Affordable Space Adventures devs fully embraced the Wii U experience

If only I could post about it on Miiverse

09 April 2022
by quence 3

It’s been a little over 7 years since Affordable Space Adventures was released on the Wii U. One of the rare indie titles that took full advantage of the Wii U gamepad, this game had players piloting a space ship on dangerous missions, using the gamepad to manage its engines and other systems. It also had a strong focus on couch co-op multiplayer. In a new interview with Nintendo Life, designer Nicklas Nygren, plus Anchel Labena and Lau Korsgaard of Knapnok Games, discuss the origins of Affordable Space Adventures and what made its position on the Wii U so special.

I remember there was an enthusiast base of Wii U owners keen to support the game because it actually used the GamePad.

Labena: That’s it. If it were to launch on Switch right now it would be a completely different landscape. It’s a very difficult place to compete for Indie titles now.

After release, did you think of ports for other platforms?

Korsgaard: Can we talk about it?! The thing is, it’s a challenge to release something true to the experience. We talked about what we could do on PC, were there any options? I think in the end it would have meant quite a bit of investment and design thinking, could we make that stuff work on any other platform? I think it was too hard for us to find an easy way.

Labena: The closest was 3DS, but it wasn’t going to be easy. It was like alright, the New 3DS could support Unity development. But then you’re targeting a really small userbase within a smaller niche for Indie games. Whereas if you want to port to the full 3DS family that would have been a considerable investment getting it to work. It wasn’t a great trade-off.

Korsgaard: On some level I’m happy it’s just the Wii U experience. It was so made for that platform, even the form factor of the controller, the cheapness of the plastic, it was part of the fiction of the game! We actually imagined that controller that the pilot was sitting with.

Affordable Space Adventures was definitely a unique hidden gem on the Wii U eshop, which unfortunately, would be difficult to recreate on any other platform. If you have the chance, download it and play it with a friend! Otherwise, read the full interview at Nintendo Life for more behind the scenes details.

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Comments (3)

lakster37

2y ago

It really showed! Really enjoyed playing this when it first came out. I'm a big fan of "asymmetric" gameplay, and Wii U was a great console for that.


Played through this one too but missed out on the multiplayer!


jake_a

2y ago

Played through this with a friend and had a blast. I'm not sure if the ending will work properly w/o Miiverse support though.