The Wii had a cancelled game where you stuffed a Wiimote into a plush toy

More has been unearthed about a cancelled Wii game where players would need to put their controller into an exclusive plush toy. 

Called WiiWaa, the title was being developed by Zoink Games for the Wii in the late 2000s, although a number of factors meant it never saw an official release.

A video published yesterday (June 19) by DidYouKnowGaming dives into the game’s history, with Zoink Games president Klaus Lyngeled providing more information about the plush-type game.

Lyngeled told DidYouKnowGaming that the idea for WiiWaa came from when he would play games with his son, as after they’d finished on the console together, his son would go off and continue playing the game with his toys, using his imagination to keep the characters alive.

“Then I was realising “wow that’s kinda cool, that’s how you would actually animate the character in the game [emulating the movement of a child playing with it] with a controller.” [So I thought] what if I put the Wiimote inside one of his plush toys, you know?”

You can see the plush prototype in action here.

Development then began in early 2008, with a prototype plush toy and a game demo being worked on. WiiWaa was set to be an adventure game, with the protagonist exploring and completing smaller puzzles. After putting the Wiimote in the plush via its mouth, the player would need to “waddle” the character down fixed pathways.

The plush’s springy ears could have been used to measure the height of the character’s in-game bounce, with readings from how far the Wiimote moved representing the height of the bounce during play.

During development though WiiWaa struggled to get past Nintendo, as it had strict controller add-on rules for the Wii. Nintendo said they would need to personally inspect the toy before going ahead with the game, so to avoid long delays, Lyngeled argued that the game could actually be played without it.

The name of the game was even changed to WeeWaa during development as well, as Zoink Games realised Nintendo would likely not let the team use the Wii name.

It was then that Zoink Games was almost ready to send a build of the game to Nintendo, with a 2012 launch seemingly possible. The distributor of the game then pulled out of the deal as the Wii’s game market started to decline, putting an end to a release on the Wii.

Many were contacted in the search for funding, with the prospect of getting Microsoft to put it on the Xbox 360 Kinect also turned down. Ubisoft even showed some interest but asked Lyngeled to use Rabbids instead, which he refused as he wanted it to be a new IP.

Lyngeled has considered bringing back WiiWaa for the Nintendo Switch, but the complexity of distributing real objects has been getting in the way.

All was not lost however, as the game was repurposed into a mobile title called WeeWaa Rock On!, which used assets and ideas from the game and it into a simpler, linear title.

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