Retro-Style Indie Game King Voxel On Kickstarter

^[1]Ottawa indie developer Phillip Meyer ^[1] has launched a Kickstarter campaign ^[2] for his retro-style indie PC game King Voxel. With $ 686.00 raised thus far, Meyer is hoping to meet his goal of $ 20 000.00 by the campaign’s end date on December 4th. King Voxel captures the magic of games like “The Legend of Zelda” but adds a world generator and lots of Volume Elements – or, voxels – with a focus on fun gameplay and replayability. King Voxel is also on Steam Greenlight ^[3].
On the campaign page, Meyer states “I always loved nonlinear sandbox action adventure games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid that featured fighting and action but also required you to find keys to gain access to new areas and weapon upgrades. My favorite Atari 2600 game Adventure featured random item placement at the start of a quest. This kept the game fresh and fun for a very long time. The Legend of Zelda is one of my all time favorite games. This game was truly worthy of its golden cartridge. The only problem with Zelda is that I played it so much that I pretty much had the game memorized and knew where to find all the items. I wanted to make a very special game – King Voxel – that captures the replayability of Adventure and the magic of The Legend of Zelda and adds my own unique ideas … like laser glasses, giant beasts made out of acidic ice cream, and of course awesome voxel graphics.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AklEFyOM_R0]

The game begins after bad guy Lord Hellion has conquered the kingdom of Voxelot, transformed the kingdom with his enchantment, stolen the royal treasures, and kidnapped Queen Voxel.  It is up to the game’s hero, King Voxel, the king who fights like a warrior poet, to undo Hellion’s treachery. There is a plethora of enemies who will try to prevent King Voxel from completing his quest, but as the King visits every corner of his kingdom he finds bits of the Royal Treasure, some of which will help him defeat his enemies by shoring up his armour and weaponry or access certain areas on the map.

The final game will have all the following features:

• accessible gameplay that focuses on combat and treasure hunting
• unique cell shaded voxel graphics
• iconic retro styled items and characters
• world generator allowing for as many unique quests as you wish
• professional music quality
• 3rd person and 1st person camera controls

In addition, Meyer adds that “Gameplay and controls are the most important aspects of any game, so I want all King Voxel players to enjoy a butter smooth gameplay experience that is challenging but not frustrating. To keep frustration to a minimum, I’ve implemented the following features in King Voxel:”

• The fortune teller can reveal the location of the next treasure item
• Pushing on the corner of a block will make you slide past it
• Map indicates castles that still contain treasure
• Flashing gates indicate remaining treasure
• You cannot complete a castle without getting its treasure first
• You can evacuate a castle at any time (with the right item)
• Warp gates can instantly warp you to previously visited locations
• Keyboard supported but controls designed for an XBox360 controller
• X and Y camera axis controls are invertible