On the heels of the “Nintendo should move to mobile” investor talk and other related drama, Meganoid [$1.99] creator Orange Pixel decided to do something huge: develop a phone game the way it believed the publisher would if it ever bothered to enter the sector. Stardash, a super simplistic and obviously retro-inspired platform game, is the end result of this experiment, which hits later this week across the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android.
“Using GameBoy style graphics and sounds for extra memories of old-school running and jumping. It’s a little experiment to see if I could create such a game in the way the big N would do it,” Orange Pixel wrote on its blog. “A lot of care has been put in the level-design and the simplicity of it all,” it said.
Outside of the look and feel, Stardash‘s multi-faceted progression seems to be the place where Orange Pixel is really attempting to crib and build on Nintendo’s secret sauce — you can clear levels by beating levels within their time limits, by collecting coins, or by finding hidden keys that open up secret levels. Stardash will launch with four worlds containing nine levels each. And while the goal of every level is as simple as “run to the right until you see a balloon,” every level will have its share of challenges and secrets.
I don’t think anyone is seriously expecting a level of Nintendo refinement (read: budget and time) from Stardash, but what a neat and challenging way to approach a project, huh? We’re definitely down for giving it a go as soon as possible and we’ll bring you our thoughts when we do get our grubby little hands on it.
