Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas was recently released for the Nintendo Switch. The game was originally developed for mobile and then later ported to PC and Consoles. It seems to have fared well on the Nintendo Switch, also charting in the top grossing games on the eShop. Earlier this year, the developers revealed a sequel as well as announcing that the game has now sold over 1 million units across all platforms.
Recently Heikki Repo, Creative Director and Co-founder of Cornfox & Bros. gave us an interesting interview regarding the development of the Nintendo Switch version of the game while also talking about some of the hardware difference for the Nintendo Switch.
The development process for the Nintendo Switch version was relatively smooth since the console is powered by a custom Nvidia Tegra X1, which made it easier for the developers to port their mobile version to the platform. While the sequel for Oceanhorn is being developed on Unreal Engine 4 for iOS devices, it is also supported by the Nintendo Switch leaving the door open for a port down the line.
“Oceanhorn was first released on mobile hardware, so it was very flexible game to port for mobile based Nintendo Switch. I see bright future for Nintendo Switch, as it has a support for Unreal Engine 4 for example and we are currently spearheading the mobile development on UE4 with Oceanhorn 2.”
The power difference between the Nintendo Switch and the current console generation is of course bigger, but according to Heikki, they were still satisfied with what the Switch had to offer even if falls behind the latest iOS devices.
“It depends on indie developer. Some indie developers don’t care much about saving resources, but it is everything for us as we are developing for mobile first (or parallel development), so our games have been optimized right from the beginning. This way we can add stuff for higher-end platforms later on. Nintendo Switch is already couple of years old hardware (NVIDIA Tegra X1), so latest iOS devices that we use for development are already more powerful than Switch. But developing mobile first helps and Oceanhorn 2 is going to look great on Switch, when the time comes!”
Despite the power difference, it is great to know that Oceanhorn sequel will look great on the Nintendo Switch. If you were curious about any unique control scheme, the developers do have plans for it but they haven’t decided it yet.
“I’m curious of using the similar motion control aiming that was used in Breath of the Wild and Splatoon. It is very simple since it uses gyro and it is very fun to use. This is an innovation that could be used in any mobile game and on any console since the PS3, so maybe it is not unique to Switch – but there you go.”
