Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap was an excellent recent addition to the Switch eShop, bringing a forgotten classic to new audiences with a shiny, new coat of paint. It was a passion project headed by a small team, and Siliconera recently got a chance to sit down with Omar Cornut—the game's lead programmer—to discuss the remake's origins.

Omar explained that he'd been reverse engineering games from this era for years, and that he'd always wanted to do something with the Wonder Boy series. The project began in its earliest form around 2014, when he left his last job in search of new opportunities.

I've been tackling emulation of the Master System since 1999, and was always involved with hacking and reverse engineering games of this era. So, I built up that knowledge over time. A few years ago, I decided to use my spare time to start studying the code of the original game ROM. My desire, at the time, was to unearth unknown secrets. It is a game with lots of subtle secrets and behaviors. Players found and published lots of them, but nobody was quite sure that we had found everything. So, I started researching that from a low-level perspective, and eventually I understood enough about the game engine to consider making a remake from the angle of being extra faithful to it.

In 2014, I left my job at Media Molecule, and with that spare time I toyed around with loading data from the old game into a new engine. This was when I got in contact with Ben, who I had worked with years ago on Soul Bubbles (DS). I knew he was a fan of the series, and together we started experimenting with prototyping what a new version could be, and finding the right art style for it. Michael Geyre also joined us early, and he experimented with recreating the soundtrack.

Moving on, Cornut explained what he wanted to do with a remake of the game, and why he wanted to do it.

I suppose we started from the angle that it was just a passion hobby project and we didn't really have a master plan. The obvious answer is that the game – being old – could do with a new coating, and when you love a game you want to share it with other people. We also sort of knew that lots of people played the game in their childhood, so at least some people would be happy with a remake. We didn't really envision the reception to be that positive and to reach so many players.

Because Sega consoles weren't that popular in the USA and in Japan, it is also a case of us bringing back a game that many people may have missed in their childhood. When put in the context of people understanding this was the game that Sega kids were playing while others were playing say, Super Mario Bros or Zelda, they can appreciate it better. Video games have evolved dramatically, but this 1989 game, with a bunch of tweaks, fixes and, of course, the new art and audio, is surprisingly playable and enjoyable today. It is really a homage to this era.

You can find the full interview here, it's certainly a fascinating read.

What do you think? How have you been liking Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap? Do you think the team did a good job of retooling it for a new generation? Drop us a comment in the section below.

[source siliconera.com]