Wii: Groovin’ Blocks – Music & Q&A
Here are a few tracks from Groovin’ Blocks. Get your Saturday night groovin with some music from Groovin’ Blocks. Also below is a Q&A with Francois Bertrand and Matt Shores, from Empty Clip Studios.
Zoo Games: What inspired Groovin’ Blocks?
Matt Shores: It’s funny, Groovin’ Blocks started as a “quick tech demo” for our RapidFire Engine, but the more we added to it the more we thought “Wait! This is actually pretty fun!” So we started exploring the project as a full game and ended up shipping it on WiiWare™.
Zoo Games: So you guys originally published Groovin’ Blocks on WiiWare™. How is the Wii™ boxed version going to be different?
Matt Shores: WiiWare™ is a great opportunity to get a game out there, but the main restriction is on size. This was a bit of a limiting factor for us because the entire game is based on music tracks which can only compress so much. We are really happy we can finally get all the content we wanted and provide more variety to players. We also added some special effects we didn’t have the ability to put in the original.
Zoo Games: We love the soundtrack for this game. How did you decide on the music for Groovin’?
Francois Bertrand: It was clear we needed tracks with a solid rhythm. It’s really cool to see people tapping their feet as they play the game! Matt’s background is in music, so he knew a couple of artists we could go to. Our approach was to provide players at least two distinct styles of music. We ended up going with an entertaining pop video game style with original songs from Mercer Friendly, and a more electronic sound with licensed tracks from Soliton. We’re really happy with how the soundtrack came out! We really think it’s one of the stronger games musically in this space.
Zoo Games: Would you ever consider doing other musical genre versions of Groovin’ Blocks? Maybe hip hop, rock, or funk?
Francois Bertrand: Yes! Maybe for the sequel! The greatest thing about Groovin’ Blocks is that you really get into the music as you play, so any music with good rhythm in it works very well.
Zoo Games: What’s your favorite power-up in this game?
Matt Shores: It’s sometimes not the most useful, but the “Destruction” power up is always very satisfying. A big bunch of blocks just blows up!
Zoo Games: How does multiplayer work?
Francois Bertrand: For multiplayer, we tried something we hadn’t seen before: simultaneous cooperative play on the same board! It’s a bit chaotic but it’s always fun and truly requires the players to cooperate together. We also have head-to-head mode of course. An interesting thing in head-to-head is that all the bonuses which are usually positive, become negative for your opponent (e.g. the “slowdown” power up actually speeds up your opponent’s blocks!).
Quelle