Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Matthew Sainsbury for ARN website. Below is the full interview which you can also read on their site.

Nic Watt, founder and creative director of games and application software developer, Nnooo, is on the cutting edge of the industry. The Independent Software Developer’s sales model is entirely around digital downloads for the iPhone, Nintendo Wii and DS. He speaks to MATTHEW SAINSBURY about the future of digital distribution and the broader gaming software industry.

Can you give me an overview of Nnooo and your background?

I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years now. I was working at Electronic Arts in London, and my partner got offered the chance to come to Australia, so we made the decision to move out here. It was at that point I sold some property I had in the UK, and decided to make the jump to running my own small games company.

It was around about the time that the small downloadable titles were starting to come to market. Microsoft had just launched Xbox Live Arcade, and I thought the future of these small downloadable games was quite exciting. Particularly from a small company point of view, it was something we could achieve.

What are the advantages of downloadable titles over a full retail release?

For us, the one thing I wanted to do was to make the games I wanted to make. When you work with a really big company, such as EA, that becomes very difficult, because you’ve got to go through so many different stages and there’s so many approval mechanisms. Quite often, the people higher up in the company have their own vision for the kinds of games they want to have made.

Also, the hard part of making a full retail game is it costs a lot of money – when you start up a new company, it’s very difficult industry for people to give you $5, $10 or $20 million to make a videogame unless you’ve done something like make a Halo or World or Warcraft in the past. (more…)

Aussie-Nintendo recently reviewed myNotebook: Blue and gave us an amazing 8/10 You can read the review below or on Aussie-Nintendo.com (here).

Depending on your needs, myNotebook could be an essential purchase. Personally, having a digital notebook on the DSi just makes a lot of sense. I tend to take my DSi with me when I set out for my daily trips to Mars and back, but pen and paper? Yeah, not so much. It’s really something that should have been included with the system in the first place, and while Nintendo’s Flipnote Studio offers the basic functionality, this has a much better feel to it. (more…)

Sydney, Dec 3 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo are pleased to announce that myNotebook: Blue™ has reached #3 in the US, UK, AU and CA DSiWare charts (making it currently the highest ranking paid for piece of software).

“We are so pleased that the consumer reception to myNotebook has been so high.” said Nic Watt, Creative Director, Nnooo “The myLifeCollected range of software was always a risky proposition and to see that we are creating something which appeals so strongly to Nintendo DSi users is a great achievement.” (more…)

Sydney, Nov 17, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo are pleased to announce that myNotebook™ has been approved for release in both Europe and North America for Nintendo DSiWare™. The three different versions of myNotebook will launch on the following dates for 200 Nintendo DSi Points™:

myNotebook: Blue™ launches Friday 20th November in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Monday 23rd November in the Americas.

myNotebook: Red™ launches Friday 4th December in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Monday 7th December in the Americas.

myNotebook: Green™ launches Friday 18th December in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Monday 21st December in the Americas.
myNotebook: Blue, Red and Green are the first releases in Nnooo’s new myLifeCollected range. A range of lifestyle applications for the Nintendo DSi™. (more…)

The following is the review Aussie-Nintendo.com gave Pop+ Solo. You can read the original post here.

It may not look like much, but Pop+ Solo – developed right here in Australia – is an incredibly addictive little game. The unique experience it offers manages to strike an interesting balance, as it can turn the player into a complete wreck whilst feeling relaxed at the same time.

A follow-up to Nnooo’s WiiWare title, Pop+ Solo expands upon the concept with a host of new game modes and options. Essentially, you’re poppin’ bubbles. However, frantically stabbing the touch screen at everything that floats on by won’t get you far; Pop is all about quick thinking and causing huge chain reactions. Grabbing hold of a bubble, you can pump it up, increasing its size by gently shaking up and down. Release, and it’ll explode, wiping out any bubbles of the same colour nearby. From there, you’re given a brief window of time to continue the combo in order to wrack up the big points and keep the all-important timer going.

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Pop+ Solo is now available on Nintendo DSiWare in  Australia and Europe for 500points. Connect your Nintendo DSi to the DSi Shop and check it out! Pop+ Solo will be available from Monday (24th) in Americas.

We have also done a site take over of NintendoLife in Australia, USA and Europe click here to check it out (this take over will run for a week from the 21st August 2009 in Australia and Europe and 24th in the Americas)

Aug 17, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo are proud to announce that Pop+ Solo™ has been approved for release in both Europe and North America for Nintendo DSiWare™. Pop+ Solo will launch on August 24th in Americas and August 21st in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the UK for 500 Wii Points™. (more…)

Seeing as we have just submitted Pop+ Solo to Nintendo for approval I wanted to write a short post highlighting what sorts of things happens when submitting a game for approval and why we do it. Please note we are covered by a Non-Disclosure agreement so we cannot be too specific. I hope you find this post interesting. (more…)

I finally got my copy of Metroid Prime 3 yesterday. I had asked for it to be shipped DHL from Video Games Plus which they did but they sent it to my old UK address. Fortunately both of us caught this quickly and they managed to get another copy DHL-ed to me.

Anyway I spent a couple of hours playing it last night and managed to get through 2 bosses (or one boss and a mini boss depending on how you look at it). As I have not managed to complete it I’ll give you my first impressions.

Firstly Wow! It looks great, ok not HD great but for a Wii game it looks amazing. The first few minutes or hours are very different from a normal Metroid game in that 1) you have people speaking to you 2) you don’t have to kill everything you meet and 3) you get some help in places. This might put off die-hard fans but for me it fleshes out Samus’s world a little more without removing any of the core Metroid elements.

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With the imminent release of Metroid Corruption I have started playing Super Metroid on the Virtual Console. Having never played a Metroid game until Fusion (on the GBA) and Prime (on the Cube) Super Metroid passed me by (I know I had a SNES and still never played it!).

Anyway coming to it as a relative newcomer is interesting for several reasons.

Guidance and objectives:

Super Metroid is really hard. Not because of the AI or the amount of health or ammo you get. Instead it is because there is very little guidance. It does not tell you how to use any of your abilities or where to go next. Instead you are left to explore and experiment to discover what to do and where to go. To this end it can be frustrating at certain sections becuase you think you are lost or even trapped.

Feeling trapped and unable to progress is an interesting one as there are several sections where you can blast a switch to open a door from one side that when you return you cannot open from the other side. This leads to a few moments of thinking ‘crap I am going to have to reset and start from my save again’. Interestingly, however, there are always ways out of the area you think you are trapped in.

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