Furry Legends is an upcoming platformer for WiiWare, developed by Gamelion Studios. It has a striking visual style that should stand out on the service, and also has crabs that communicate via emoticons. Do you need anything else? Well, if you do, Gamelion’s Lukasz Szczepanski, producer of Furry Legends, answered a few of our questions about the game. You should probably do some soul-searching if the crabs alone aren’t doing it for you, but make sure to read this first.

BLAST: Why don’t we start by having you tell us about Gamelion Studios?

Lukasz Szczepanski: Gamelion was founded in 2002 and currently employs around 100 people in total, across all departments and two main production studios in Poland. Although most of our work in the past was done for mobile devices (including iPhone), we always were working with a multi-platform approach and entering the Wii-market was a natural move for us. Begining this year, we’ve been also approved by Sony for PlayStation development and you can also expect later this year games from us on those platforms.

BLAST: Furry Legends is a platformer, a genre that (sadly) does not seem to get the same kind of love this generation as it has in the past. What prompted you to make a platformer, and why on WiiWare?

LS: We felt that platformers are great games, which can be appreciated by a large public. These are classic, and timeless games. Both new, and adult players love them, so we wanted to breathe something new into the genre. WiiWare was our choice because of accessibility and ease of development. We wanted to create a simple game and distribute it digitally. WiiWare has low entry barriers and it’s not crowded like XBLA, it was an ideal match for us. In addition, the public much more casual-oriented, which is our target market.

BLAST: What’s the background story for Furry Legends? How does the game play?

LS: The background story for Furry Legends revolves around an ancient grudge and vengeance. The furry tribe is attacked by enemies who hold something against them. Our main character has to fight the invaders and find a solution to end this conflict.

BLAST: This is, visually, one of the best looking games on the WiiWare service, and it looks to have a lot of personality. Personally, it reminds me of the bright colors and designs you normally associate with N64-era Rareware , which is a positive. Did you have any specific influences for style?

LS: Thanks, it’s great to hear some praise! We have worked hard on our graphics, both on technical and the artistic side. We were certainly inspired by Lost Winds, and sometimes maybe too inspired. Around alpha, when we have shown our first screenshots, people accused us of copying Lost Winds as a whole, and that wasn’t a good feedback really. We stepped back, saw what went wrong and adjusted our art direction to create something more unique and original. I think we have managed to achieve this pretty well. Sure, some people will still compare us to Lost Winds, but only because we’re two awesome looking platformers on WiiWare 😉

BLAST: What kind of games do you play when you aren’t making them?

LS: It really depends on who you ask in the team. Personally I play stuff from World of Warcraft, through Guitar Hero and DJMAX, through puzzle and casual games, ending with old school RPGs and FPS games. Other guys are playing fighting games and a bit of each genre really. We have a very broad set of experience in the games and we draw inspiration from it every day.

BLAST: When should we expect Furry Legends to be available for purchase? Are there any other projects you would like to let our readers know about today, or something you want to make sure everyone knows about Furry Legends?

LS: We’re aiming for 4th Quarter of 2009 with our game. We do have plans for future titles, but I can’t say anything right now. In addition, soon you’ll see some Gamelion games on DSiWare, so if you have a DSi, keep your eyes open!

About The Author

Marc Normandin was gaming editor of Blast from 2008 to mid-2010. You can reach him via e-mail at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter @Marc_Normandin

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