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PayPalPocketpair formed another studio called Frontside 180 that are working on Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, which looks a whole lot like Hollow Knight. This might ease the wait for Silksong huh?
While it may look a lot like Hollow Knight for the style it's actually quite a different game overall. Plenty of elements of it feel like Dead Cells, but there's a hint of Skul: The Hero Slayer with a possession mechanic too and there's even a whole village-building element to it. There's also going to be online co-op support for up to 4 players. Overall it does actually look quite good:
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Game Features:
- Metroidvania x Roguelite with an emphasis on exploration.
- Sophisticated and tactilely designed player character controls.
- Possession system where hats can possess enemies and use their unique abilities.
- Traditional Japanese hand-drawn limited animation is used for character 2D animation.
- Thickly painted backgrounds with depth, as if you are travelling through a world of picture books and cut-out pictures.
- Learn actions such as double-jump from artefacts to explore new areas.
- Constantly changing play style depending on the synergy of "traits" associated with magic and items.
- Intense battles with tough bosses. It will take more than just memorizing boss patterns to defeat them without taking damage...
- Rebuild your village. Strengthen yourself through building and production to prepare for the next adventure.
- Explore different terrain each time you play through procedurally generated dungeons.
- Multiplayer support. Up to four players can delve into the dungeon together!
Due to enter Early Access sometime in Q1 2024. This will make Pocketpair's 4th game to be in Early Access following Craftopia, AI: Art Impostor and Palworld that are all currently in development.
There's a demo available now which in my testing seemed to work quite well on Desktop Linux with Proton 8.0-5.
Check it out on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
Quoting: EhvisI don't really see a lot of the Hollow Knight specific art style in this game. This looks more like a traditional cartoony style. And while some of the mechanics look similar to Hollow Knight, the gameplay as a whole looks quite different. I mean, ladders? :) Crownsworn definitely looks closer.
If you can't see some of the screenshots on their store page that look like a blatant rip off of Hollow Knight then you either have no idea how Hollow Knight looks or you didn't actually look at the images. The art style isn't exactly the same, it's a bit more cartoony, but some of the shots make the environment look like they literally copy pasted from HK.
Keep in mind, the developer posted these shots to sell the game. When a handful of those images they posted can raise questions like this it's enough to be suspicious at the very least.
1 Likes, Who?
Time has changed since some games created new genres. Doom-like? Quake-like? Metroidvania? I guess today they would be called "rip off" "scams" or whatever.
Last edited by DerpFox on 29 January 2024 at 6:00 pm UTC
Last edited by DerpFox on 29 January 2024 at 6:00 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
I'm going to do a... what is it that kids today call it...? A hot take, here: This is what gaming used to be like, and I'm actually happy to see this sort of thing making a comeback to get genres evolving again and keep everyone on their toes. It's certainly better than the morass of grey-and-brown slop that's been the focus for the last couple of decades!
Some oldey-timey examples, since you know I love my pictorial references in cases like this;
This is no different to indies creating games like Freedom Planet, Shovel Knight, Bombing Bastards, and other games inspired by existing properties.
What next, it's not ok to use the term "Metroidvania" anymore because Metroid belongs to Nintendo and Castlevania belongs to Konami?
Some oldey-timey examples, since you know I love my pictorial references in cases like this;
This is no different to indies creating games like Freedom Planet, Shovel Knight, Bombing Bastards, and other games inspired by existing properties.
What next, it's not ok to use the term "Metroidvania" anymore because Metroid belongs to Nintendo and Castlevania belongs to Konami?
3 Likes, Who?
While I can absolutely see the Hollow Knight influences (Queens Garden, Forgotten Crossroads, perhaps a bit of Royal Waterways/City of Tears?) in a few of the screenshots, the game overall seems to have it's own (in my opinion) very pretty looking art style.
Honestly feel like folks wouldn't have been as bothered about this, perhaps not even have noticed the announcement at all, had Palworld not suddenly hit such a wildly critical mass. So long as it isn't ripping assets straight out of Hollow Knight, I see no issue.
Honestly feel like folks wouldn't have been as bothered about this, perhaps not even have noticed the announcement at all, had Palworld not suddenly hit such a wildly critical mass. So long as it isn't ripping assets straight out of Hollow Knight, I see no issue.
4 Likes, Who?
StoneColdSpider Jan 29
Quoting: PenglingWhat next, it's not ok to use the term "Metroidvania" anymore because Metroid belongs to Nintendo and Castlevania belongs to Konami?So we need to call them "Ninamis"???......
