Merchant Crow to win best new character 2015
Metroidvanias are totally in vogue right now, but a lot of the time (as with Ghost Song or ReVeN), they feel more Metroid than ‘Vania. Not so with Timespinner. Former Bungie employee and founder of Lunar Ray Games Bodie Lee cites Castlevania as an influence, and it shows in the Gothic architecture and dark tones. Heck, the backgrounds in one section look extremely similar to the Underground Cavern in Symphony of the Night.
Before you go rushing to the comments to scream “rip-off” (this warning has come too late, I know), Timespinner will feature a gameplay mechanic that sets it apart from the PS1 classic, as well as from its contemporaries. The protagonist Lunais obtains the ability to stop time, which aids not only in combat, but in platforming and puzzle-solving as well. One example of this can be seen in animated GIF form below, in which she freezes time to use a weird bird head on a spring as a platform. Smart.
One thing I can really appreciate about this Kickstarter campaign, past the retro-beautiful pixel art and the fact that I’m a sucker for metroidvanias in general, is that Bodie has put a good amount of support into the Kickstarter community already. This is the first project he has created, but he has backed more than 25 others, including stuff we are looking forward to like Heart Forth, Alicia, Paradise Lost: First Contact, and Rain World. It may seem trivial, but it means a lot to see a developer who supports crowdfunding himself before taking his idea to it.
