Nintendo Summit Showcases StrongBad, World Of Goo WiiWare

Author: by Chris Remo, Brandon Boyer

At the latest presentation of Nintendo's forthcoming spring lineup of titles, the company demonstrated two games set to launch with its downloadable WiiWare service, including 2D Boy's IGF Award winning World of Goo and Telltale's just-announced Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Strong Bad producer (and former LucasArts producer on a number of Star Wars Jedi Knight titles) Brett Toasti demonstrated the 3D cel-shaded point and click episodic game. The plot, he said concerns Homestar being arrested for indecency and hiding out in Strong Bad's house, with Strong Bad trying to make him leave. Toasti also noted that players can connect elements of Strong Bad-drawn comics, and modify comics themselves, and that each episode will have at least one "micro-game" and one mini-game, showing the first episode's micro-game, Snake Boxer 5. Gabler And His Goo Next, 2D Boy founder Kyle Gabler was introduced as "the quintessential indie developer," saying that Nintendo reached out to Gabler when the WiiWare project was coming together. Still only made up of three developers, Gabler noted that the company was formed by three people who previously worked at a "largE compAny" before deciding to join together as a new studio. Showing a picture of himself licking an envelope, Gabler added "It's really easy to form a company. If you have saliva, you can form a company in California." Gabler described the game -- which sees hopeful young blobs indiscriminately absorbed into a faceless global corporation -- as a metaphor for 2D Boy and its members' game industry experiences. "World of Goo Corporation is just a metaphor for the horrible interactions we've had at publishers so far," he joked. Described as a "physics puzzle/construction game," World of Goo is controlled by dragging and dropping with the Wii Remote, and will feature a visual online leaderboard -- your tower grows as you send more goo to the in-game World of Goo Corporation. "The music is all original," added Gabler, "Most of the instruments are computer-generated, and the real ones were recorded in my living room. The drums are banging on tables and cardboard boxes and stuff. Sometimes it kind of sounds like real music." Finally, said Gabler, the game will feature multiplayer support via multiple Wii Remotes. "It's asynchronous multiplayer, like Mario Galaxy," he explained. One player acts as the main player, while others help out: "We've found parents really like playing with their kids," he added, "so I don't know, that's cool I guess."