With an average of 40+ new games a week on the Switch eShop, simply working through the list to find potential good 'uns can be a lengthy undertaking. One that caught our attention in its launch trailer, though, is Dojoran - it arrives on 17th September priced at $4.99USD / 4,99€.
It's the work of Brazilian developer Nautland, with publishing from the ever-prolific Ratalaika Games. As you can see it's a retro-inspired black and white platformer, in a rather fun way describing itself as having 1-bit graphics. It's highly stylised, looks like a good challenge for platforming ninjas and seems like the sort of title that could easily appear in indie 'showcases' and not look out of place.
Life is not as easy and simple as it seemed in your childhood. To survive in a world full of dangers, you must go through the difficult ninja training of frogs using secret techniques created by your ancestors.
Dojoran is a precision platform game in which you need to use apples to perform a double jump in different ways than usual. The simple and responsive controls provide a great experience in challenges that need to be faced more than once. Each death is an apprenticeship to improve reflexes and control the character, rather than an entire frustration.
Gameplay inspired by games like Super Mario World, Celeste and Bloody Trapland. Art style inspired by Gameboy Pocket games, Gato Roboto and Downwell.
Let us know what you think, as always, in the comments.
Comments 10
It ain't easy being green...err, hang on..
Odd that the art style is stated to be inspired by specifically ‘Game Boy Pocket games’…
@rushiosan
On the contrary, the color information you process can be 1-bit, even if the system has an 8-bit CPU.
The original Game Boy could only output four shades of color, doing so only uses 2 bits, which can store combinations of 00, 01, 10, and 11.
Ergo if you have a black and white game with nothing in between, you only need a single bit to describe the binary black and white pixels.
That said, a modern game like this wouldn't actually be operating on 1-bit color scale, it more than likely is using a commercial game engine like Unity or Godot or something the graphics are just 24-bit PNGs or something.
@rushiosan the PlayDate only uses 1-bit graphics.
Weirdly I added this to my wish list last night, it looks fun!
@Markiemania95 Well the original Gameboy had green pixels, but the Gameboy Pocket had black and white pixels, so it actually makes sense.
I actually thought this might be by the same people who made Gato Roboto.. Nice work!
SO, yeah, I was sold on it until I saw this was a Celeste-esque. Or... that VVVVVV game. I'm just not a fan of the "land here in the space between spikes while also bouncing on objects, wall-kick your way to the finish" gameplay. It looks fun and absolutely well made but not my cup of tea at the end of the day personally.
Back in my day generic platformers had color.
I’m a sucker for pure black and white games. At $5 it’s hard to pass. I’ve spent more on a pint of beer and it didn’t even have a YouTube trailer.
Anyone else get Celeste X Undertale vibes here? (Gameplay and visual style, respectively)?
Not trying to say "rip off" or anything. Just think it looks like a lot of good elements combined
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