While everyone’s been losing their heads over Kickstarter revivals like Project Eternity and Double Fine I’ve been quietly waiting for this day: Shadowgate is getting a remake. The brutally hard, 1985 point’n’click adventure game which had you creep deeper and deeper into The Castle Shadowgate in search of the evil warlock who had been terrorising the kingdom is coming back to our screens. And it sounds as though every wrong decision will still end in an agonising death sequence. Oh, Zojoi, you do spoil us so.
We sent an intern into the castle with a torch to see what they could find out. When we returned the next day all we found was their body with a note pinned to their chest saying “Your torch goes out with a fizzle. With out-stretched arms, you move slowly, looking for a light. Suddenly you trip over something!! Smash!! You fall face first into the floor!!”and this Kickstarter video:
If that music sounds familiar it’s because it’s the original 8-bit theme with a little orchestral sprucing up:
The plan for the game is two-fold. Zojoi will bringing the game into the new century with updated artwork, music, and interface (this is a dire need, I played through Shadowgate again earlier this year and it’s a bitty, complicated screen of buttons) making it a far more accessible version of the game we love. The other plan, and this is the ace part of the campaign, is that the puzzles are being redesigned. I worried, seeing the Kickstarter, that surely those who remember the game fondly and are most likely to pledge are people who have played the game lovingly over the past 20 years and know full well how to complete every puzzle. This update and redesign should make it a fresh, yet familiar experience.
The pledge rewards are the usualcornucopiaof soundtracks and specialty items so I won’t paste them in here. Instead, if you’re interested in pledging then make your way over to the page.
It’s already raised a quarter of its $120,000 target with 26 days to go.