IGN Interview + Awesome Trailer

I know there's been a lot of (frankly paranoid) concern that Nicalis is trying to steal Night Game from Nifflas or otherwise pass the game off as being their own.  Hopefully this interview will quash such concerns, as Rodriguez clearly gives a lot of credit to Nifflas as the game's creator and designer and even mentions Knytt and Knytt Stories.

I don't like the fact that throughout the interview, Rodriguez speaks as if Nifflas is merely one of the designers working on the game, rather than the creator of the whole game itself. (Although he does mention "Nicklas's [game]" in passing.) It's as if the fact that Nifflas made the game is merely a selling point.

Also, at the IGF awards, each finalist was shown up on the big screen thing, with the main creator(s) of the game credited, along with whoever else has worked on the game. When Night Game came up, it went along the lines of "Night Game, by Nicalis. Tyrone Rodriguez, Nicklas Nygren, etc." That is to say, Tyrone Rodriguez was listed before Nifflas in the credits for Nifflas's game, and not for reasons of alphabetical order or anything. That really seems to me like an attempt to make those unfamiliar with Night Game to identify Night Game with the word "Nicalis" over the word "Nifflas". (Although Night Game was under development before Nicalis was incorporated.)

The funny thing is, the Ico team actually played Night Game and they were blasting through it pretty quickly; it was amazing to watch them figure out just about every puzzle on their first go.

IGN: How do you control the title? Please be specific.

Tyrone: You rotate the sphere by pressing Left and Right (we're implementing motion controls later)

@ anyone complaining about the wii-exclusiveness: I think you're slightly selfish. Nifflas is making himself a name ^^
(I will not respond to any comment about my last statement, since discussions about this are proved pointless.)

I can understand if this upsets you though, you have all the reason in the world to be angry.

I don't think there's any sort of conspiracy, but I think that Nicalis has acted analogously to a major game development company rather than an independent company. This isn't necessarily "wrong", but it's in sharp contrast to how most successful (artistically/critically, if not financially) indie game companies work: less focus on generating profit, and more focus on the artist relative to the product, and often an openness in terms of communication. With a big company like Nintendo, the focus is totally on profit, and if a game has a personality attached to it, it's going to be a very well-known name that's been around enough to be a selling point, and communication on an individual level is typically limited to standardized letters and e-mails sent to inquirers. (It's probably worth mentioning here that Tyrone Rodriguez used to be employed as a PR man for Nintendo.)

I think Nicalis has acted out more of the latter behaviors than the former. (For example, prohibiting the use of the protagonist of Cave Story in a freeware tribute game; making the decision to have NG be Wii-only without explaining why; buying the actual rights to games from their developers, rather than just distribution rights.) This isn't wrong, as I said, but it comes across as inappropriate if Nicalis wants to be well-regarded as an independent developer.