French studio Game Atelier and Lizardcube are working to bring back "Wonder Boy." Two different titles will be coming up - "Wonder Boy and the Cursed Kingdom" and "Monster Boy: The Dragon's Trap." The two "Wonder Boy" games will be coming out in celebration of the franchise's 30th anniversary.
"Wonder Boy" is a classic Sega franchise that began in 1986. The platformer was well loved by gamers for years until the last one, "Monster World IV" came out in 1994. Digital versions of the game also released in 2012 for PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Wii, but there has not been any related project since. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the platformer, creator RyuichiNishizawa gave his approval for Game Atelier to create "Wonder Boy and the Cursed Kingdom," and Lizardcube to create "Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap," respectively.
Kotaku wrote that "Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom" is a passion project that developed from Game Atelier's Kickstarter pitch for the game "Flying Hamster II: Knight of the Golden Seed." With the support of FDG Entertainment, "Flying Hamster II" developed into "Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze" in 2015, and was subsequently renamed. "Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap" by Lizardcube is a full remake of the 1989 "Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap," which launched on the Master System.
Sega approved the project and DotEmu will be the game publisher. Both Game Atelier and Gamecube are based in Paris. Game Atelier's lead programmer, David Bellanco, and Lizardcube founder, Omar Cornut, are actually friends and fans of the "Wonder Boy" franchise. According to Bellanco, most of the sprite animation in "Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom" features classic 2D frames drawn by their animators, processed via their in-house animation tool. In "Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap," Photoshop was used to animate the game characters. The inspiration for the cartoon-style drawings differ, giving a feel of both 80s gaming and French comics.
Gamasutra noted that generally a main character has 50 to 60 unique frames, while an enemy has about 30, all of which are hand-drawn to showcase the traditional approach. According to the game creators, their initial target is to make a faithful remake of "Wonder Boy." The game is expected to release early in 2017 on PC and consoles.