Hive Jump: update on Wii U version

It’s been a few weeks since we last heard about the Wii U version of Hive Jump, but players need not worry: it’s still coming! Back in March, the developers announced that the game had been sent to Nintendo of America for lotcheck, but things didn’t go as planned.

First, there were a few issues regarding Graphite Lab’s developer registration, but those actually got resolved fairly quickly, and the game entered the submission process in early April. Unfortunately, a few issues with the game itself were found, and it was not approved for release. Naturally, the developers began work on fixing those right away!

Here’s two of the issues that were found:

• the first issue was about the way the game alert players when unused controllers are disconnected from the console during play. Since Hive Jump supports various controllers, the process had to be consistent and compliant with the guidelines;
• on some screens, using the Home Button would cause the game to crash: a major issue that had to be fixed asap.

Even though those were not issues that could be fixed quickly, the team worked hard to resolve them asap, and all would have been well if more issues had not be found during the testing phase (such as home some UI elements are handled). Naturally, they wanted to get rid of those while they had the chance, which is definitely a sensible choice: you wouldn’t want those to be found during lotcheck…

On their blog, the developers specify that if you want to change your platform for the game, and don’t want the Wii U version anymore, you can always send the team an email to let them know and get a download code for a different platform.

Regarding a possible Nintendo Switch version, the developers explain that they first wanted to make good on their commitment to Wii U backers, and get the game released on that platform.

What’s more, releasing on Nintendo Switch is not nearly as straightforward as you’d think in that particular case. First of all, Graphite Lab hasn’t been invited to bring the game to the console, and so they do not have a devkit yet. What’s more, simply porting the game is not something they would want to do: they didn’t do a straight port from PC to Wii U, after all.

If Hive Jump was to be released on Nintendo Switch, the developers would first ask themselves how they could make the game a unique offering for the console.

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Hive Jump (Wii U – eShop) will be released later this year!

Source: Graphite Lab