The story of how LostWinds came about is a little unusual: at Frontier we have long encouraged debate and discussion on games design / ideas, and have an internal forum dedicated to sharing ideas and opinions under the name of Game of the Week. The scope ranges from one-line game ideas like 'we should do a game about monkeys with detachable limbs' to fully-fledged design documents being posted. This causes a great deal of debate, criticism and argument, with many improvements, problems being raised and solved - we have likened the process to dangling a leg of lamb into a piranha-filled stream: the water boils for a while, but then whatever is left must be pretty tough.
The idea for LostWinds dates from the time that the Wii was first announced, when we were brainstorming design ideas that made good use of the Wii controls – it is one of many strong ideas we have built up over time, and it gathered a number of very enthusiastic internal advocates.
The actual original idea for the game came from when Steve Burgess was watching the trees and leaves from the window on a windy day. He remembers thinking about how many ways the wind shapes and manipulates different things within the world, and if only there was some way to become the wind in a game. He then applied this train of thought to the Wii controller.
The game gathered a number of very enthusiastic champions internally who worked on the concept, setting art direction, generating gameplay ideas, and inventing the mythos surrounding the gameworld.
Timing is often everything. Out of the blue, in late 2007, Nintendo invited us to a mysterious meeting in London: as it turned out, to explain their plans for WiiWare. We were delighted that their ideals for WiiWare were almost exactly fulfilled by LostWinds; allowing developers like us to create something innovative specifically for the Wii and, most importantly, its controller. We went well-prepared, and took a copy of the LostWinds concept document to the meeting. Since some people were available after finishing another game (“Thrillville Off the Rails”published by LucasArts), we decided to go for it, as the chance to be a launch title for WiiWare was too good to pass up. So we said “sounds great, and *this* is what we’d like to do”.
Also we were very keen to get some experience with digital distribution channels for games – which must surely be even more important in the future as they are with music now, for example. There are significant costs and risks associated with manufacturing DVDs and shipping them to shops, so LostWinds could be a very interesting first step for us into this world.
2. Did controls for any existing Wii games have an impact on the way you wanted LostWinds to be controlled?
Not at all – the whole idea came from thinking about how to best use the Wii’s controller; the whole point of the game is to allow the player to use the Wii control system in a coherent, intuitive, satisfying way.
Although it should be said that our experience in doing Thrillville: Off the Rails for the Wii in 2007 was invaluable in terms of our basic experience developing for the Wii as well as the many different control systems we’d used for the different types of gameplay in that game.
3. What were some of the hurdles during the development of LostWinds (If any)?
Probably rather boringly there weren’t any, really – if anything it was the opposite:
Normally in development there are ideas that look good on ‘paper’ but when you come to implement them in a game they are not as fun as you thought they would be, or you have an even better idea along the way, and so they end up on the ‘cutting room floor’, to borrow an expression from the movies.
One of the most striking things about the LostWinds development was the lack of such ‘wastage’ – the game transferred from concept to screen almost exactly. This is probably a big compliment to the large amount of effort that had gone into the early concept development of the game within Frontier before we started production.
4. What would you like a player of LostWinds to experience from playing your game?
Good question!
We essentially developed LostWinds for ourselves, and to satisfy our feeling of a pent up need for the Wii owners amongst us who wanted something more than another party game, something fresh that delivers deep, involving, Wii-specific gameplay in a beautiful skin.
We wanted to make the use of the different powers in the game to be very natural, tactile and playful, and the whole of Mistralis, the game-world, has been constructed to reward players who explore.
For us, a lot of subtle but very important appeal comes from the fact that the player controls two characters, and the dynamic between them. [For those readers who don’t know, Toku is a young boy who is relatively vulnerable and whom you basically just move left or right with the Nunchuck, and he stays vulnerable throughout the game (although he does get to use a couple of cool items of ‘kit’ to help his flying along the way), but what he provides is a physical presence in the world. The other player character, Enril the Wind Spirit, is controlled by the Wii-mote and does get much more powerful as the game progresses.] There is a nice symbiosis to their relationship because Enril has almost god-like powers in many ways, yet lacks the physical presence in the world that Toku provides. So the two work very well and naturally together as the player wields the power of the wind to protect, guide and do battle on behalf of Toku.
Its been very gratifying to get the very large number of messages from people who have taken the trouble to write to us saying how much they liked LostWinds, and a common thread is a feeling of excitement, discovery and exploration that has been missing for a while in their gaming lives, it takes them back to the feelings they first had when falling in love with gaming. We regard that as a huge compliment.
The short, simple (and obvious) answer is ‘to enjoy themselves’, in any way that the game enables.
To say we were running towards a deadline to be in with a shot of being a launch title, the whole thing has been remarkably smooth and we’ve got no issues at all. I can only commend the people at Nintendo who worked very hard to get the WiiWare system up and running; they’ve been great to work with.
Nintendo were clear at the start that there would be no WiiWare demos. It's their system, so until they change their position that’s the way it is and we are happy to respect that.
Back in the days of “Elite”, I started writing games as a hobby – I had a huge fascination for 3D graphics and what could be achieved by the simple computers of the time. The initial motivation to do this commercially was to be able to fund the hobby, but pretty soon it became apparent that it could be a career – and my University work became the hobby!
8. I think its safe to say Lostwinds was a success. So what's next for Frontier?
Thank you! We’re working on several things, but the only one we can talk about is The Outsider, an action-thriller game for PS3, Xbox360 and PC that gives the player unprecedented control over how the game’s story unfolds based on what they do and how they do it in the game.
We certainly have plans to support the Wii in the future, too!
9. Great, thanks for taking the time to speak with me.
It’s an absolute pleasure, thanks for the opportunity to ‘talk’ to your readers!
[Special Thanks to Jordan Pike for helping me write the questions.]
