Is the Switch indie friendly? One developer’s take

Nicalis has already announced and hinted at a few games for Switch such as The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+. According to the company’s Tyrone Rodriguez, the team is also preparing “way more” titles for Nintendo’s new system.

Rodriguez told Polygon that Nicalis was able to gain access to Switch “a little bit early” having also received dev kits for the likes of Wii U and 3DS. Development has also been incredibly smooth, and it’s been “light years ahead of what we were doing with Wii U.”

Nintendo’s never had the best reputation when it comes to being welcoming to independent developers. While a few tiny developers have managed to release games on Nintendo platforms in recent years, the total numbers are a fraction of what you’d find on an Xbox or PlayStation.

Is that likely to change with the Switch? We spoke with Tyrone Rodriguez, the president of Nicalis, whose company has three Switch games planned, including one launch title, The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+.

Nicalis is one of the few smaller developers that has worked with Nintendo steadily in recent years.

“We were fortunate enough to have prototype developer hardware for the Wii U, 3DS, etcetera, so we already had a good relationship with Nintendo to get [the Switch] a little bit early,” said Rodriguez.

That insight into Nintendo platforms of yore has proven useful. Afterbirth+ launched just last month on PC and to see it transition to a console so quickly is almost unheard of in the indie space.

A big part of that speed was thanks to the Switch’s new development tools, explained Rodriguez.

“The Switch is, by far the easiest and most programmer friendly so far,” he said. “I know this sounds like lip service to Nintendo, but it’s actually not. If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t be able to get these games up and running as quickly as we have, and we wouldn’t be able to have a launch title. It’s light years ahead of what we were doing with Wii U.”

Another effective technique was to unify their games across multiple platforms, further decreasing porting time. Achievements, for example.

“We put in hooks in ... so that the code will work on any platform,” Rodriguez said. “So, for example, if there was a console that didn’t have achievements, you can’t have achievements on those games. But in the case of Isaac, we built the achievements right into the game.” (Rodriguez is still under NDA with Nintendo until the Switch launches, and apologized for the need to remain vague regarding Switch functionality.)

Rodriguez also mentioned that, in addition to his team’s three announced titles (Isaac, Redout and 1001 Spikes) they has “way more” Switch games in development. They’ll have competition, though. Other indies have been announced for Switch, including Stardew Valley and Tumbleseed.

“We used to enjoy the lack of developers coming to Nintendo consoles, it was a lot less competition,” said Rodriguez. “But it’s not a bad thing. More good games on every platform is good for the industry. I’m very happy Nintendo is trying to get more games for this platform.”

http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/14554702/nintendo-switch-indie-friendly-binding-of-isaac-nicalis-tyrone-rodriguez

Nice to see that Nintendo made a good effort to make game development much easier on the Switch for developers.

That's awesome. Indies should thrive on the Switch.

That is good to hear. I'm sure the Nintendo haters will say otherwise.

Better and easier porting is good news, wonder about that 1 year to port article?

Miyamoto doesnt seem to agree with this guy tho

http://nintendoeverything.com/miyamoto-games-made-with-pc-as-a-base-can-be-ported-to-switch-in-about-a-year/

“We put in hooks in ... so that the code will work on any platform,” Rodriguez said. “So, for example, if there was a console that didn’t have achievements, you can’t have achievements on those games. But in the case of Isaac, we built the achievements right into the game.” (Rodriguez is still under NDA with Nintendo until the Switch launches, and apologized for the need to remain vague regarding Switch functionality.)

In other words, the Switch doesn't have an official system-level achievement system, and it's up toa dev has to implement them into a game, so business as usual. Achievements aren't a big deal to me personally, but they are a big deal to most people and can tip the scales on whether chooses to purchase a game, and for what platform.

But either way, I love how I'll no longer have to sit on the fence about whether I want to acquire a game for a console on the go, or one that allows me to play on a big screen TV.

As it should

It's great to see a platform where Indies can seemingly thrive. If most major third parties won't support Switch, as seems to be the case, then that only makes it better for them, as it will clear the path for them to be more successful and sell more games to a user base, many of whom will likely be looking for some additional software to play after burning through the Nintendo stuff.

“The Switch is, by far the easiest and most programmer friendly so far,” he said. “I know this sounds like lip service to Nintendo, but it’s actually not. If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t be able to get these games up and running as quickly as we have, and we wouldn’t be able to have a launch title. It’s light years ahead of what we were doing with Wii U.”

This is great to hear