Yesterday saw the announcement of Alwa's Awakening, a gorgeous NES-style platform adventure for "modern systems" which takes inspiration from 8-bit gems like Battle of Olympus and Solstice - and, if we're lucky, it could be coming to the Wii U.
The work of Alexander Berggren, Kevin Andersson, Mikael Forslind and Robert Kreese, Alwa's Awakening is currently 15 percent complete, but is already looking pretty fantastic. Work began in October last year, and the game's official site gives some additional insight into how it came to be:
The story of how Alwa's Awakening came to be started in the autumn of 2014. After spending an evening at a friend's house playing NES Mikael started dreaming big about making his own game. Problem was – he had never made a game before. He realized he had to think this through and find people that could help him and step one was to get his thoughts down in a game design document. He started and within a few days there was a 14-page document detailing pretty much everything.
The plan was to first attract a pixel artist so the game mockup would look good. He sent the document to Alexander; a pixel artist he had heard of that he knew was really talented. Alex liked what he saw and said yes to do the graphics for the game. Great success! With a design document and a pixel artist on board it wasn't that hard to convince Robert Kreese to do the music for the game. Mikael had known Kreese for a couple of years since they both worked as organizers on RSM, which is the largest Retro Convention in Scandinavia. Now the team was almost complete! He just had to find someone to actually program the game…
If you don't really know that many programmers where do you turn? Twitter of course! A tweet was sent in both Swedish and English and by asking some prominent retro personalities it was reached by quite many. A few hours and many tweets later a few people had show interest but the most promising and interesting person was sitting just a few desks away. Mikael's co-worker Kevin jumped on board the project and suddenly we had a whole team!
There's no solid release date at present, and the team hasn't decided which "modern consoles" it will launching it on. GoNintendo has been told that the team would love to bring the game to the Wii U, but the 3DS - which would perhaps be a better fit - isn't likely, as the game is built in Unity and Nintendo's handheld doesn't support it.
Would you like to see this faux-retro experience on a Nintendo system? Let us know by posting a comment below.
[source gonintendo.com]
Comments 17
You had me at "inspired by Battle of Olympus"
And then you lost me at "Also inspired by Solstice"...
"For modern systems"? Why wouldn't they put this on Wii-U? The tired argument of "the install base isn't big enough" doesn't hold water for a game like this. Especially if it comes to Xbox One. The Wii-U is the perfect platform for this, it even already has games similar to this on VC? SMH
@CanisWolfred : He had me at "Also inspired by Soltice"
But he lost me at "inspired by Battle of Olympus"
I like both games but Battle of Olympus was way too difficult and It was one of few game I needed some walkthrough to finish it.
@rdrunner1178 Especially for a game like this the install base maters. They probably already have problems breaking even and a small install base makes it worse. We don't get some of the WiiU indie games in Germany cause the developers can't effort paying the German ratings board (USK). This is a problem for them.
And the Xone generally has more people buying those kind of games...it's just how it is. It sucks, but it's true.
Battle of Olympus caught my attention... I dabbled in Solstice... interesting references in these case.
From the looks of the game the main Solstice influence is in the graphics.
Hi!
Mikael here, one of the developers. Thanks for your comments. When we announced yesterday we had no idea Nintendolife was going to pick the story up. Really cool
Just wanted to clarify a few things - We're still in early development so I can't confirm any platforms but our target platform is Wii U. We would love to release on Wii U - If Nintendo will have us Hopefully we can release on other platforms as well.
@gurtifus
We're making the game quite challenging but not as confusing as Battle of Olympus can be. We're implementing a map system that'll help a lot. The game will still be NES challenging though. But more fun and rewarding challenging than frustrating challenging.
@SuperWiiU
The Solstice influence is quite big actually. In both Solstice and our game the main protagonist is a wizard and uses his/her magic skils instead of traditional weapons. In Alwa's Awakening you have a weapon but the focus is more on using your magical staffs to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles. Alwa's Awakening also borrows heavily from the mood and setting in Solstice. You're this wizard trapped in a foreign world surrounded by evil with only your magic to help you. Solstice also has the best NES intro of all times
Thanks everyone!
Never played Solstice but I played its sequel Equinox. (That was isometric).
@MikaelForslind I'll be covering this news over at my website as well! I'm definitely looking forward to your title!
@MikaelForslind So what sets it apart from being a 2D sideview solstice?
For factual correctness I need to mention that there are better NES intro's like Ninja Gaiden II's.
Aww, I want it now! Looks great
Damn Unity?
Damn 3ds?
@gurtifus And you didn't need a Walkthrough for Solstice? Bullcrap.
@CanisWolfred : No, I completed it without walkthrough and I was a child.
I think it was because I didn't speak english by that time so as there was no dialog in Solstice, it was easier to complete than Battle of Olympus where a lot of hints was in the dialogs !
Looks good to me, looking forward to seeing how it comes out. Good luck to the developers!
The screenshot is nice. Can't say much more at the moment.
@gurtifus
Game was hard but not that hard as I beat it when I was 10 in 1990 with no guide and a little trial and error. Waaaaay better version of Zelda II than Zelda II was.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...