Treasure Adventure World

By: ithamore

On: January 25th, 2013

Robit Studios and Chucklefish are collaborating on Treasure Adventure World: a commercial, HD remake of Treasure Adventure Game (a wonderful, freeware Metroidvania from 2011). Their press release shares some of the main changes to expect from the new version:

– New engine, smoother gameplay, HD widescreen mode
– High-res, hand-drawn art by Christine Crossley
– New music and sound by Robert Ellis
– More treasures and collectibles, remixed puzzles and new equipment
– Improvements to enemy AI, more intense boss fights
– More tightly-focused story, intriguing cutscenes, charming NPCs and new multiple endings

There is also some info in the Indie Statik post on TAW, which helps to expand upon the press release.

Additionally, those curious about experiencing the game’s earlier incarnations can download Karma as an exclusive bonus from the GOG.com release of TAG. The games in Karma aren’t as fully polished as TAG was, but they are great samples of how drastic development can be from one iteration to the next.

Posted in Freeware, Metroidvanias, Previews, Videos | Tags: Chucklefish, RobitStudios

Jabberwok

Strangely, I think I prefer the old look.
SirNiko

The new graphics look nice, but the character’s animations look very basic and wooden. It sets an unfortunate contrast. The part where the player is hopping along leaves and bumping his head on the branch above, for example, looks really odd because you’re expecting the character to react to all that abuse, even if it’s nothing more than a kirby’s dream land style bump with little stars bouncing off his head. When attacking, the character seems totally detached from the danger he’s in – more fluid attack animations of the character running, jumping, and swinging would address this.

All of this seemed appropriate with the simple graphics of the original, but now that everything’s being souped up these sorts of things just become more evident.

It’s good to hear the puzzles are getting a bit of an overhaul. I’d like even more if it was more of an outright sequel with mostly new content (even if it was set to the same plot) but I’ll take what I can get.
http://twitter.com/celluloseman Evan Balster

I played through the original recently; I don’t make a lot of time to play games these days, so it speaks for the game that I played it through to the end despite the unexceptional aesthetics. It’s got a lot of spirit, an absolutely huge world, and was a good play.

On the off chance the developers are listening, I’ll parrot (nyuk nyuk) the remark that the character’s animation is holding the visuals back in this new incarnation. That said, it seems like a nice way to bring the game to a wider audience.
Bears

My main complaint with the original was that the character moved too slow and consequently barely moved horizontally while jumping. Looks like that hasn’t changed.
Jandy

If anything it looks like the newer game is slightly slower paced, thought this might because it looks to be a higher resolution. Although with Bears about the running speed, changing it would change the nature of the game in a way, and the level design would have to be altered to compensate otherwise it’d alter the difficulty (eg. jumping would be easier).

I think the problem is that it looks like they took all the sprites and frames from the original and just drew over them in a hand-drawn style, without revisions to things like the main character’s posture or animation length. The bird’s wings look like an animation playing forwards and backwards, but if the animation matched the quality of the general art then the animation would be fleshed out and the wings could capture a sense of real flight and beating against the air instead of the kind of anti-gravity doggy-paddle that it did in the original and is still doing in the trailer.

If the main character leaned into his run a bit more and had more in-between frames in his running animation then it’d really help him come to life. In a game like this you spend the majority of your time running around so it’s like one of the most important animations you’ll have in the game really. I know I’d find it frustrating

I played through most of the original game recently and do intend to finish it soon and it’s a great game. It was very obvious that it was a labour of love, and the more amateur feel adjusts your expectations. I’m sure the remake won’t be any worse and this stuff is only really nit-picking I guess, but if you’re trying to increase the quality of something then criticisms are important too and the stuff you overlook can look worse because of how much other things have improved.
tom adams

the 2d art reminds me a lot of this kickstater – project cornerstone. It seems pretty promising! http://kck.st/TGEsYc
ithamore

Those of you who were making suggestions might be interested to know TAW now has an official forum. http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?forums/treasure-adventure-world.67/
Robert Hanary

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