Wizorb: going mini a major deal

Wizorb
 

When you’re a big game studio backed by a rich publisher, it’s a given you’ll release your game on as many platforms as possible.

When you’re two-man (down from the original three) local indie studio Tribute Games, bringing your breakout indie hit Wizorb to XBox Live Indie Games marketplace, Mac, PC, Linux, Steam, and as of today the PlayStation Mini family (meaning PS3, PSP and PS Vita), is no easy task.

“I don’t think there are any companies our size that can say they ported their game to this many platforms in under a year,” says co-founder (and lone programmer) Jean-François Major. “We’re happy with what we achieved.”

Wizorb, a retro-stylized Arkanoid-inspired paddleball game infused with role-playing game elements like world building and item collecting, has thus far exceeded sales expectations for Tribute, who last week lost founding member Justin Cyr. Although things were slow moving on the cluttered XBox Live Indie Games marketplace, sales boomed when the team (which includes freelancers on the art side) ported the game to PC-downloading service Steam. Major says they’ve now moved 50,000 copies, and expect today’s launch on PS mini to similarly cause an immediate spike in sales.

Porting to PS mini was too big a job for the small team though, so the work was done by Ukrainian port specialists Beatshapers. “They did Canabalt and Enigmo, and they did a good job on those,” says Major. “I’m not worried, but it can be stressful to hand over your baby to someone else.”

There are also iPad and iPhone ports of Wizorb in the works, but otherwise the team has migrated to their next game, the Contra-esque side-scrolling shooter Mercenary Kings. Like Wizorb, it’s rooted firmly in the 8-bit era but will be given a modern design twist. “You’ll be able to craft your own guns,” Major says. “There will be five or six parts on each gun you can mix and match. It’s way more ambitious than our first game: it will have 4-player co-op and around 70-100 missions.” Major says they hope to release the game in 2013 on a yet-to-be-decided platform. ■

Wizorb is available now on the PlayStation Store for $3.99.