People were asking where Mighty No. 9 was earlier than is reasonable for a developer -- “we had just started at the concept. We didn’t have a year to make it,” and people were wondering why they couldn’t yet play Mighty No. 9.“You have to deal with that stress on you all the time as a developer, but it’s really good,” said Inafune. “When you finally get the beta out, like we did, and you got to see that almost all of them got it, that we were going for the retro old-school flavor, but with the new gameplay, it really reiterated that the direction we were going for was not only correct, but it was what the fans really wanted.”
If I could work on anything, it would be an action game with a solid narrative.
The wider response to Mighty No. 9’s beta was positive, with players excited and interested in more. Inafune admits his development team can’t do much with that beyond moving forward with their vision, but some discouraging fan concerns definitely came about.“
‘The biggest thing we got comments from the people who were more negative was, ‘This doesn’t look like a $4 million game.’ And it’s unfortunate. Game costs are something your average consumer has no idea about. They are not cheap. They’re expensive, for sure.”
Inafune explained another negative complaint was, “‘This game looks too much like Mega Man. It’s not different enough.’ But honestly the number of those comments were very small. And the majority of the people who played the beta were very happy.”
Something Inafune didn’t expect was the support of many developers who backed his game on Kickstarter. Many offered assistance on using Unreal Engine 3, the tool Comcept is using to build Mighty No. 9.One year after launching the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter, a release date remains to be announced, but Comcept is making fine progress, and Inafune has the evidence to prove it. The motivation of his fans continues to drive Inafune, who’s already thinking of what else he’d like to make.
“I’m kind of greedy as a creator, and I’d like to work on a wide variety of different genres,” he told IGN. “It certainly wouldn’t be just platformers, there would be other genres I’d like to work on. I love action games. Action is a fantastic genre, you can do a lot with it. Potentially, if I could work on anything, it would be an action game with a solid narrative-driven portion.” Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena, a podcast about MOBAs, and is trying to read more. Here's his reading list. Talk to Mitch about books, Dota 2, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.