Duck Life 9 Devlogs > Devlog #19

Devlog #19
Nintendo Switch

Hello devlog readers! It’s been a little while since our last post, nice to see you again! We’ve spent the last year hard at work getting Duck Life 9 ready for release on the Nintendo Switch, and we thought you might like hearing a bit about the development process. Without further ado, let’s get started!


The Flock has made it to console!

Duck Life 9 for Nintendo Switch releases on June 6th (which also happens to be my birthday!). If you’re reading this in the future, it might already be out! Just make sure not to play it while driving your flying car, okay? It’s on the Nintendo eShop as a downloadable title. You can play using the touch screen in handheld mode, or using any variation of controller in handheld or TV mode. It’ll run at a full 60fps in either mode, so play whichever one you prefer!


How did we do it?

So how did we make it playable on Switch? Luckily for us, the Switch was already compatible with the game project, so we managed to get the game running on our test Switch on the first day of development. However, the game running and running well are two very different things. The first thing you have to deal with in a Switch game is the controllers. There are a LOT of controller options. Left JoyCon, right JoyCon, both JoyCons connected, both JoyCons separated, handheld mode, Pro Controller, the list goes on! This, however, wasn’t our main issue with porting to the Switch, which brings me on to the next section…


The toaster problem

I have to say something about the Switch. The Switch’s performance (and sorry Nintendo if you’re reading this) is utterly trash. After releasing the game on mobile platforms with buttery smooth performance, we thought that a fully fledged games console would be able to handle the game, no problem. But boy, were we wrong! When we ran the game on the test Switch that first day, I was greeted to an average of 10fps, one of the worst sights imaginable to a game developer. The game was completely unplayable. This was not going to be a simple port like I had expected, I wasn’t going to be happy with any less than 60fps, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any visual quality, so the game needed to be rebuilt from the ground up with Nintendo Switch optimisation in mind.


Director’s cut

Rebuilding the game from scratch is a bit of a headache as you can imagine, especially since the funding had dried up for the team, so I had to do the entire thing by myself. But I saw this as an opportunity. When you make a game as a team of developers, each person makes a different part of the game. Because of this, some parts of the game weren’t exactly like I imagined them when I designed it. I made the first four Duck Life games entirely by myself, and I love doing all the nitty-gritty stuff. This Switch version rebuild finally gave me the chance to get my grubby little paws on every part of the game and make all those changes that I wanted to from the start. From graphics to balancing to remaking entire scenes, there are literally thousands of changes. If you were wondering why it took us a year to get this Switch port out, this is the reason!


An awkward announcement

I had finally done it. After months and months of hard work optimising, I had finally got the game to run at 60fps on every scene on the Switch. It was a tough job, but it was worth it to get the game into the hands of Switch players. And then they announce the Switch 2 (which would have been able to run the unoptimised game at 60fps with no issues whatsoever). What great timing! In all seriousness, the Switch 2 release is great news for us. If you were wondering, YES, you can play Duck Life 9 on your Switch 2, and it will have faster loading times and smoother performance than the Switch 1. Duck Life 9 comes out one day after the Switch 2 drops, so if you’re lucky enough to have a Switch 2 pre-order, and you get bored of Mario Kart in one day, Duck Life 9 might be the game for you!

It’s been a long road to getting Duck Life 9 onto the Nintendo Switch, but now that it’s finally happening, I’m very excited for people to play and see what everyone thinks. Thank you for reading this little dev log of mine, especially if you’ve been following from the start. This will probably be the last one for a while, at least until we release on the next console!

If you want to see more info about Duck Life 9: The Flock for Nintendo Switch, you can go to the Nintendo website


Written by
Mr Wix

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