Inchworm Animation creator explains European delay, rejected as 3DS dev
A portion of an NFO interview with Bob Sabiston of Flat Black Films...
NFO: It's taken over a year for Inchworm Animation to arrive in Europe! Is there a specific reason why the European release date is significantly later than the North American one?
FBF: Man, I didn't plan for it to take so long. Immediately after the US launch last year, I started getting people to translate the manual into the four other languages required for Europe. That was really the only thing I thought had to be done. But once I submitted it last fall, it turns out that much of the translations had to be re-done by a professional QA company familiar with Nintendo terminology. Then we just had another long string of submissions and rejections. Seven times I sent it in, only to have it returned with a handful of minor technical issues they had found.
Inchworm is a very unusual title for a gaming device, so I don't know if that complicated the process. We used a professional QA company to do testing, but I think even they might not have known how to test it completely. On a comparatively little device, Inchworm's trying to do a lot. And I take most of the blame for not hiring more people to just endlessly use it and test it for bugs. This has been a very small operation, mostly just myself and a website guy.
NFO: Why did you decide to release Inchworm Animation on the DSi in it's later years? Would the 3DS not have been a more suitable home?
FBF: Well, like I said, this all started six years ago -- there wasn't even a DSi then! By the time the 3DS came out, I was too far along w/ the DSi version to stop.
I would love to put it on the 3DS. I actually developed a much larger version of the game, with a timeline, hierarchical layers and keyframe controls -- things that would make animating w/ the 3D layers simpler.
Sadly, though, Nintendo actually rejected us as a 3DS developer. I don't know if our organization isn't big enough, or if I just caused them too many headaches, or what. They told me they couldn't even tell me the reason we were rejected. Unless they change their mind, this will probably be the only version.
NFO: It's taken over a year for Inchworm Animation to arrive in Europe! Is there a specific reason why the European release date is significantly later than the North American one?
FBF: Man, I didn't plan for it to take so long. Immediately after the US launch last year, I started getting people to translate the manual into the four other languages required for Europe. That was really the only thing I thought had to be done. But once I submitted it last fall, it turns out that much of the translations had to be re-done by a professional QA company familiar with Nintendo terminology. Then we just had another long string of submissions and rejections. Seven times I sent it in, only to have it returned with a handful of minor technical issues they had found.
Inchworm is a very unusual title for a gaming device, so I don't know if that complicated the process. We used a professional QA company to do testing, but I think even they might not have known how to test it completely. On a comparatively little device, Inchworm's trying to do a lot. And I take most of the blame for not hiring more people to just endlessly use it and test it for bugs. This has been a very small operation, mostly just myself and a website guy.
NFO: Why did you decide to release Inchworm Animation on the DSi in it's later years? Would the 3DS not have been a more suitable home?
FBF: Well, like I said, this all started six years ago -- there wasn't even a DSi then! By the time the 3DS came out, I was too far along w/ the DSi version to stop.
I would love to put it on the 3DS. I actually developed a much larger version of the game, with a timeline, hierarchical layers and keyframe controls -- things that would make animating w/ the 3D layers simpler.
Sadly, though, Nintendo actually rejected us as a 3DS developer. I don't know if our organization isn't big enough, or if I just caused them too many headaches, or what. They told me they couldn't even tell me the reason we were rejected. Unless they change their mind, this will probably be the only version.
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