1) Could you tell us more about the Online Challenges App?
On April 25th, we’ll release the Rayman Legends Challenges App on the Wii U eShop. This totally free application contains the online Challenge Mode of Rayman Legends and it’s a way for people to share their experience.
In this game mode you’ll find Daily and Weekly Challenges to compete with your friends and players from all around the world!
The Challenge Mode showcases exclusive challenges, including a crazy run in Land of the Livid Dead, a journey in the vertiginous Neverending Pit, a frantic run in the Infinite Tower as fast as possible. Murfy’s Dungeon, a challenge dedicated to the Wii U GamePad where you play as Murfy on the touch screen of the GamePad. Every day and every week, new and totally exclusive levels are randomly generated thanks to our brick system designed to build these challenges. So every day when you connect to this application you discover a new challenge.
This application will give players many hours of fun! And we, in the Rayman team, can’t wait to play in these challenges with all the Wii U owners!
2) How long will this level of content be supported?
The Challenges App will be supported until the release of the full game. So players will have several months to enjoy this free application! The Rayman dev team will provide some exclusive tips and tricks for Wii U owners on Miiverse and on Facebook, these tips will help you improve your scores in the different challenges!
3) Is the multiplayer local only in this challenge mode, or will it be possible to play with others online?
The whole Challenge mode is based on the fact that you’re always playing against other players online. So in a challenge you always see the ghosts of the players who are just ahead of you in the leaderboard. This pushes you to always try to beat them, and this can also help you because you can learn new tricks by watching how the other competitors are playing.
At the end of the challenge the game shows you who you managed to beat and who is still in front of you. Your ultimate goal is to climb all you way up in the leaderboads to be one of the few players who will win a Diamond Cup at the end of a challenge!
4) How is the Challenges App using the specific Wii U features?
The challenge called Murfy’s Dungeon is a great showcase of the asymmetric gameplay the Wii U offers! If you play this challenge with a friend in local multiplayer, you get to play Murfy on the Wii U GamePad while your friend is playing with a classic character (like Rayman for instance) on the TV. With your finger you must interact with many elements (ropes to cut, platforms to move, ghosts to destroy, etc.) to open the path for your friends and protect him while is running and jumping to escape a wall of fire chasing him. If the two players correctly synchronize their actions in this challenge they can do great scores!
You’ll also see that all the in-game menus are displayed on the Wii U GamePad, allowing you to easily navigate in them by simply touching the screen of the GamePad. The leaderboards are also displayed on the Wii U GamePad, by touching the screen you’ll have the possibility to change the way a leaderboard looks, to only display your friends positions in the leaderboard for instance.
And also, don’t forget that you can play these challenges up to five players in local multiplayer (with one player using the Wii U GamePad and the additional players using other controllers supported by the Wii U)! And with five characters on the same screen the challenges become even crazier!
5) For players, will there be a way to evolve inside the Challenges App, with new elements to unlock for instance?
Yes, in this application players will discover their Awesomeness Level. Think of it as your experience level in Rayman Legends. The cups you win at the end of the challenges (or at the end of a regular level) give you points that increase your Awesomeness Level. The bigger the cup, the more points you’ll get!
When you’ll launch the Challenges App for the first time, you’ll see that only the normal Daily and Weekly Challenges are unlocked, to unlock the Daily and Weekly Extreme Challenges you’ll have to increase your Awesomeness Level. These 2 Extreme Challenges are harder and dedicated to players who love competition! Once you unlock them, you’ll have the choice between 2 Daily Challenges every day and 2 Weekly Challenges every week, and that’s a lot of content!
Finally, the demo will also feature several exclusive characters to unlock! You’ll have to unlock them with the right amount of lums, so collecting a lot of lums in the challenges will be important to unlock all these Heroes! Remember that other players will see the Hero you picked when they’ll see your ghost in a challenge, so choose the right one to impress them!
6) Will the Challenges App feature anything else than the Challenge Mode of Rayman Legends?
Yes, for the players who didn’t get the chance to play our first Wii U Demo, we included in the Challenges App the 3 levels you could find in this demo. Inside these levels new players will be able to learn how to play the game before going directly in the challenges!