Semnat Studios

Eduardo the Samurai Toaster [Wii – Beta]

As we can read from Wikipedia, Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is a run and gun side-scrolling action game developed by Semnat Studios and released in 2009 for the Wii’s WiiWare digital distribution service. As noticed by Jaimen, originally the project was called “Eduardo the magical toaster” and instead of firing pastries you used a long stick to fight. A beta video found by TheSuperSonic111 shown this early beta (there’s also a removed ninja powerup).

In an interview by Gamasutra, the developement team talks about the early development of Eduardo:

What inspired Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, and why did you decide to make it?

DeMaria: After my freshman year of college I finished work on a really terrible turn-based strategy game. After a little time went by I felt like making another game. The intention was to learn how to make a larger game than the few that we had worked on before and to see if we could make a really excellent game. I asked Daniel if he had any ideas and he jokingly suggested that we work on a platformer where you play as a toaster that fights magical fairies. After a minute we both realized that his idea actually sounded pretty fun and we began development.

A little less than a year went by and we had made a game that was not very good, but we saw the potential in the concept. We started over from scratch and Daniel rethought the character design. It was at this time that Eduardo became a samurai with a sweatband. […]

How long did development take?

DeMaria: We spent roughly one year making the first version of the game before Eduardo was a samurai. We then started over from scratch and spent about a year on that version. This is when Daniel re-worked the character design. After that, we switched to the Torque Game Builder from an engine I made. It’s been a little less than a year since we switched engines. So we’ve been working on Eduardo for about three years.

Also, in the blog of Ian Bowie (from Semnat Studios) there are some more info:

First I should give a quick recap of the history of Eduardo. There have been three versions prior to this WiiWare game. In 2004 we started work on Eduardo the Magical Toaster, and started over again sometime early 2005, I believe, with Eduardo the Samurai Toaster. And pardon me if I get my dates wrong(the past five years of development have turned into a big blur) but I believe it was in 2006 when we started on yet another version of the game, this time using the Torque 2D engine.

Thanks to Jaimen for the contribution!

Videos:

Here’s a video from the final version: