Again in 2018, Dutch indie studio HomeBear — a two-person workforce made up of companions Joshua van Kuilenburg and You Miichi — launched NAIRI: Tower Of Shirin, a lovingly-made point-and-click journey recreation which we awarded an 8/10 in our assessment.
It has been a good previous whereas, however the duo is now gearing up for launch of the sequel, Nairi: Rising Tide. Having final spoken to the workforce approach again within the mists of time (March 2018), we not too long ago caught up with Joshua van Kuilenburg as soon as extra through e-mail to search out out why it is taken so lengthy to return to Nairi’s world, and what’s modified since these distant days when Swap was however a 12 months previous…
Nintendo Life: It’s been a minute since Nairi: Tower of Shirin launched on Swap, so for gamers who aren’t conversant in the primary recreation may you give a bit background about Nairi as a personality and the place she finds herself after the occasions of the primary recreation?
Joshua van Kuilenburg: In Tower of Shirin, Nairi discovered herself estranged from her household and her house, the rich and comfy, but politically charged, Wealthy District of Shirin. Born right into a household of appreciable stature, Nairi had lived a sheltered expertise underneath the watchful eyes of her dad and mom her complete life.
The occasions of the primary recreation principally concentrate on Nairi’s progress as she is compelled to discover the Poor District of Shirin so as to discover her approach again house – with a little bit of sudden thriller on the facet. Nairi finds herself extra assured on the finish of Tower of Shirin whereas additionally dealing with sudden, grander points.
Did work on Rising Tide start instantly after the Tower of Shirin was wrapped up?
Sure, although we encountered some difficulties, each professionally and privately, which induced delay. Growth of Rising Tide began in earnest after You, the artist, returned from Japan after offering hospice look after her mom, which she devoted herself to for a few months. There have been additionally some publishing and porting/localisation-related points which postponed launch by fairly a bit. It has been a little bit of a tumultuous interval.
Fortunately, we weren’t depending on crowdfunding this time round and will take our time to develop a extra assured, polished recreation regardless of these setbacks.
How has response and suggestions from Tower of Shirin affected the sequel? Will returning gamers be stunned by any variations, from a mechanical perspective?
We definitely took Tower of Shirin’s criticisms to coronary heart and hope that gamers will discover the sooner loading (particularly on the Nintendo Swap), new map for simpler navigation, improved trace programs and different such options. Characters and animations look significantly better, as properly! Tower of Shirin’s ending was a standard sticking level with gamers; we put explicit effort into enhancing Rising Tide’s pacing and crafting a much less abrupt, extra satisfying ending.
The artwork type of the primary recreation was one in every of its nice strengths. Has your method to the presentation of the world and its characters modified in any respect with the brand new recreation? Or is it extra of a continuation?
Rising Tide represents a simple improve of what got here earlier than – the identical artwork type, world, and characters, besides all the things seems rather a lot higher. Proportions look significantly better, characters are extra expressive; animations look extra pure. When evaluating each video games side-by-side, the visible variations are fairly stark.
In fact, Rising Tide additionally takes place in a distinct district of Shirin, which does have a really completely different sense of fashion and ambiance in comparison with the slums featured in Tower of Shirin. Gamers can count on extra diverse and luxurious environments in Rising Tide!
Initially Rising Tide was introduced for 2021, we imagine. As with so many video games, we think about the pandemic was a major think about its extended improvement, however may you discuss how the dev timeline ended up panning out?
we kind of made ‘double the sport’ in comparison with Tower of Shirin. It was fairly a bit of labor for a workforce of two.
In reality, the pandemic didn’t have an effect on us a lot; me and my spouse — the sport’s artist — dwell and work inside the identical condominium. And we didn’t get sick, fortunately. Apart from the problems I discussed earlier, Rising Tide took so long as it did just because we made little to no concessions. In contrast to Tower of Shirin, no content material was lower; the truth is, we added greater than initially deliberate to enhance the sport’s pacing. We needed to boost NAIRI’s degree of high quality to a regular we had been proud of, each for the sequel and future chapters.
