E3 Diary (part 2)


Wednesday June 8th – Sony Talks, Redheads, & some Press Love

The first meeting of the day was with Sony to discuss the potential for working together. We are very excited by the Playstation Vita and we think it would fit well with some of our existing software and with our ideas for the future. Being able to make initial contact with both Microsoft & Sony at the same event was a real bonus for us this year. We’re very excited about all the different directions we might be able to go in future.

Giant Sonic the Hedgehog

After the Sony meeting we bumped into James Kozanecki  from Gamespot. We had invited James to our drinks night but unfortunately he wasn’t able to make it. He was still keen to have a chat with Nic about what we were up to though, so we arranged an interview for Thursday morning. Then it was off to see more of the cool new games on show. Nic was particularly impressed with Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet for XBLA. The graphics are amazing and the gameplay really draws you into the game. It seems that Nic was not alone in his like for the game given the nominations and final awards it received at E3.

Next we were off to do some filming for the Ask Ogy – Day 2 segment. Someone had asked what the funniest/coolest promotional item at E3 was. We had discovered a company who had developed software for people playing Kinect in a confined space, making it easier to play Kinect games in small apartments. The software worked well and for some reason they were giving out red wigs for anyone willing to give it a try. So Steven & Bruce gave it a shot, all for the sake of the Ask Ogy competition. Neither of them is thinking about getting their hair dyed any time soon. Check out the video to see why.

After lunch it was time to check out more of the Nintendo area. As well as the Wii U, there was a chance to try out games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario, Mario Kart and Luigi’s Mansion 2, all on the 3DS, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii. Plenty to keep us busy for the afternoon!

No, you can't bring your new mates back to Sydney

While we were playing, sorry “professionally appreciating”, all of this great new Nintendo software, we received a text from Tyrone Rodriguez who was in the other hall of the Convention Center. He had met up with Corby Dillard of Nintendo Life and was showing him a preview of Cave Story on the 3DS. Corbie wasn’t able to make it to our drinks night but we were keen to show him our latest build of Spirit Hunters Inc. We really rate Corbie’s previews & reviews of Nintendo games on Nintendo Life. He is really passionate about Nintendo and we love to show him any of our latest builds to see what he thinks. We rushed over to the other hall to meet up with the guys and handed Corbie our latest version of Spirit Hunters Inc for the DSi. We were delighted to see he was blown away by it. So much so he wanted to write a First Impressions piece for Nintendo Life. We love it when game journalists are so keen to share their enthusiasm for our games that they feel they have to write about them immediately after playing them. We owe a big thanks to Justin Berube & Corbie Dillard for doing just that at E3!

Thursday June 9th – How U Doin’?

The final day of the conference. First up was Nic’s interview with Gamespot. The interview hasn’t been released yet but when it is we will make sure we put it on our website.

Next, we had another tour of the halls before getting together to prepare for our big event of the day: three, yes three, meetings with Nintendo! The first meeting was with Nintendo’s Software Development Support Group to discuss a few questions we had on developing for the 3DS. Then it was a meeting with their Lotcheck department, essentially their QA team who make the final checks of our software to ensure it is fully release compliant. Finally we had a chat with one of our key business development managers. It’s always good for us to touch base with as many Nintendo contacts as we can at these events as E3 and GDC are really our only chances of getting to meet up with them.

Some Zelda action

Between the first and second meetings was the treat Nic & Bruce had been waiting for – the chance to play on the Wii U. As well as having a load of Wii U controllers on the show floor (with a minimum 2 hour wait time), Nintendo also had a stash of Wii Us in their meetings area. These controllers could only be accessed if you had a meeting with Nintendo (which we did) and were then “invited” to try out the Wii U (which we were). The possibilities for this device are endless. Although there were no actual games to play, there were plenty of demos which showed off the console’s capabilities. It is fair to say that this console could be used right across the spectrum to make games for casual to hard core gamers. All it needs is the imagination of the developers. This is development hardware we can’t wait to get our hands on.

After filming the final Ask Ogy video of E3, it was time to head back to the hotel and reflect on the week’s events.  A meet-up with press and developers, 2 articles written about our games with an interview in the pipeline, meetings with all of the major console manufacturers and a chance to review a load of cool hardware and software coming our way in the next 12 or so months. Definitely a worthwhile trip!

If you would like to see more cool photos of our E3 trip, go to our Facebook album: E3 2011.

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