NEWS | ALPHA
dev is undeterred Seznec pledges to find an industry partner for his Wii music software Main picture: Seznec demoing his software. Inset: His appearance on the BBC’s VC investment show Dragons’ Den
“When the Wii came out, I was captivated by the idea of low-cost motion control,” he said. “As a performing electronic musician, I knew that movement is something that is really missing in electronic musician performance, so I designed a powerful and intuitive tool that could be used to quickly and easily create music through movement. “The idea of moving to control a game, video, or audio, is obviously quite exciting, and it appeals to a wide range of people – in particular people who are not usually attracted to console gaming. Motion control is also a hugely romantic notion in the field of digital arts, which is often searching for more intuitive ways to control computers in an artistic fashion. In my case, the ability to have your movements translated into music really appealed to me.” DEVELOPMAG.COM
Seznec is looking to target a pro-audio audience with the software, which isn’t strictly a game but which he hopes will be sold to Wiiowning consumers. He explained: “There is no gaming element to the LoopMachine, in that you do not ‘win’ anything and there are no levels. It is much closer to music software like Ableton Live or Reason. The vast majority of music-based titles for gaming consoles now are Guitar Hero-style karaoke games. That is fine, of course, and those will always be popular. But an enormous number of people want to make their own beats and music – just look at the number of YouTube ‘how to make a beat’ tutorial videos. The LoopMachine gives complete control to the player to make whatever music they like! However the huge advantage over traditional music creation software is that
is uses a controller that is intimately familiar to millions of people around the world.” Seznec is looking to partner with a development studio to take the game forward and most likely distributed digitally. “I am not a licensed developer. Because I have not developed any games previously I am finding it rather hard to get Nintendo’s attention. At this point it seems more likely that the best route forward is to partner with an existing licensed developer,” he told us. “I think WiiWare is the most promising platform to take the LoopMachine forward. It’s cheap and easy to develop for, and allows for rapid low-cost distribution. It definitely seems like the best way to introduce people to the LoopMachine on the Wii console.” www.theamazingrolo.net/wii/
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SEPTEMBER 2008 | 07