Within the last 24 hours, Nintendo Life posted a rather interesting Midnight Status related article, which prompted us to get our own bit of news.
But before share what it was we were able to learn, some of you might not even be aware of the Swap Fire story that’s going around at the moment, so the first thing is to fill you in. Despite being something of a weird arrival to the North American eShop last year on the Wii U, Midnight Status’ Swap Fire did not do nearly as well as it could have done.
In fact, it has sold less than 500 copies of the game and yet when it was available for free, it amassed over 20,000 downloads and although there is a major update on its way to improve the game, it seems Midnight Status are very much so interested in doing a Swap Fire 2 and bringing it to Switch, which is what our news pertains to, but just before I share that, here’s the detailed summary Nintendo Life provided in their article, which is made up of “key details” that related to the performance of the Wii U game and Midnight Status’ Switch plans:
- To date Swap Fire has managed less than 500 paid copies on Wii U.
- As a free download in March, however, it was downloaded over 20,000 times.
- The goal of that giveaway was to win over new fans, and the developer says a number have expressed interest in buying the game for Switch.
- Investors have been impressed but want market validation for Swap Fire 2, proof that it’ll achieve solid sales on Switch. In other words, proof it can be a success when not given away for free.
- A ‘short but sweet’ Kickstarter project is therefore being planned that will provide proof of its potential market.
- The remainder of funds beyond those from the Kickstarter will then be sourced from investors.
So upon seeing this and having been in touch previously with Midnight Status’ Jeremy Alessi, due to interviewing him about Swap Fire, which you can read for yourself by clicking here, I exchanged a couple of emails and was able to get answers to 3 questions and you can see those answers right here:
So you’re considering a Swap Fire 2, what promoted the decision and how fares Swap Fire 1?
Jeremy Alessi: We love what we started with Swap Fire 1 but the goal was always a series. Swap Fire 1 was just what I like to call a “direction vector”. Now it’s time to scale it. We saw over 20k new players during our free giveaway with the first game so that indicates that people are very interested in Swap Fire though they might recognize that the first game has relatively low production values because we had no budget and it was basically made by one person for the most part. We had a team but in terms of actual hours contributed, the vast majority were mine and I was responsible for many elements from voice acting to AI code, in fact all the code.
Were you able to make Swap Fire 2 a reality, what would you do differently on it?
Jeremy Alessi: The production values would be much better, we’d add networked multiplayer, and we’d figure out what makes the Switch tick and make sure we craft an experience that takes advantage of that like we did with the Wii U’s 5-Player interface. Anything that comes across as objectively sub-par in Swap Fire 1 will be fixed. We’ll do great graphics this time, hire a real art director, get someone on audio, etc. Basically, I will not wear all the hats and other contributors will be full-time.
Should you prove successful enough to bring it to Switch, what would you do with the game to make it make the most out of the Switch’s many functions?
Jeremy Alessi: It’s difficult to say how we would specifically maximize it for the Switch’s form-factor. Obviously, Swap Fire’s focused on multiplayer (especially local) so the Switch is perfect for that already. I think our focus would be on building out a social-competitive tournament scene for Switch players but we’ll see.
Swap Fire may not have the best graphics in the world, but it isn’t the worst game in the world either and it was made with love, so personally I’m looking forwards with seeing how Midnight Status can expand on what they did and make what started out as a single game, into a series gamers could come to really enjoy. So naturally for those reasons, just as soon as more Swap Fire 2 news arrives, you can be sure to find it at miketendo64.com!
Until next time, keep on gaming!
Source: Midnight Status & Nintendo Life
