Saru Kani Panic - An action puzzle game for NES and FC

Hi all, this is Studio Work3, based in Tokyo.
I've worked on a lot of GB/GBA/SNES stuff in the past for various companies.

Myself and my programmer partner have recently started on an action puzzle game for FC and NES, the Japanese title is Saru Kani Panic. I'm doing the artwork, design and possibly music.

We will be taking pre orders for cartridge versions on kickstarter once the game is finished.

We'll show some gameplay and announce the English language title once we have more work done. Here's some WIP backgrounds.







You can follow us on twitter

http://twitter.com/work3studio/

More updates soon!

I've praised those screens on twitter, your art is incredibly good!!
off topic: Given that you've worked in the industry in the 90's I'd like to mention that we love to hear inside stories here, if you have any to share. Especially technical details like which tools were used, etc.

Thanks for posting, as this is your 1st post!

I'm wondering if you are a native english speaker since your english is very well written given that your location is in japan.

New games are always welcomed. Keep us posted. The artwork is great!

Yes, I am a native speaker, lived in Japan for a long time tho!

Thx for the kind words! I don`t get much encouragement at the dayjob!

It looks nice, that's for sure As for encouragement in Japan, I know what you means .. ^^;;;

Wow amazing work!

When do you think the game will be finished? Also, just curious, what other GB titles did you work on? Were they similar to this in style?

Dayum, that looks sweet! My first thought was that it looked very Kirby-esque, but then I remembered that FC/NES Kirby was actually a lot plainer than my nostalgia-tinted glasses keep telling me. So this is actually better, since it looks that good with the glasses off!

Intrigued to see what the characters and gameplay will be like, to go with backgrounds like that. The name and the second pic suggest some monkey business...?

(Also I say this every time someone posts new art, but I hope you've run that dithering through blargg's filter or actual hardware to make sure it's not ruined by composite artifacts. I assume you have, since you're aiming for a cart release, but it's easy to forget and hard to fix at the last minute.)

It will be finished when its done

Most of my old stuff was licensed crap that isn`t worth talking about! I occasionally post old work on my twitter account.

Thanks for the positive feedback! - I do occasional dumps to an everdrive cart via Ichr to check stuff.

As opposed to the unlicensed work that you'll be working on in the homebrew scene?

(To put it another way, do you consider Tengen's Road Runner licensed or unlicensed?)

Is it just me or did that come out as kind of offensive?

There's licensed crap and licensed coolness. One does not imply the other. The new homebrew game looks like original IP based on folklore anyway and there's no reason to believe it would be unlicensed use of other's IP if it was the case.

I was trying to refer to the overloading of the term "licensed" to mean both "adaptation of a movie or whatever" and "approved by the console maker." Road Runner for NES is the former but not the latter. Please help me identify what exactly was offensive about my previous post so that I may express things more tactfully.

I was referring to licensed IP, as is the usual sense of the word.

Now I am lost, too. I assume IP means some sort of intellectual property? And licensed, well, that does all depend on whom has licensed it...
Licensed by the console manufacturer, eg a cart with official CIC chip.
Licensed by a another game developer, eg when porting graphics or source code to another console..
Licensed by an author, eg with characters, titles, or storyline from a book or movie.
Licensed by yourself, eg a shareware program.
Anyways, if your new project isn't licensed, then maybe it doesn't matter so much how to define licensing : )

Yes, it's confusing, as I've written elsewhere. But the common meaning of "IP" in customer-facing parts of the video game industry, such as marketing and reviews, is what you defined as "Licensed by an author, eg with characters, titles, or storyline from a book or movie."