In the last few years, especially on American soilthe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (aka our Ninja Turtles) are back in the limelight.
Partly thanks to IDW’s prolific run of comics, partly thanks to the wonderful The Last Ronin, and partly thanks to the recent film “Mutant Chaos” (which will soon see the arrival of not only a sequel but also an animated series dedicated to this new course), The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are literally back in fashion both among the very young and among the “over 40s”… and I don’t want to tell you in the collectors’ field how sought-after the different lines of action figures branded NECA and Super7 are.
It is not surprising, therefore, that also video game productions dedicated to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are proliferating as much as in the 90s and the first decade of the 2000s.
Among so many mediocre productions, however, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate has managed to convince audiences and criticsgiven the excellent mix between the rogue-like genre (in particular the immortal Hades by Supergiatn Games) and the comic book runs by IDW.
Launched on Apple Arcade last year, Splintered Fate unfolds through the player’s attempts to complete the four levels and save Master Splinterdisappeared due to a space-time anomaly, a narrative device that justifies the constant gameplay cycle.
For further details on the title I recommend you read our review, but if you want to know more about the creation of the game, continue reading as I had the pleasure of having a chat with Tom Westall, Director of Product Management, to ask him for more details about Spilntered Fate.
Andrea Maiellano
Where did the idea of creating a Roguelike title set in the TMNT universe come from?
Tom Westall
We were actually working on the skeleton of a cooperative Rogue-like, since we love the genre a lot, but we hadn’t decided what the story should be about yet. As we evolved our concept, we realized that the TMNT world would be perfect for the ideas we had in mind, so we started talking to our friends at Paramount Games to understand the feasibility of the project. Our conversations quickly materialized and started to focus not on whether or not we could make a TMNT rogue-like, but on how this project could bring new and exciting elements to their narrative universe. The rest came naturally: we sewed a completely new story around the TMNT universe, which would integrate perfectly with the gameplay elements that we love and in which we have specialized over the years, namely the rogue-like genre with a specific focus on co-op combat.
Andrea Maiellano
What was the most difficult obstacle to overcome during the development phase?
Tom Westall
Developing any game is always hard! Finding a single aspect that was really difficult is really hard, but I can tell you that the biggest challenge is always making the final product cohesive and fun in every single aspect. However, if I wanted to go into more detail, and try to answer your question, I can tell you that developing a compelling story, complete with scripts, reactive elements and voice acting, was a new experience for us as a studio. It took us a while to figure out how to blend our way of making rogue-likes with a strongly narrative project, but after a few stumbles we managed to understand how to make Splintered Fate and we are really proud of this work.
Andrea Maiellano
Why did you decide to release Splintered Fate first on mobile and only later on Nintendo Switch?
Tom Westall
We are grateful to have partnered with Apple to release this game first on Apple Arcade. The Arcade release not only confined Splintered Fate to mobile, but also brought it to Apple TV and Mac, allowing us to showcase our strengths as a studio and get our work into the hands of thousands of people. That said, it has always been our desire to expand our capabilities by supporting other platforms, and TMNT: Splintered Fate felt like a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch. As easy as it may seem to be to port, we needed some time to ensure we were truly doing this game justice on a new platform and not disappointing the millions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans who own a Nintendo Switch.
Andrea Maiellano
Which other generation of TMNT inspired the game’s plot? It’s obvious, also by virtue of the prequel comic that preceded its arrival on Apple Arcade, that the main source of inspiration is the IDW genre, but were there other iterations of the TMNT that inspired you during the creation of the game?
Tom Westall
Good question! Splintered Fate certainly takes a lot of its characterizations, storylines, and art style from the IDW comics, but it’s also our love letter to the franchise as a whole, with many little elements inspired by our favorite parts of the various TMNT narrative universes. Cycle after cycle, the most ardent fans will realize how many little references to the various television series, and not, are present in Splintered Fate but we’ll let you discover them without spoiling the surprise.
Andrea Maiellano
How long did the porting take to develop? Were there any radical changes from the original project?
Tom Westall
It took us about 6 months to prepare the Nintendo Switch version. We tried not to change anything, but to refine and improve some key areas. We spent a lot of time refining the experience when using a controller, with improved UI and UX. We didn’t want it to feel like a lazy port of a mobile game, which is why we worked hard to make it feel as close to a Nintendo console exclusive as possible. We also built what we call “couch co-op” from scratch. The demand for local co-op from the Nintendo Switch audience has been incredible and since we’ve been talking about it as a team for a long time, the energy of the community has simply encouraged us to make this game mode better.
Source: www.tomshw.it
