We recently got the chance to spend some time with Collin van Ginkel, Creative Director of Two Tribes and Lead Designer on the forthcoming WiiWare title, Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH. So what better chance to ask him some questions about the game, the Two Tribes development team and their experiences of developing games for the Wii.

Please can you tell our readers about the collaboration between the Game Factory and Two Tribes, how this came together along with it benefits?

The Game Factory aqcuired the license to build Wii and DS games based off of the Rubik’s Cube. They asked us to come up with a good development plan, and we took it from there.

Those not familiar with the Two Tribes name, what has the team created previously and what primarily is the teams expertise and philosophy!?

Two Tribes – Digital Happiness is how we promote ourselves. We have been applying this to our games for the past eight years, in which we’ve released a series of games for a lot of different devices. We think originality and polish are important when developing games, and try to apply this to each and every game we make.

Our most well-known title is Worms Open Warfare 2 for Nintendo DS, which we did in collaboration with Team17. As for our internally developed concepts, Toki Tori (WiiWare and iPhone) would be the best-known.

What gave you the inspiration and idea to create  games based around Rubik’s cube and Rush being one in a series of titles?

All the games in the Rubik’s Puzzle Galaxy series are in some way inspired by the original Rubik’s Cube. There are several reasons why the Rubik’s Cube is so compelling. The ones that we picked to base RUSH on were; needs a three dimensional element, should baffle at first sight yet always be possible and last but not least should reward perseverance.

Creating a series based on the Rubik’s cube theme must place a lot of ‘pressure’ on the team to ensure the first title is a success especially announcing the fact that more  games in this genre will follow. Is there any reason for doing this?

Downloadable games offer a really low barrier of entry for our potential customers. If we would have crammed the entire series into a single title, it would have to cost much more than what digital games usually go for. So by delivering a series of games, we allow players to pick the ones they like without having to spend money on modes they may not appreciate that much.

Have you already many design and concepts in place for future releases and can we expect to see them on other formats depending on the success of Rush?

There is never a lack of new ideas here, so that will not be the problem. But having said that, we will be keeping a close eye on how RUSH does before announcing the future plans.

The trailer released shows a lot of the game mechanics and ideas. How long did it take for you to design all the levels and get everything in place and working and what was the hardest feature to get perfect!?

On average each level takes roughly a day or so to create, and then there’s additional time required to tweak and polish it. As for the hardest feature to perfect, I’d say that was the interface for placing and moving about the signs on the levels. We went through quite a few revisions before we got it right.

Would you explain Rush in terms of what the player must do and some of the short and long term objectives as you progress!?

RUSH is a puzzle game that’s all about forward thinking and planning. The objective is to get multiple streams of rolling cubes into their color-coded exit points without them colliding with eachother or falling off the level.

Has your experience in creating titles such as Worms been of benefit to the team in creating complex level layouts and can you give our readers a short brief of how you create a level design?

We’re big fans of puzzle games at Two Tribes. So besides the ones we make ourselves, we also play a lot of other titles. This translates into the work you do of course.

For RUSH levels, they usually start off with an idea on how to baffle players. This is achieved by making something either look simple, but have more depth to it, or by making it extremely complex in nature. After that, we start building the levels and test them on collegues. Most of the times, this means a lot of tweaking to make sure there are no easy alternative routes. After that we finalize the level by adding the proper graphics and setting the camera to a comfortable distance.

What are the teams thoughts on the Wii and was the handheld controls a decision making factor in creating RUSH or was it the pure benefits of creating a WiiWare title for a mass market?

To make the game for Wii was a no-brainer for us. The Wii Remote gives us the perfect control setup for a game like RUSH, which cannot be achieved on any other home console.

Rush also offers gamers the simple pleasures of the classic Rubik’s game. Does the virtual cube work as well as in real life!?

We will never be able to make a digital version of the Rubik’s Cube as accessible as a real one. But there are certain benefits, such as being able to offer four sized of cubes, a cool pattern-matching mode and online leaderboards for people to compare their scores.

Finally, when is the game to be released and how soon after can we expect to see another puzzler from the team?

We will be releasing the date and price-point soon, but for now we have to keep quiet on it. As for the next installment in the series, that has not yet been decided. We have a lot of ideas floating around, so keep an eye on our website!