Spirit Hunters Inc. Remember that? Yes you do. It’s our augmented reality spirit hunting and battling RPG. We’ve been working on it for a couple of years now and we’re delighted to report it’s in good shape.

So good in fact that we took it to E3 to show journalists. Nintendo World Report are first up with their impressions of the game. They seemed to be surprised at the depth the game offers. Not a surprise to us – that’s why it’s taken us 2 years to get here!

You’ll be hearing more about the game in the coming months. In the meantime check out Nintendo World Report’s impressions and reacquaint yourself with our Spirit Hunters Inc site which will be getting updated over the next few months.

“So when is it due for release?” we hear you shout in unison. Well, we feel confident that it will be released around the 4th quarter of this year. We’re tidying the game up, testing it furiously (and having a great time while we do) and fixing those pesky bugs which always seem to find their way into games.

It will be a downloadable title for Nintendo DSiWare, so you can hunt and battle the spirits on your Nintendo DSi or on your Nintendo 3DS through the eShop. Keep an eye on this News site for more updates and information (including price) over the coming months.

Excited yet? Go on, give us a smile. You know you want to. Just like this —>

While we were at E3 we ran into Jessica Citizen from Aussie game site Player Attack.

She wanted to talk to us about E3, escapeVektor and Spirit Hunters Inc. We also sent her some exclusive new escapeVektor footage to put in the interview.

Ignore what Bruce said about escapeVektor coming to DSiWare though, it’s strictly 3DS. Poor guy was too exhausted after a hard week’s marketing!

Click here to see the interview

Another preview in from E3, this time from game website RipTen. Justin Berube from the site took the game for a spin and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

He really gets stuck into the detail of the new game in this article, concluding “escapeVektor has become my most wanted 3DS eShop game.” High praise indeed!

Click here to read the article

The first press article has appeared from our visit to E3. This is an Impressions piece for escapeVektor on the Nintendo 3DS from Nintendo World Report.

Looks like they’re happy with the amount of juicy content we’re packing into it.

Check out their impressions here

We’ve just made it back from this year’s E3 in LA and what a show it was for us! As well as making sure we saw everything on the show floor we had a record number of meetings. Here’s a quick rundown of what we got up to:

Press meetings/interviews: 8.

Nintendo meetings: 3.

Sony meetings: 1.

Presentations attended: 1.

Parties attended: 2.

As you can see above, our security detail was second to none, which made it relatively easy to get through the show. We also took a load of pictures and put them on our Facebook page.

Now that we’re back, or focus is firmly on finishing our games. Wish us luck!

This month’s AUS/NZ version of Game Informer magazine comes packed with great games news, features and reviews. What makes this month’s issue particularly special for us is that we’re featured in their “Down Under Dev” section, alongside our friends at Convict Interactive and N3V Games. (more…)

We were recently featured twice on local indie support site Indie Bits. The aim of the site is “to help people go indie in the games industry and make a living doing what they love”. It’s a great site full of case studies, guides, workshops, book and tool resources and even a few rants. All designed to help the indie community in their quest to make games for a living.

This site is useful whether you’re thinking about starting up a games company, have just done so or even if you’ve been going for a few years. Take a while to explore the site and see how much it has to offer. Follow its creator, Epona Schweer, for a constant source of useful information on going indie.

In the first Nnooo feature, Epona interviewed Nic for a startup case study. She wanted to know about Pop on WiiWare, the first game we released. She also wanted to know why Nic went indie and what lessons we learned from making Pop. There are some useful insights here for aspiring developers.

The second feature is a video interview with Nic at a local IGDA Sydney playtesting event. There’s also a Developer Data Box, which details some useful information on the company, including how much it cost us to make Pop and how much revenue it generated in the first year.



Nintendo fan site WiiWareWave recently interviewed Nic about escapeVektor: Chapter 1. The interview is split into 2 parts. In Part 1, Nic talks about the graphical inspiration for the game, the development process, music and what happened to the other chapters. Part 2 covers the positive reviews the game has received, WiiWare file size limits, lessons learned and developer tips.

Ah the trusty Wii. Originally a game-changer (literally) and enjoyed by millions as a console to help them get into shape, did it really get the use it deserved? How many people dug deep into the range of Wii games on offer, and how many even knew they could download games for the console?

Now inhabiting dusty cupboards and basements, cast aside by those looking for new experiences and excited for the arrival of the Wii U, let’s not forget this great Nintendo invention. It led the way at its launch and its unique interactivity inspired Nintendo’s competition to raise the bar for their own consoles. Plenty of loving care and attention went into making Wii games from Nintendo and third party developers alike, including us indie devs. It’s only fair then that we should salute this great console and the games which made it so much fun to play.

Games Beat asked some key industry figures, including our own Nic Watt, which Wii experiences they think deserved a wider audience. Take a look at this great feature and see how many of these games you’ve played yourself. Who knows, it might be worth dusting down your Wii and firing it up again for some great new experiences. Remember, it’s not gone yet!

We’re featured in the May edition of Official Nintendo Magazine. Not once, but twice!

First of all, escapeVektor has a double spread in the magazine’s Select section, which details ONM’s pick of the latest Nintendo news. That in itself would have been great. But there’s more….. (more…)