Canari Games, the developer of the excellent cinematic platformer Lunark, has just announced an adorable new retro adventure game that is coming to PC, and the Steam page for it is now live.
Castaway, as the project is called, is described on the Steam page as a "short and sweet adventure the allure of pixel art blends with accessibility for all ages". It sees players take control of an adventurer named Martin, whose spaceship has crashlanded on an uncharted island.
After his beloved pet companion is taken by a bunch of hostile creatures, the young adventurer has no choice but to tool up and set out across the world, in the hopes of saving the day and rescuing his kidnapped friend.
According to the developers, the game will have a short "story mode", which will feature a couple of additional difficulty options including "a pacifist mode" and a challenging "unfair mode." There will also be a dedicated speedrun mode too, for those who want to further test their abilities, as well as the potential to unlock a "survivor mode" where players must ascend a 50-floor tower filled with deadly trials and enemies.
Judging from the island setting and the design of some of the assets, it's pretty clear the game is a deliberate homage to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Game Boy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in our books.
Link's Awakening is one of our favourite Zelda games of all time and this looks to take the central premise of that game and run with it, promising some beautiful sprite work, hummable 8-bit inspired tunes, and even some refreshing new items like a pickaxe.
Sadly, it would seem that a Switch port isn't in the developer's plans – at least not for the time being, anyway:
If you want to support the project, you can wishlist it now on Steam!