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Kickstarter: Midora - 2D Zelda/Secret of Mana game Of pure awesomeness

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I've been following this game's development for some time and just wanted to share it here! PC/Mac/Linux for now, with console stretch goals.

The Midora Kickstarter has relaunched!

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"Midora (pronounced "mid-ora") is a love letter to the classic 2D action-adventure games, like The Legend of Zelda or Secret of Mana, that have frequented consoles and enamored audiences for generations. With a charming world to explore, new mechanics to learn and quests to fulfill all while hopefully tugging at your nostalgic heartstrings, Midora seeks to bring you the same tried and true feel of familiar titles, but with the grace of a new, modern experience, with in a beautiful, 100% pixel art setting.
"

Digital copies of the games start at $10


  • Fight using sharp swords and manipulate water to beat your opponents.
  • Crawl through 12 unforgiving dungeons, each with their own challenges and boss.
  • Discover ancient tools and forgotten magics to solve puzzles, some of them only available at night!
  • Meet colorful characters and identify their roles, for even threats can help you on your journey.
  • Collect, mine, fish, enchant, alchemize and craft over 200 unique items, from common food to potions with silly effects, from crafting materials to devastating runes!
  • Journey on a huge map, from your village at the bottom of the map to the very top of a volcano, making stops in various cities and visiting the King's castle.

Combat

Like in a lot of action-adventure games, Midora makes you fight and defend yourself constantly using common items such as sword and shields. While there is no leveling system in the game, swords and shields have their own attack/defense level, making it easy for you to determine which is best. Some stealth elements will be implemented to allow you to sneak behind enemies and deal critical damage. But that's not all you're going to do!

All 12 dungeons of the game have their own unique item, and each of these items have many functions.

Very early/old screens:

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screen2.png


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updated stretch goals!

We recently came across alternatives in the way we can port Midora on consoles. Right now, there's a likely possibility that console ports will cost significantly less to make. In order to decide which console port comes first, we need to hear you!

You can vote here: http://strawpoll.me/1949660

We are still working on the new estimations for the stretch goals, but we can safely say that we should be able to bring Midora to ALL those platforms for about $140,000.

"How is that possible?!"

It all comes down to three simple decisions we've made:

The DLC stretch goal will come after the console ports, pushing it on top of the list.
We are dealing with a new funding source, who would be willing to support us with some of the costs, possibly funding the second artist on the project, allowing us to get rid of it from the stretch goals!
Console backers will be randomly picked to test the console ports for us, saving us both time & money.
Tell us how you feel about this and tell your friends to support us if they want to see Midora everywhere! This goal of $140,000 (to be confirmed) is entirely feasable (according to Kicktraq's projection). All we need is your help to spread the word! Mention these new stretch goals everywhere you can!

We will be back shortly in another update to discuss a new gameplay feature that will affect the entire game. We're talking about the day/night cycle!
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
I feel like this would've done much better 3 years ago. Stuff like Ittle Dew tried the same thing and turned out pretty lame IMO.
 

BY2K

Membero Americo
Huh, that's literally Minish Cap's tileset. Or at least so heavily inspired it steps into plagiarism territory.

Not sure Nintendo will let that pass.

EDIT: Okay no, fuck it, it downright copies it.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Huh, that's literally Minish Cap's tileset. Or at least so heavily inspired it steps into plagiarism territory.

Not sure Nintendo will let that pass.

EDIT: Okay no, fuck it, it downright copies it.

Yeah, I was going to say holy shit that's close. Are those early screens or something though?
 
Huh, that's literally Minish Cap's tileset. Or at least so heavily inspired it steps into plagiarism territory.

Not sure Nintendo will let that pass.

EDIT: Okay no, fuck it, it downright copies it.

I don't see copied art. Heavily inspired by yes, but copied? no.


cap.jpg
 
One immediate way to make the game unique (other than using a better design for the MC...so bland) is to make the boomerang the main weapon and forego swords entirely. Base the entirety of the combat around it. Dual wield rangs, rang attacks that bounce off walls, tornadoes, black holes, heavy rangs with ropes attached to traverse canyons, etc.
 

Xemnas89

Member
Yeah the first thing that popped into my mind was that it looks like Minish Cap. I don't know if they are actually using minish cap assets but it's clear they were more than a little inspired by them.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Yeah those aren't MC assets but it looks very similar to them.

Which is a pretty good thing in my book. It looks beautiful.

I dunno, I mean, look at the layout of the branches on the pine trees. Identical between the two. That's just poor form IMO even if its not technically plagiarism.
 

Goody

Member
Relaunched? Was there a problem the first time?

Definitely more than Zelda inspired. It's the equivalent of changing a sentence's grammar around and calling it an original idea. I love me some clones of my favorite games (Neutopia, Golden Axe Warrior, etc) but in this day and age, it's not cute anymore. The bad feeling this gives me is worsened by the fact that this is a Kickstarter and they're already talking about DLC.
 

BY2K

Membero Americo
Still not sure Nintendo will let it pass if they become aware of it. It's like saying Mole Kart isn't a ripoff of Mario Kart Wii.

