Straight from the Source – Alex Rose Games (Rude Bear Series)

‘Simply press the ‘Port Button” (also Smash Bros.)

Do you own a Nintendo Switch?

I don’t. You know, I bought every Nintendo console at launch since the Game Boy Advance. But the fact is I busted my Nintendo Wii U out twice to play Nintendo Land and that is it. I am just so busy and the only Nintendo game I really love is Zelda. But I love the smaller Zeldas and this one [Breath of the Wild] doesn’t look like a Zelda game to me. I’ll give it a chance eventually but I’m not buying a Switch for it, especially when I can buy it on Wii U.

I am getting a Switch dev kit but it doesn’t play retail games, unlike the Xbox One dev kit. I also have a game out on PS4 but I don’t own a single PlayStation console (laughs).

With the Nintendo Switch supposedly being easy to port Unity games to could a Switch port be in the works, or at the very least considered?

Here’s the secret they don’t tell you about Unity. If you want your game to work on Switch all you do is click ‘File > Build > change the drop-down option from PlayStation to Switch and then you click build. Then you’re done. That is literally it.

That sounds really easy!

You might think I am joking but I’m not. You click the Switch button and it’s done. Game Devs like to protect their secrets nowadays to keep up some narrative but it is really easy to port games nowadays. You just click the port button. If you’ve made your own engine then fair enough and maybe Unreal is slightly more difficult but in Unity, it is laughably easy.

The only hard part is that, when porting, you get given a checklist that your game must follow like ‘the UI must be within a certain length for the screen’ or ‘must detect controllers in this way.’ But this stuff takes at most 3 days and most devs should be doing this at the start of development. I couldn’t do it because the Switch wasn’t announced when I started development but I did it for Sony and I can’t imagine the Switch is significantly more different than the PlayStation. Heck, Steam was harder than PlayStation to port to.

With that said I can’t officially announce a Switch port today due to a contractual exclusivity period but when that’s over I guess I would just click the button that will bring it to Switch.

What do you think about the Switch being a platform for Indie-Developers?

Well, that was the same with PlayStations first year. If I was making Call of Duty 16 or whatever and I had it made for all the other consoles but then had to put extra work in to make a weaker version of the game on Switch with added motion controls or some bollocks, then I probably just wouldn’t do it. But there is no way the Switch isn’t strong enough to run an indie game. It is still an HD console. So you have no excuse. If your indie game doesn’t run on the Switch then you’ve done something wrong.

The thing is when a console first comes out it is open-season for indies because they don’t need to go that extra mile and it is incredibly easy to port, at least with Unity. A AAA developer would probably need to take a couple of years to see if the machine really is worth the extra effort.

I actually think the Switch is great. It’s a wonderful idea and having a portable 720p screen is so much nicer than the 3DS’ 240p.

Are you a fan of the Super Smash Bros. series? If so what is your favourite-

Marth! Marth and SSBM. You know I use to be an idiot and main Roy. I can’t compete at all on a tournament level but I could trash anyone in casual play. A long time ago a friend and I got really good at Mario Kart Double Dash and Super Smash Bros. Melee. We never bothered learning Wavedashing and other advanced techniques because then we would have to force all of our friends to learn it otherwise it wouldn’t be fun for them and that isn’t fair or polite.

However, in Melee I was Roy and he was Marth and we both got about as good as each other but when Brawl came out Roy was gone so I had to swap over to Marth. That’s when I realised that Marth is waaaay better than Roy so if I go back now I could probably destroy him.

Marth & Roy always have a special place in my heart. I was 10 when Melee came out over here and my older brother was 15 and he was the one who ended up unlocking most of the characters. But Marth and Roy were the two characters I unlocked myself and Roy felt like the better Marth because you needed Marth to get him.

Final Destination, Marth only, not items (laughs). Honestly, I like items. They help to vary up the game. When you can play on Poke Floats with max Poke Ball drops on and still win, that is when you are good at Smash Bros. You are not pro until you can consistently get kills with a green shell (laughs). But I love Melee, it’s easily one of the best games of all time.

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Joshua 'NantenJex' Goldie

A historian and avid gamer, NantenJex is the Editor-in-Chief for Source Gaming, overseeing videos and reviews for the site. He has a passion for obscure gaming so any article you see on uncommon titles like Nazo no Murusame Jo, Yuyuki and Marvelous, to name a few, are most likely from him. He also likes game design leading to the creation of Dream Smashers, a series on potential newcomers for Super Smash Bros. He wants you all to know that Yoshi is objectively the best Nintendo character.

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