Let history designate Martijn Reuvers and his team at Dutch indie studio Two Tribes as an ambitious lot. They recently tried to convince Nintendo and Valve to work togetherāspecifically, to let their Wii U game talk to their Steam game. And that wentā¦ kind of okay?
Sadly, not okay enough. But pretty well, Reuvers told Kotaku today over e-mail.
The issue was this: Several months ago, Two Tribes released Toki Tori 2+ as a downloadable eShop game on Nintendoās Wii U console. They planned to add a level editor. They put the game out on Steam as well. Sadly, the Wii U game didnāt sell super-well, and they couldnāt implement a Wii U-centric level editor that allowed users to easily share levels across the Wii Uās MiiVerse social network. Unbowed, Reuversā crew got an ideaā¦
https://lastchance.cc/toki-tori-2-stands-up-for-social-bird-issues-922136277%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
And?
āNintendo and Valve reacted very positively and we had some calls and e-mails with both parties about this proposal.ā
Peopleā¦ Nintendo and Valveā¦ working togetherā¦.Steam Workshop on Wii U. Just a hop skip and a jump from Portal 3 featuring warp pipes and Shigeru Miyamoto announcing Half-Life 3!
Alasā¦it wasnāt meant to be, at least not right now.
āAfter doing a thorough technical check, we decided that in order to create a near seamless integration, we needed more functionality that was out of our control. Unfortunately things like this take time and cannot be implemented overnight. So for Toki Tori 2+, it was too late at that point. However we still are in contact with them, so should things change, weāll definitely revisit it again.ā
At least we can say that Two Tribesā ambition is rivaled by their generosity. The studio has decided that, in lieu of offering a level editor on the Wii U, theyāll just give each Wii U owner of their game a free copy of the game on Steam. If you have a Wii U copy, read this Two Tribes blog post to find out how to do that.
We reached out to reps for Valve and Nintendo for more comment on the matter, in part because they should have their say but also because itās fun to be able to e-mail Valve and Nintendo with a legit reason to ask them if they discussed working together. Valve PR man Doug Lombardi confirmed Reuversā account but did not bite on our question about whether Valve and Nintendo have ever talked about having Steam and Wii U games integrate with each other. Nintendoās rep hasnāt replied yet, but if they have comment, weāll let you know.
Just imagine the combo here. Nintendo and Valveā¦. Wario in Counter-Strike. No? OK. Bad idea. Steam Workshop support for the Wii U, though? Why not?
To contact the author of this post, write to [emailĀ protected] or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.