The trees for instance looks traced over and given more details.
 

Boem

Member
Meh, don't like stuff like this. Sure, it looks good, but it's basically stealing the hard work of other people. Hate it when people do this stuff. It's fine for free fangames, but when you're asking money for it, that's just sleezy. Reminds me of that Fester Mudd game by the guys who did the Larry remake - a lot of the spritework and animations where stolen from older Lucasarts Games, mostly Monkey 2. They got away with it though, but I'm guessing Nintendo won't be so easy to avoid - and this game is even far more obvious about it.
 
Backed. I absolutely love the style, and I want to see it succeed. And at $10, worth the risk of getting something bad.

I hope it does very well, and I look forward to playing it someday.
 

Nilaul

Member
Still not sure Nintendo will let it pass if they become aware of it. It's like saying Mole Kart isn't a ripoff of Mario Kart Wii.

The trees for instance looks traced over and given more details.

I know this is pretty random; but talking abour HDfying art I remember taking a tileset of the gameboy colour zelda game and hd-fying them by resizingand then using smudging tool. Had a really awesome watercolour/oil painting like look.
 

Galamauth

Member
Heavily inspired or straight up copied it looks EXACTLY like Minish Cap. You can achieve a cloned look without resorting to plagiarism and this is it.

People may call it a homage but when you're this close I don't think it even counts anymore. If you really can't include *any* of your own visual flair into a project I can't see myself getting excited for it.
 
An update from the KS page:

"As you're probably aware, we had a first kickstarter campaign back in December, through January of this year. At the time, gaming campaigns didn't really do well, and we were in a situation where the project would simply fail if we didn't get any support to keep working on the game. As it turns out, we've cancelled this first campaign after finding enough resources to keep pushing until we could come back.


During this first campaign, we did however get a few articles from small websites, some of which weren't really in a position to talk about the game and what we were doing.. But hey! "All publicity is good publicity", right? In our case, it wasn't. Once again, we would like to address the same untrue remarks about Midora's graphics:

The first thing everyone mentions is how similar Midora is compared to The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. It is true, Midora is very much inspired by The Minish Cap. It is a game that everyone in our team simply adores. It is our primary source of inspiration so yes, on the surface, the game does look a lot like it. But on the inside, it is inspired by much more than that. We are trying to bring something new to the table.


However some people claim that the graphics are literally from Minish Cap, and that Nintendo will "never allow Midora to be released" because of that. Sure, if you make a passing glance and played Minish Cap years ago, they might look identical. But all of Midora's graphics are original. There are no “placeholders” lifted from Minish Cap. None of Minish Cap's, or any assets from other games, have been used at all in the making of Midora's tiles, sprites, or any of the other graphics. We've whipped up a few comparisons to some of the specific claims to show you just how different they are.

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Left: Minish Cap's tile. Right: Midora's tiles.
Left: Minish Cap's tile. Right: Midora's tiles.
To reiterate, we're trying to look like Minish Cap, but in no way have simply reused the game's graphics. The style and colors used are certainly heavily inspired by the Zelda title, but the actual art is all original. If you're going to decry Midora for looking like Minish Cap, at least do it truthfully. There's nothing stolen, there's no placeholders. Our artist worked hard on the beautiful tiles that we have, so to simply dismiss it as being reused Minish Cap content isn't giving him the credit he deserves."
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Dont see the Secret of Mana influence. Seems purely like a Zelda clone.

Could be good. But maybe not. What's the dev's history?
 
Yeah, looks like they took the Minish Cap tiles, blew 'em up, and cleaned 'em up. The person who did it clearly has a lot of skill and technical knowledge. His alterations and original work in the screenshots also look fantastic. It's a shame they used Minish Cap as the foundation like this.

It's a great looking game, but the clear sprite edits hold it back, and it's colouring my perception of the game itself.
 

Metallix87

Member
Yeah, looks like they took the Minish Cap tiles, blew 'em up, and cleaned 'em up. The person who did it clearly has a lot of skill and technical knowledge. His alterations and original work in the screenshots also look fantastic. It's a shame they used Minish Cap as the foundation like this.

It's a great looking game, but the clear sprite edits hold it back, and it's colouring my perception of the game itself.

What do you mean, exactly?
 

Metallix87

Member
Sounds like he's saying "It's obvious that whoever made the graphics has a lot of skill, shame they didn't use it to create a more unique artstyle"

I get that, but why would that color his perception of the game? I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. Also, how are those graphics / art style holding the game back?
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
Saw the artstyle, immediately love it, is it coming to Wii U? Would be strange if it didnt.
 
What do you mean, exactly?
I get that, but why would that color his perception of the game? I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. Also, how are those graphics / art style holding the game back?
I mean I'm a pixel guy myself and I just can't accept things like this for a commercial product. It normally have seemed like a cool project with a talented spriter behind it, but now I've internally filed it in the same ranks as iOS Pokémon clones that also edit assets.

It's a shame, but I can't back it the way it is presented. I would have been this Kickstarter's target audience, but I'm not interested due to this, and I won't be shedding any tears if they don't meet their goal.
 
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