N+Dpad Interview: Toribash
Exclusive: The turn-based fighting game Toribash not only got our attention, but was also a “Best Game Idea” finalist at the 2006 Swedish Game Awards. Nabistudios director Gerald Tock took some time to talk with us about the upcoming WiiWare title.
N+Dpad: First tell everyone exactly what the upcoming WiiWare title Toribash is all about for gamers that are unaware.
Gerald Tock: With Toribash for WiiWare, we’re trying to bring about a different take on fighting games. Most fighting games are focused on linking hit combinations. Toribash takes fighting to another level by cutting fights up into scenes; each scene represents a moment in your fight, where you make a move or react to a move your opponent has made.
This leads to players being able to make any fight move they want. The results are fantastically explosive single player fight experiences where players choreograph their decaps to precision detail. Or intense multiplayer experiences where players can choose to break off an opponents bodypart or throw their opponents out of the fighting ring. And all of this by choice.
We let players’ understanding of actual body physics come into play when they enter the fight arena with Toribash.
Toribash being turn based is very unique in the fighting genre. Why was the decision made to take this approach?
GT: Being turn-based allows players to focus more on fight technique, on what it takes to actually execute a move. This allows for some highly precise fighting and once players get the hang of it, the amount of highly visual (and gory) fights they will be able to choreograph make for great watching and sharing, whether it’s over youtube or via the fight replay sharing system on Wii.
Toribash also has a very minimal and modern visual style, was this simplified visual style used to compliment the fighting mechanic, or was the art style just for looks?
GT: The visual style complements the fight mechanic. Partly by accident, we’ve actually come up with a character style that our players have come to develop a strong affinity for and we hope that our increased spread of effects for the Wii will grow with the fanbase there as well.
We’ve noticed that this game actually looks a bit like an old school game from the Super Nes/Genesis days called Ballz 3D. Did Toribash get any inspiration from this game? What other games inspired you to make Toribash?
GT: We actually only heard about Ballz 3D after Toribash was released. Hampa has always been a fan of the games Stair Dismount and Pontifex Bridge Builder and Toribash was inspired more by those games.
The PC version has a very robust online community to it with daily tournaments, art boards, event boards, etc. Will we see this type of online support for the WiiWare title? What features can we look forward to seeing?
GT: We definitely intend to build upon the growth of the PC community. For PC, fight replay sharing and fight videos are a big thing. We intend to take that model to WiiWare so players can see how their fight videos stack up against other players round the world.
Alongside that, the PC community has evolved fight styles made possible by our game mechanic, such as wushu, judo and taekwondo styles of fighting. We intend spread provide a similar structure for WiiWare users, so they can form groups based around their fight style of preference and showcase these fight styles in videos.
Toribash’s slogan is “Violence Perfected”, and with screens of the game where players heads are being kicked off, this game can be quite gory. Did Nintendo have a problem with this seeing as how this is the first WiiWare game with blood?
GT: The Toribash character design is based on a fighting bot/ragdoll and while the fights are seemingly violent, our style leans more towards comic violence than actual gore.
Players have the option of executing technically precise moves to break their opponents joints or simply having a laugh with seemingly ridiculous fight moves which can both produce the same result.
We’re very happy with the support we’ve received from Nintendo and we’re glad to be developing the first console version of Toribash for WiiWare.
Speaking of Nintendo, why was the decision made to go with the WiiWare platform? and was Nintendo supportive/helpful with Toribash?
GT: The decision was based around the controls of the platform. Nintendo’s wii-mote seemed to be a great fit with the way Toribash’s joints are controlled. We’re also quite excited and looking forward to being the first hardcore fighting game to be out on WiiWare.
Nintendo have been great to work with, especially in terms of providing marketing feedback and we hope to be able to push out more stuff on WiiWare once we finish this run.
Thx so much to Gerald Tock for the interview and his time. We will also have more info on Toribash soon, stay tuned.
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