knockknock.biz luggage tags. Photo courtesy of justinph.

I guess it's finally time for me to level up.

It was the summer of '99 when I convinced my then editor to send me on a tour of the U.S. videogame industry. When I finally returned three weeks later, my head was still spinning. I felt as though I'd seen the future of entertainment. It was then that I made it my mission to put NEWSWEEK's coverage of this growing medium on the map. I did that in print, with cover stories on the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 and the spread of online gaming. I did it online, with the debut of the blog N'Gai Croal's Level Up. I did it on television, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. You all watched me push, prod, praise, scold, discuss and debate videogames across multiple media, both mainstream and enthusiast. That's because my editors were prescient enough to let me apply my talents and establish my reach beyond the magazine, from co-blogging with MTV News to writing a monthly column for Edge and more. For this, I say to them all, thank you.

Having achieved all of this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've accomplished what I set out to do ten years ago. And now it's time for me to take that decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge and do something else with it. After Friday March 6th, my passions will take me beyond the world of journalism. I’ll be wearing many hats on this new journey: videogame design consultant, media strategist, consumer technology reporter, columnist, blogger and, as always, provocateur. You’ll be able to keep track of my various adventures at ngaicroal.com, and feel free to reach out to me via email at ncroalbiz@gmail.com. It’s been a pleasure conversing with all of you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years to come.

Cheers,

 LostWinds, a WiiWare game developed and published by Frontier Developments

To get a sense of the thought process behind making a WiiWare game ahead of the service's May 12th debut, we spoke by phone with Frontier Developments founder David Braben. His company's first such title, LostWinds, aims to put "the power of the wind in the palm of your hand" (using the Wii remote) as you guide young Toku (using the nunchuk) on a series of adventures to lift an evil curse placed on the land of Mistralis. Also on the call: Nintendo of America director of project development, who began to chime in halfway through the interview with some explanations that clarified the differences between how Nintendo has chosen to approach original downloadable games as compared to Microsoft and Sony. Read on.

David, what is your WiiWare project?

David Braben: It's a game called LostWinds and it's about the idea of a wind spirit that has been hidden away by a nasty guy called Balasar. But essentially looking at it as a game, it really allows us to do new things on the Wii. We now have Wii in the marketplace for a year and as a developer it takes a while to come to grips with a new system like the Wii; the wonderful combination of the remote and the nunchuck. It's an opportunity for us to do great things with the game.

It's the first game to come out of a process that we have internally. One of the great things about working as a software developer is it's full of really enthusiastic people who really love games and so they're itching to try out new ideas. And so we created this--what originally started off as a Game of the Week project where people would propose games and as our managing director described it, it's a bit like dipping a piece of meat into a piranha tank and anything that's left has to be pretty tough. [Laughs.]

So in that sort of fantastic but critical atmosphere, we put out these game ideas, and people suggest ways of doing it better and ways to modify it and all that sort of thing. This is the first game that survived, if you like, that process, but also had grown from lots of people's suggestions about how it can be made to work really well. And the Wii is absolutely perfect platform for it.

Who's the main character? What's the goal and what's the game play?

 NanaOn-Sha founder Masaya Matsuura 

There are a number of ultra-talented game designers, but how many of them can plausibly claim to have invented an entire genre? With PaRappa the Rappa (1996), UmJammer Lammy (1999) and Vib-Ribbon (1999) to his credit, it's not a stretch to declare NanaOn-Sha founder Masaya Matsuura the father of the rhythm game, to whom the creators of such varied franchises as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero owe a tremendous debt. Matsuura stepped away from music games for a few years, focusing instead on the Tamagotchi Connection series for Bandai Namco, before returning to the genre with the iPod game musika. More recently, the U.S. publisher Majesco announced that Matsuura would be reuniting with artist Rodney Greenblat, with whom he had collaborated on Parappa. Their purpose? To create an original rhythm game for the Wii called Major Minor's Majestic March, where players gesture with the Wii remote to control the tempo of a marching band.

Later today, Matsuura and Robot Sound president Ryo Watanabe will be giving a talk at the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit titled "A Sense of Fun: Anybody Could Be Your Player 1." We got the jump on some of the things that Matsuura plans to discuss by speaking with him via phone last week from his native Japan. In our exclusive interview, he explains the controls for Major Minor's Majestic March, why Nintendo should ignore him rather than share any insights gained from the still-in-development Wii Music, and why he's so happy to see Harmonix succeed. For our part, we potentially influence the direction of the game with our suggestion that Matsuura explore the world of historically black college and university marching bands as a source of inspiration. Read on.

Where did the idea for Major Minor's Majestic March come from?

Let me try to remember. [Laughs] We had been thinking about the possibilities to make some new games for Wii. We were focusing on a music-based game, but he first rhythm-based game on the PlayStation from us had already been a decade ago. I wanted to make much more sophisticated and advanced types of things for the new environment. So maybe controlling the marching band and marching music sounds a little weird, but I thought that would be an interesting for everyone. This is where we started.

What was it about marching bands that you thought could work well as a game?

At the start, I thought that simply controlling the band by defining the tempo, or the BPM [beats per minute] by shaking your hands--it's like conducting a band. But after that, I started to think about much more game functions. Certain instrument players love a faster BPM and other instrument players may not like that. So the conductor has to concentrate on all of his band members and figure out what kind of BPM will be suitable for the current membership of the band. Of course, the player can control the BPM, so you can play with very slow tempo or a very fast tempo. But if you play the very slow tempo then maybe some members will disappear from your band. So these kind of things were the basic start of our game function ideas.

How would you describe the structure of the game? Where do you start and what's your goal?