STACK NZ Apr #72

GAMES FEATURE

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All Blacks Rugby Challenge 3 is about to take to the field. STACK spoke with Daniel Visser, managing director at WickedWitch Software. Scrum Down

motion capture system that allows us to add new animations and improve existing ones as required. What prompted the idea to include the Rugby Sevens? We saw Sevens as a great way to add an entirely new experience to the game. Sevens is fast and furious, and there is a growing fan base and new competitions... it was a lot of fun to develop.

Before development commenced, what did you identify as the key changes you wanted to implement with Rugby Challenge 3 ? We invested a lot of development time to add a pro mode, Rugby Sevens, and an online fanhub for users to create players and teams – each of these major features bring a whole new experience to the existing game. As well as this, significant time was spent improving subtle details of the games based on a lot of fan feedback that had been captured. Are you using a new game engine? We worked closely with the Sidhe team who were responsible for the previous games. We used a lot of their code to ensure we preserved the gameplay experience that players have enjoyed in the previous versions. We also kept the UI flow familiar for the fans, and concentrated on building in the large new features, and making dozens of smaller improvements. It was heavily reworked for the new platforms.

• All Blacks Rugby Challenge 3 is out April 14

GAMES

on the game for more than a year, in addition to the management and QA at Tru Blu.

Can you tell us how Be a Pro Mode will work?  You can play rugby from a professional rugby player’s point of view, customise and control your player though their career. Gain an all new insight and experience from controlling the game from a single player’s perspective. As you progress you are given objectives depending on your position, which get more difficult over time and tie into the new Be a Pro achievements. How does the Be a Pro Mode and Career Mode differ? In Be a Pro Mode, the primary difference is that you control one player on the field, and must play to that position. The career is also different as you must complete objectives and achievements along the way. It really is a whole new way to play the game! What’s involved in securing all the official licenses? The management at Tru Blu work tirelessly to contact, secure, and deal with every country, league and team in the game. There is also a rigorous approval process for every team, sponsors and other official licenses that appear in the game – it is a lot of work!

Sevens is fast and furious, and there is a growing fan base and new competitions

How much does forum/fan feedback shape the way the game develops? At the beginning of development, lists of feedback were compiled from forums, email feedback and social media in general. These were then categorised, ranked and prioritised. This is how a lot of the secondary features, such as adding tattoos to custom players, made it into the game. How big is the team that worked on the game? Wicked Witch had about 40 staff working

Union is quite a complex game for beginners. How do you make the game accessible to players who aren’t necessarily big union fans, but enjoy playing sports sims? In the career mode you can simulate games and focus on the manager side. We even added several features to simulate the end of a game, specifically for this experience. Did you employ motion-capture technology during development? Yes, Wicked Witch has an in-house

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