The Wonderful World of WiiWare

Features
By published

Busting open the service that'll have your memory blocks buzzing with glee

Case study 1: Gravitronix
Developer: Medaverse
Out: TBA

Three schoolmates longed to make games and finally got the chance thanks to WiiWare. “It wasn’t until the Wii and the rumour of original downloadable content that we moved toward becoming a development house,” explains Medaverse CEO Jesse Lowther. And their first game? Gravitronix. Lowther explains the game as “twisting the remote or Nunchuk to move your ‘gravity platform’ within your territory, and using a limited but constantly recharging energy beam to stop projectiles launched at your territory while trying to launch projectiles at the territories of your opponents.”

Above:A bunch of random crap you'll see floating around in Gravitronix

Case study 2: Bruiser and Scratch
Developer: Steel Penny Games
Out: Q2 2008

Typical. You’re minding your own business in the woods and before you know it, you’ve fallen into a strange portal. Happens to the best of us. What lies through the gateway? According to Steel Penny Games’ founder, president and ‘technical guy’ Jason Hughes: “A puzzle game. Not a huge drawn-out adventure, just something fun to play for a few minutes or for a few hours, depending on your determination.” Though the game is single-player, Hughes says that, “From what I’ve observed, anyone in the room at the time can’t help but become involved, so in a sense it’s a viral local multiplayer game, yet only requires a single controller.”

Of most interest, however, is Hughes’ desire to create a WiiWare franchise. He notes that, “Making the game good comes first, having a story to tell comes a close second,” but Steel Penny “hope to produce a game that has enough story to give life to the characters [Bruiser the dogand Scratch the cat] outside the confines of a puzzle game, so players would look forward to seeing them in another type of game.” Could Bruiser and Scratch be the faces of WiiWare?