For these questioning what that truly means, permit me to present a number of specifics. Just about all recreation programs have been cleaned up or totally reprogrammed. The sequel has roughly 25% extra hand-drawn backgrounds, all of that are extra detailed than the primary recreation (Tower of Shirin had fairly a number of ‘modular’ backgrounds designed to save lots of us time). Rising Tide has 100% (!) extra dialogue — a variety of it optionally available — as a result of bigger variety of scenes, characters, and optionally available lore. The puzzle dungeons are simply twice as complicated and twice as massive as these featured in Tower of Shirin.
Briefly, we kind of made ‘double the sport’ in comparison with Tower of Shirin. It was fairly a bit of labor for a workforce of two. Now that we’ve lastly constructed a strong basis that we’re proud of, we count on future chapters to roll out in a timelier style. Hopefully.
Tower of Shirin is just a few {dollars}/kilos/euro on the eShop and properly value selecting up, however for gamers who missed it and may be all in favour of Rising Tide, how a lot do you assume they’ll ‘miss’ when it comes to callbacks with the characters and worldbuilding?
Thanks for the type phrases. We did embrace an illustrated abstract in Rising Tide which sums up Tower of Shirin, and are assured new gamers will discover enjoyment within the sequel’s story, exploration and puzzles. Nonetheless, Rising Tide does certainly embrace a variety of returning characters and references. These conversant in Tower of Shirin shall be higher in a position to recognize sure surprises and character arcs – in addition to all of the visible and gameplay enhancements.
In fact, we’re biased, however for the very best expertise we suggest first getting acquainted with the world, lore and characters in Tower of Shirin earlier than beginning Rising Tide.
Since 2018 the Swap eShop has been flooded with all types of storybook-style, cute, cosy-looking video games and plenty of glorious point-and-click titles — it’s more and more laborious to face out within the crowd. Is that this one thing that issues you, and what do you assume units Rising Tide aside?
We do fear about our recreation succeeding in a crowded market, after all, which is why we’ve targeted on sharpening Rising Tide. Our major concern has been to supply the very best recreation we are able to make, since that’s what we have now essentially the most management over.
By way of standing out, we really feel our artwork type stays eye-catching and our explicit method to gameplay — a mix of visible novels, point-and-clicks, and Zelda-esque dungeons — is kind of distinctive. Every little thing thought-about, Tower of Shirin did fairly properly; we hope Rising Tide will seize the curiosity of gamers much more so!
Do you may have additional chapters in Nairi’s story deliberate? What’s subsequent for HomeBear?
For now, we’re 100% dedicated to giving NAIRI essentially the most satisfying ending we probably can. We all know the place we would like issues to go; what the ending seems like. All chapters being roughly equal in size, we count on there to be 4 chapters in complete. We would go for a single bigger third chapter, nonetheless; we’re not totally certain at this level, however we’re going to do no matter serves the narrative finest. What I can say with certainty is that we’re already engaged on the third chapter.
Beautiful! Lastly, what video games have you ever been taking part in and having fun with not too long ago – on Swap or in any other case?
Maybe considerably unexpectedly, we actually take pleasure in taking part in survival-horror video games collectively – my spouse factors out vital loot, which I inevitably miss, whereas I deal with the monsters. We’re presently taking part in by the Resident Evil 4 remake. On Swap, I’ve been having fun with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Knowledge (dungeons!) in addition to Hyper Mild Drifter.
Our due to Joshua. Nairi: Rising Tide launches on Swap on 14th November and is obtainable for pre-order now with a 25% low cost which places it at $11.99 / £9.75 / €10.79.
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Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 earlier than becoming a member of the location full-time the next 12 months, rising by the ranks to change into Editor. He can presently be discovered squashed beneath a Swap backlog the dimensions of Normandy.
