon and will announce something when we are happy with what we have!

Thoughts on Nintendo moving forward, going in the right direction or stepping back?

I think Nintendo always form their own path which is something the world and industry need more of. They always strive to do something new and different with their hardware so for me I think they are going in the right direction.

Why were surprised by the reception your games have received?

It is always surprising but very welcome when people enjoy your work. We do spend a lot of time making sure our software is as good as it can be and it has to be noted that the whole team (currently 5 of us) work very hard making sure everything we make is fun and to a super high quality!

Does the thought of location come into play when you guys are creating a product. What I mean by that is since you guys are in Australia, does what you might think of doing for a game that isn’t coming to the US?

We are very globally focused when we develop an idea. Being from the UK originally and now living in Australia I am very aware of how big the world is so we try to make sure our ideas will appeal to a wide and diverse audience.

We do spend time making sure the English in our games uses UK spelling in Europe and Australia and US spelling for the Americas. We also make sure any references in our games to anything cultural will work in all regions or at least be seen as cute or quirky.

Looks like you guys have come a long way, did you ever think that this might not happen for the company?

I always think and worry about that! We are still so small and any failure has the potential to close us down!!

When we were working on Pop originally we got very close to the edge as we basically ran out of money when the game was finished. So I didn’t know if we were going to be able to carry on or not.

This happens on every project to a certain degree as we want our little babies to pop out into the world and make as many friends as possible!

Read on the forum for the site that you guys would be interested in a Pokemon MMO? Can you go into details on this and if this is just me wishful thinking, shoot it down right now.

I would love to make a Pokémon MMO and have done since before we started the company. The basic premise would see you playing in a world which covers the landmass of all of the Pokémon games. You would choose a start area (which would be one of the start areas from the previous games) and would then explore outwards in a similar fashion to the current games.

Each area of the world would have Pokémon which are unique to that area so you would have to explore across the whole world to find them all. I would also like to add a form of professions or classes to the game so players can say start as a Pokémon trainer and then choose to become a Ranger or another role. This way each player would be slightly different.

I’d also like to add the concept of caves where you can go in alone or with a group of friends (up to 5) and you can only have a maximum of 5 Pokémon out at a time. By using teamwork you would explore these caves and take on much harder and rarer Pokémon.

I could go on….

Toughest video game played to date?

Dark Souls

How do you decide what content to show the fans?

It often depends where we are in development. If we are at an early stage and we want to show something then we will either use mock ups and concept work or show a snippet of where we are. If we are later in development we will be more structured and break it down to show different aspects of the game.

How much new content is considered too much?

We try not to be overwhelming and usually keep updates to once a week at the most. We also try to show different things with each update to keep the reader/viewer interested.

Spirit Hunters looks like its going to have quite a lot for the players to do. If there is one thing you don’t want people to miss out on when they play it, what is it?

The Challenge system. Each time you defeat or capture a spirit you can make a challenge code and send it to a friend. This allows them to battle that exact spirit and then unlock it in their game. It is also the only way to unlock the unique spirits from each version in the other version.

Favorite video game memory?

Hmm here’s 3:

The first time I ran unpacked, setup, and then played my N64 with Super Mario 64. I was speechless and so excited!

Getting the bus to Denver from a skiing holiday, picking up a Gamecube, getting the bus back to the hotel, setting it up on the hotel TV and playing Waverace , Luidi’s Mansion and Pikmin the first time.

The first time I stepped into World of Warcraft’s beautiful, expansive world. I’m still finding it amazing today!

Have any advice for anyone who would like to follow in your footsteps?

Choose an area of video games you love. Focus on becoming amazing at it and build up a great portfolio of work. Become organised and finish tasks you set yourself (both of these will help a lot at interviews).

Don’t try to run before you can walk.

Looks like the site has an extensive Mario Kart 7 league. Who was the genius behind that?

We were all playing it at work and some of our fans wanted to play it so a friend of mine suggested we start a proper league. So we did!

Would you guys make a racing game if given the chance?

We would. I’d like to do an F-Zero style game!

If a Giant Monkey steals your girl friend, are you going to fight like hell to get her back?

Only if I get to eat mushrooms, jump on Koopa Trooper’s heads and bash question mark blocks. If not I think I’d run away scared :P

Wii-U: going in the right direction or taking a step back for Nintendo?

Definitely going in the right direction. Just wait ‘til you play it!

Easier to stick/create for one company or create for multiple companies?

One company. It’s all about focus.

What do you want people to hear from this? What I mean is what do you want the readers to read so they visit your site more?

We’d love for people to become more aware of our games and to come friend us on Facebook (facebook.com/nnooo), twitter (twitter.com/_Nnooo), youtube (youtube.com/Nnooo) and of course our own site (nnooo.com)!

Not many people know that Nnooo was one of my first “Twitter friends” and helped me out when I was just starting out. I just want to say thanks for everything you’ve done for me and keep up the good work.

No worries! Glad to have been a help! We want to be the nice guys in this industry