Mighty Flip Champs! - Development

Development

Mighty Flip Champs! was announced on March 9, 2009 for the Nintendo DSi's DSiWare download service. It was developed by WayForward Technologies, using only five developers, the lead designer being Matt Bozon. It was designed for the sake of taking advantage of the Nintendo DS' features, though scaled to work with the DSiWare. Initially, the developers were contemplating the inclusion of enemies and items. The developers chose to leave enemies out of the game, feeling that if they had enemies, it would make the game too complicated. However, Matt commented that if players responded well to the game, they may implement enemies in a clever way next time. While the difficulty level was not designed to cater to younger or inexperienced players, the developers designed earlier levels to be more forgiving. They had younger players play it, and were surprised as to how far they could make it through. One of the developers, Mark Bozon, commented that it was as difficult to create the levels as it was for players to beat them, adding that they have to build the concept, account for player movements, and then ensure that players cannot exploit any mistakes in the level design.

The developers used very little storage space in developing the game, attributing this to the small sprites, which allowed them to have improved audio and cutscenes. The developers took inspiration from multiple other video games, such as Wendy: Every Witch Way, which was developed by Mark and Matt Bozon, the former describing Mighty Flip Champs! as a spiritual successor to it. They also took inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the idea of dimension traveling. Mark called it the "grand daddy" of the concept. Development took a total of two months, while testing and the publishing process taking a month. It was released in North America on June 1, 2009 and in the PAL regions on November 27, 2009 for the price of 800 DSi Points. The developers described Mighty Flip Champs! as a way to gauge fan interest in the possibility of a Shantae sequel for the DSiWare, in order to see how well it could perform. A sequel to Shantae was later announced for the DSiWare service, titled Shantae: Risky's Revenge. When asked if they would ever use the DSiWare service's ability to add new content to games, Matt stated that he would rather do a sequel with new ideas. Mark concurred, adding that if they have the time, money, and fan support, he would like to do a sequel, stating that they have some great ideas for a sequel.