Home > Feature Articles > #199

Screenshots

Sliced Gaming Feature: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias Developer Interview

Writer: Nick Schaedel
Posted: 17th September 2009, 2:34am

LostWinds instantly became one of my favourite Wii games when it launched to critical acclaim last year. After its release, I impatiently waited for word on a sequel, until finally, this month, those words finally came. LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is on its way. Frontier were gracious enough to lend us their chairman, David Braben, so we could ask a few questions.

 

Sliced Gaming: How successful was the original LostWinds? Can you give us a rough estimate of the number of downloads to date? There was a lot of critical adulation for what was one of the first truly impressive WiiWare titles, but did it take very long to greenlight the sequel?

David Braben: We can’t give exact figures on how well LostWinds did, but we wouldn’t be doing a sequel if we felt weren’t happy with the potential. We’ve always known we wanted to do a second game as the team have always been enthusiastic about the whole idea behind LostWinds and love the world they’ve created. After the first game was released the team had to move onto various other projects, and it took longer that we’d have liked to get them back together again to begin development, but we are very glad we did!

SG: What did you see as issues or areas that needed work in the first game, and how have you tried to address them in Winter of the Melodias?

DB: Most people loved the first game hugely. A few people would get a little lost, and others complained it was a little too short. As developers we always look with a critical eye and try to improve things. We have been able to learn a lot from our experience of developing the first game, and so have been able to squeeze even more high quality gameplay into the space available to us. We’ve made significant optimizations which have really helped us to save space, and therefore add more content, and different types of gameplay.

We’ve also thought very hard about how we can give more general guidance and context to the player whilst still retaining the explorative feel that is important to us. We’ve used a variety of techniques, including a high level map that gives general context, and are very happy with the balance we’ve now struck.

SG: How connected is the story to the first game, and how soon does it pick up after the conclusion of LostWinds? Is this the end of the saga, or just another step along the road?

DB: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias takes place almost immediately after the first LostWinds and introduces familiar characters such as Magmok, Deo and Enril, but the story is self-contained - so if you’ve not played the first LostWinds, you can still jump into Winter of the Melodias and have a great gaming experience (though we hope players new to LostWInds will also try their hand at the original). We certainly hope it ...

(continued next page)