UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER – The Feast of Wolves is an action-adventure title based on the beloved franchise of Goldorak. After enjoying a positive reception during its initial release on platforms such as PC, our client was interested in a game porting project to bring it to the Nintendo Switch platform.
Game porting projects to Nintendo Switch aren’t typical game ports, as extra care is required in several critical areas. With Magic Media’s experience with game porting, however, our team was already well acquainted with the challenges presented by porting to Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo Switch Considerations
One of our primary tasks was overhauling the graphical elements, which involved redoing the entire graphical pipeline and addressing the way which the game renders things on screens. This required adjusting in-game visual assets to suit the Nintendo Switch.
Unique Features of Nintendo Switch
One of the major selling points for any game development project for Nintendo Switch, game porting or otherwise, is its distinct ways of experiencing games. The Nintendo Switch is both a home console and a portable console, with distinct docked and undocked modes. In docked modes, players use a controller to play games with its output appearing on a TV screen, whereas undocked mode acts as a traditional handheld console using its native screen.
For us working on the UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER game porting project, this meant essentially preparing the game to run optimally in two distinct modes with different technical requirements. In docked mode, the Nintendo Switch is capable of rendering at 1080p with improved graphical output thanks to its GPU clock running much higher compared to its undocked mode. While running undocked, it can render at 720p with lower graphical fidelity. For both modes to operate as well as possible and achieve the frame rates required by Nintendo, we undertook extensive optimizations to ensure that regardless of how players want to experience UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER – The Feast of the Wolves, their gameplay sessions would be as favorable as they could be.
An Atypical Game Porting Project
The Magic Media team was provided a six-month window to complete this game porting project, which was ample time to complete our work, partly in thanks to our experience with both game porting projects and the Nintendo Switch platform. As a hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch makes for atypical game porting projects. With other platforms, our concerns also lie with optimization, visual changes, and making use of unique platform features, but perhaps not to the same degree as with Nintendo Switch due to its capabilities, native screen, and distinct docked and undocked modes.
Other than the previously mentioned performance optimizations and graphical overhauls, we had some other tasks to complete for this game porting project as part of our work. We made significant overhauls and redesigns to some of the game’s levels to improve them for the Nintendo Switch version, and we also worked on the Japanese version of the game.
For game porting projects for all platforms, contact Magic Media today. We offer an extensive range of services for gaming, entertainment, and tech projects, including full-cycle game development, game VFX, art production, and much more. Contact us today, and let’s create magic!
