14 DAY TRIAL // Indie developers KnapNok and Nifflas Games have teamed up in order to deliver a kooky and off-beat gaming experience to Nintendo’s Wii U console, titled Affordable Space Adventures.
The two companies’ backgrounds include titles such as Knytt Underground and NightSky for Nifflas and Spin the Bottle, Slomo Showdown and Panzer Geeks for KnapNok, which pretty much sets the expectations bar for their upcoming creation in a parallel universe, because the former specializes in very atmospheric puzzle platformers and the latter in experimenting with innovative social interfaces and concepts.
The two companies have released a teaser trailer of Affordable Space Adventures, which apart from a showing the rather humorous perspective of the game and a focus on the exploration of strange and claustrophobic environments does not do much in the way of showing the upcoming title’s gameplay.
The game will make extensive use of the GamePad, for instance, as the devs state that they aim to deliver a very low-key and suspenseful game that will present players with a some technical puzzles that they have to solve by using the ship’s controls on the Wii U GamePad’s screen.
Players will be able to make use of their ship’s arsenal of sensors and customization features in order to scan their enemies and learn how to properly configure their systems in order to avoid detection. Experimentation and gradually being exposed to new stimuli while learning the limits and capabilities of the small spaceship will be an integral part of Affordable Space Adventures’ gameplay.
The team states it as their mission to show how the Wii U’s GamePad can be used in a meaningful way, as they believe that not many developers have managed to do so until now, and that the Wii U can deliver some great experiences that no other consoles are able to, as long as developers are daring enough to design something custom-tailored to Nintendo’s platform.
The two teams are attempting to challenge the traditional design paradigm that limits developers to only a subset of the total possible gameplay mechanics due to the constraint of having to port the game to as many platforms as possible, and instead want to evolve game design to a place that allows them to think in new ways and deliver innovative experiences.
The developers say that the Wii U is especially fitting for such a goal, with its combination of motion controllers, secondary screen with touch capabilities, camera, thumb sticks and buttons that together give the creative mind so much space for thinking outside the box and coming up with new designs.
For additional information regarding Affordable Space Adventures, you can check out the developer Q&A with Gamasutra.