Last edited by StoneColdSpider on 29 January 2024 at 9:10 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: LacSlyerQuoting: EhvisI don't really see a lot of the Hollow Knight specific art style in this game. This looks more like a traditional cartoony style. And while some of the mechanics look similar to Hollow Knight, the gameplay as a whole looks quite different. I mean, ladders? :) Crownsworn definitely looks closer.
If you can't see some of the screenshots on their store page that look like a blatant rip off of Hollow Knight then you either have no idea how Hollow Knight looks or you didn't actually look at the images. The art style isn't exactly the same, it's a bit more cartoony, but some of the shots make the environment look like they literally copy pasted from HK.
Keep in mind, the developer posted these shots to sell the game. When a handful of those images they posted can raise questions like this it's enough to be suspicious at the very least.
I think this is what people are missing here. This isn't about how the game actually plays. It's not about iteration on an existing set of ideas. It's about marketing, and using "looks a lot like" as a strategy, even though the game isn't like the thing it looks a lot like.
Craftopia didn't iterate on Breath of the Wild. Palworld doesn't really do much with Pokémon mechanics aside from capturing in the same way. And this seems to use none of the innovations Hollow Knight brought to the Metroidvania genre. But boy do they want people who know those games to look at screenshots and go "hey, that looks familiar!"
3 Likes, Who?
Viesta2015 Jan 30
this game is pretty unique ngl... especially judging by the trailer so i really don't understand all the anger... especially if the game is ACTUALLY fun to play.
1 Likes, Who?
I can enjoy a modern game that pays homage for ancient games from 20, 30 years ago. You feel nostalgic and stuff. Hollow Knight was released too recently for someone to be "paying homage" too it. This is a blatantly ripoff and one of the motives I abandoned AAA gaming in the first place. I came to indies for their courage to innovate. I'm not gonna give money to devs that behave like big studios that are too scared to create something new, and decide to copy someone's home work.
0 Likes
EagleDelta Jan 30
Quoting: M@GOidI can enjoy a modern game that pays homage for ancient games from 20, 30 years ago. You feel nostalgic and stuff. Hollow Knight was released too recently for someone to be "paying homage" too it. This is a blatantly ripoff and one of the motives I abandoned AAA gaming in the first place. I came to indies for their courage to innovate. I'm not gonna give money to devs that behave like big studios that are too scared to create something new, and decide to copy someone's home work.
While I understand this sentiment, the gameplay for the Palworld dev's new Metroidvania is little to nothing like Hollow Knight aside from the Metroidvania aspects. Artstyles are NOT Copyrightable for a reason.
Additionally, the Palworld dev has specifically noted that he does NOT try to make original games. He takes ideas he likes and makes something new out of it. People like to whine about Palworld being Pokemon with guns, but it's more like a Survivalcraft game with Factorio, monster catching, and guns.
3 Likes, Who?
EagleDelta Jan 30
Quoting: NezchanQuoting: LacSlyerQuoting: EhvisI don't really see a lot of the Hollow Knight specific art style in this game. This looks more like a traditional cartoony style. And while some of the mechanics look similar to Hollow Knight, the gameplay as a whole looks quite different. I mean, ladders? :) Crownsworn definitely looks closer.
If you can't see some of the screenshots on their store page that look like a blatant rip off of Hollow Knight then you either have no idea how Hollow Knight looks or you didn't actually look at the images. The art style isn't exactly the same, it's a bit more cartoony, but some of the shots make the environment look like they literally copy pasted from HK.
Keep in mind, the developer posted these shots to sell the game. When a handful of those images they posted can raise questions like this it's enough to be suspicious at the very least.
I think this is what people are missing here. This isn't about how the game actually plays. It's not about iteration on an existing set of ideas. It's about marketing, and using "looks a lot like" as a strategy, even though the game isn't like the thing it looks a lot like.
Craftopia didn't iterate on Breath of the Wild. Palworld doesn't really do much with Pokémon mechanics aside from capturing in the same way. And this seems to use none of the innovations Hollow Knight brought to the Metroidvania genre. But boy do they want people who know those games to look at screenshots and go "hey, that looks familiar!"
Which is something they have likely needed in the past. If you read the translated interview on the dev's site, you'll see that nearly every publisher he approached passed on the game because it didn't play it safe with a popular, trendy game format and genre. It doesn't have MTX, isn't a battle royale/FPS/Action RPG, so publishers passed. So, instead, they created their own marketing by using the art style to get ppl interested and in the door, then use the gameplay to try and get them hooked.
Even with the boatloads of money they've earned on Palworld, they are still nowhere near the resources that a AAA studio/publisher has available to spend on Engineers or Marketing (two of the most expensive parts of Tech/Gaming companies)
3 Likes, Who?
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