Castlevania is one of my all-time favorite videogames. Though it's an 8-bit game, the developers certainly had worked hard to produce stunning graphics (I'm an 80s kid) and spectacular background music that keeps playing in your head although you were not playing anymore. Today, I stumble upon a Kickstarter project that poured a lot of nostalgia into me, right before I even have the chance to grab some coffee.
A Kickstarter developer goes by the name of 'dejawolf' is currently remodeling the 8-bit classic under Unreal engine. What does this mean? It means we will be having an awesome Castlevania game remastered with modern graphics. The game will be played as is, the usual side-scrolling action, but this time we will enjoy it with stunning visuals with the help of Unreal, of course.
How does it look now?
The heads up display on the free demo is still similar to the original NES classic, where the scores, HP, time, level, and other information are shown on the top part of the screen. The assets are completely replaced by modern day polygons which are in real time 3D, thanks again to Unreal engine The demo video (which you can view right below this article) showcases Castlevania's 1st level with our awesome main protagonist, one of my personal favorites too, Simon Belmont.
Parallax scrolling has played a major part of the remake as observed on the video. For those who don't know, the term 'parallax scrolling' is when a 2D side-scroller manipulates how the foreground and background moves, the foreground must move faster than the background, giving a 'realistic' feel as you scroll along. I also wondered about this when I was a child often asking my father when we ride the bus home at night, 'why does the moon stay in place while the trees are moving fast past by us?'
Developer's notes, risks, and challenges
Developer dejawolf posts that he is currently remaking Castlevania in Unreal Engine 4 but his progress is slow since he can only work weekends on the project. Also he does not have enough funds to pay the artists for the assets, better termed as 'artwork'. Another dilemma he is currently having is permission from Konami, he doesn't even have enough money for the art assets, so acquiring a license to use the Casltevania IP is expensive at this point.
He aims to get Konami's permission when he can afford the license so he can sell the game without any trouble. With the fund coming in from Kickstarter, he will be able to speed up development and finish it within 2 years. That's remarkable work for a solo developer.
Getting fluid animations for the characters and other assets to work properly is his most challenging part. So he says that even though the game will be finished, the animations may not be that good. One reason being to downgrade some advanced animation programs in order to reduce possible bugs upon release. He also elaborates the legal rights to the game as another part of the challenge. Until then, good luck to you, dejawolf, I'll chip in something when I can.
