This New NES Sidescroller About A Shapeshifting Wizard Has Flown Past Its Initial Kickstarter Goal

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A new action-adventure platformer for the NES has just begun crowdfunding on Kickstarter and has already sailed past its initial target of €10,000, earning €31,819 as of the time of writing (over three times the amount the developers initially set out to raise).

Malasombra is the work of a group of Spanish homebrew developers called 4MHZ, who are perhaps best known for their work on Amstrad CPC titles like Baba's Palace, Operation Alexandra, and Profanation 2.

It appears to be the first game the group has developed for the NES and is an action-adventure sidescroller focusing on an aspiring, young wizard named Pirou, who sees his beloved whisked away by an evil sorcerer named Malasombra on their wedding day.

The story follows Pirou as he sets out to collect the pages of a powerful grimoire, to unlock new transformations, which will hopefully give him the power to defeat Malasombra, reverse the sorcerer's evil spells, and recover his bride-to-be from the jaws of danger.

Some of the transformations that will be featured in the game have already been revealed as part of the Kickstarter, with the team teasing the ability to turn a frog to dive underwater and leap to greater heights; become a squirrel to perform long jumps, and squeeze through small gaps; and assume the shape of a goose to fly through the air and reach difficult-to-access areas. There is also apparently an economy in the game, with the developers suggesting players can discover gold in hidden chests located throughout levels to pay for upgrades to Pirou's wand.

It all sounds really promising, with the only downside being the "live-action" trailer the team has put together, which seems to utilize an awkward AI voiceover in the style of Stephen Fry.

If you want to back the project, the digital edition costs €10 with a copy of the ROM and a PDF of the game's manual. The complete-in-box physical edition, meanwhile, is priced at €59, and is said to include a cartridge that has been "built to last with cutting-edge technology", utilizing flash memory to save your game permanently and a custom mapper to ensure "full compatibility with original NES hardware".

Here's a link to the project's Kickstarter page.