Thursday 30 January 2014

Indie News - La-Mulana sequel in the works via Kickstarter!


La-Mulana 2 - sequel in development

The cryptic mind-fuck, masquerading as a 2D Metroidvania platformer, La-Mulana, is getting a sequel. This brand new adventure is being developed by Japanese developers, NIGORO - who brought us the original PC version back in 2005, and Playism, who brought us the remakes for Wii & PC. Using the popular Kickstarter site to fund the title seems like a wise move, as it's already raised $140,000 of its £200,000 target, with another 2 weeks to go.



The original game is often referred to as the Dead Souls of the 2D platforming genre, thanks to its brutal difficulty level, and complete lack of hand holding - the player must decrypt tablets to gain clues as to where to go or what to do. It had pixellated visuals based on the 8-bit MSX home computer, popular in Japan in the 80's, and Japanese text, but was translated by fans soon after, allowing western gamers to enjoy the confusing shenanigans. In 2011 a Wiiware version was released, featuring enhanced visuals. Soon after, this enhanced version was released for the PC, before becoming greenlit for Steam, where it can now be purchased.


From screenshots and videos provided by NIGORO, it would appear that La-Mulana 2 retains the look of its predecessor, only this time with a female protagonist - the daughter of the original explorer. The developers have stated that they want to retain the difficulty level of the first game, but also give more visual clues to the player - for example, you would often press a switch in the original and have no idea what it did, but in the sequel the camera will pan to the place being manipulated by your action. While this could, potentially, annoy hardcore fans and masochists, I welcome this idea and really look forward to the end product. Maybe this time I will actually get to see the later stages of the game!

The game is being developed for the PC, but NIGORO have stated that it will probably appear on current gen consoles, the Xbox One and PS4.


Here is the official trailer for the game:






Head on over to the Kickstarter page to pledge a donation, or to get the full rundown from the developers themselves:

















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