Interviewee(s): Luc Bernard

Joining us today for a few minutes, is Luc Bernard, creator of Eternity's Child on PC and the recently released Mecho Wars on iPhone, both of which are targeted for release on WiiWare. Bernard agreed to talk a little about the world the two games exist within and what else he may be working on.

Mecho Wars takes place in the same world as Eternity’s Child. Can you tell us a little bit about the game? What can you tell us about the world of Mecho Wars?

Well, Mecho Wars is essentially a turn based strategy game, it's basically reinventing the Eternity's Child franchise. The game has done quite well on iPhone, and we have had nothing but great reviews so we're excited to bring it on other platforms, such as Wiiware and PSPGo. We are also holding a competition with a major electronic record label to do remixes of the Eternity's Child soundtrack for the Wiiware/PSPGo versions of Mecho Wars, so it will have a extended soundtrack, also a theme song that you can find on my blog.

It’s been noted that the environment will play a big part in the game such as water freezing that can then be driven over. Can you tell us more about how the environment will impact play?

Well, the environment can change strategies completely, since you can't heal yourself with Cacti anymore at certain times and then at night you can send your units on the frozen water.

The iPhone is primarily a touch based control system. What type of controls will you use for the WiiWare version of the game? Are you going to use the Wii’s pointer to replicate that same style?

Controlling it with the Wii pointer would just be annoying, so we're going for the normal D Pad using the controller NES style.

Are there going to be any multi-player game modes and will online be featured in any way?

There are four multi-player modes; never done before in a Turn Based Strategy game. :) They are all quite secret now, but they will be coming into the upcoming update of the online mode on the iPhone version. On Wiiware there probably won't be online, but on PSPGo and in the next update of the iPhone version there will be.

What are some of the differences developing games for Nintendo? How has the relationship been with Nintendo?

Well, Nintendo denied Oyaji Games as a developer which I found weird, knowing that they approved some terrible developers for Wiiware. We let another company do the port of the Wiiware version since we weren't approved as Nintendo devs :(
The PSPGo versionmight be a launch title, since a major publisher is publishing it.

Mecho Wars appears to be similar to the Advance Wars games on DS. Was that game used as inspiration?

Yes I love that game; that and Military Madness.

Eternity’s Child was a wonderful platformer for the PC and Mecho Wars has been out now for a little while on iPhone. Can you tell us what else you’ve been working on?

Well, I've been hired to create and direct a game for a company based in Atlanta, named Friend Green Apps. It's called SteamPirates, and it's a 2D hand drawn and animated rpg. It looks as good as A Boy And His Blob and we hope to announce it soon. No platform is announced yet, but I'm trying to get them to release it first on Wiiware.

Other than that Oyaji Games has been also busy doing Mecho Tales, an action game set in the Mecho universe, no platform is set for that game yet either.

We'd like to thank Luc, once again for joining us and giving us a glimpse at Mecho Wars and his other upcoming titles.