Depending on your gaming persuasion, Indiecade can be one of the most exciting events of the year. With the likes of LIMBO, VVVVVV, Machinarium, and The Misadventure’s of P.B. Winterbottom (among other notable winners) becoming the indie equivalent of a heavy hitter, it’s definitely a big deal for these developers. With all the buzz surrounding Fez and The Sword & Sworcery EP, it’s nice to see something like Copenhagen Games Collective’s Johann Sebastian Joust pop up and nab the festival’s award for best technology.
You know those games you played at camp (the one you didn’t really want to go to but went anyway because you’d rather be there than home with your nagging parents) where you stand in a circle and try to tag one other while also protecting yourself from another competitor? That’s the basic idea of Johann Sebastian Joust. Using the PS3’s move controllers, players circle up and try to eliminate each other by tapping others’ remotes, protect their own from nefarious taggers, and maintaining stability while dodging.
Ozzie Mejia at Shacknews spent some time with the game this weekend and apparently it was “some of the most fun [he] had at IndieCade this year,” despite losing incessantly. Conceptually, it sounds like a blast. The really interesting part however, is the development process.
Being an indie developer often means that you have frustrating limited access to development kits. TO circumvent that issue, Copenhagen Games Collective tried their hand at Wii development with a modified unit, but found the controller connection unreliable. Anyone with a modded Wii can attest to the drop in controller response when using installed software. Douglas Wilson, one of the brains behind the title, then wrote his own API for Sony’s Move remote and gave it another shot.
“…the Wii-mote connection was a little fussy and it was hard to get it working reliably. So then I made my own hacked API for the PlayStation Move controller. And that was real hard, but we got it working now and it’s running off my Macbook Pro and things are looking good.”
I’m definitely excited to see this come to fruition in the near future, and finally use my Move remotes again. Johann Sebastian Joust is on its way to PS3 eventually… after Wilson gets his lousy PhD taken care of.
IndieCade 2011: Johann Sebastian Joust [Shacknews]
