Kickstarter: Project Giana (The Great Giana Sisters)

[psoslayer]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pro ... ject-giana

$3,199
pledged of $150,000 goal

31
days to go

[Op Intensify]

Oh great, another random Shitstarter thread.

There was already a Giana remake on DS, wasn't that enough for the Commodore nostalgists? It was never anything more than a shameless ripoff of SMB with broken controls (and homing fireballs...LOL), anyway. Well, I guess there was the music at least.

I can't believe people haven't run out of money yet to throw at these things. Most of which will almost certainly be endlessly delayed.

Also, those are some rancid character designs. They look like Farmville inhabitants who just discovered Hot Topic and MTV.

[emphatic]

If only they based this on a game that's actually good.

[EmperorIng]

You know I actually liked the character designs of the Giana DS remake. Very cute and appropriate for the game. Too bad said game was as easy as pie. It wasn't Kirby Epic Yarn easy but it was a cakewalk.

Those character designs on the video-thumbnail are less likable. Not cartoonish enough - kind of like how today's audiences want "realism" in their cartoon characters so we get hideously deformed creations, which those giana models seem to reference. I hope they end up changing them - they're ugly, to be frank!

I'm a sucker for 2D platformers though, so I hope there are those crazed Giana fans out there that want to fund this. The video makes it seem pretty cool, at least.

I'm pretty sure there was a homebrew Giana sisters game for the Dreamcast, as well. Giana's Return was its name.

This series sure won't stay dead, that's for sure.

And if you're annoyed by kickstarters, at least it's got a bit more going for it than the Bad Dudes 2 kickstarter!

[Friendly]

From what I gather, this is by the Spellbound guys who also created Giana Sisters DS, of course minus Armin Gessert, who died in late 2009.
And Huelsbeck is on board. So this is as close as you'll get to a new official Giana Sisters game.

I think this has a good chance of succeding. Now we need a kickstarter for a new official Turrican game.

[Raytrace]

we need a kickstater for Chris Roberts to make Wing Commander VI :p - though I'd settle for Freelancer 2

[psoslayer]

Now we need a kickstarter for a new official Turrican game.

This.

[Friendly]

Backed, by the way.

[neorichieb1971]

Pretty awesome visuals.

[EmperorIng]

Yes, aside from my griping about the character art, the levels themselves look quite purty.

[Friendly]

Yes, aside from my griping about the character art

Back when the DS game was released I didn't think they were all that, but the character designs grew on me. At least it's not your generic animuh-wannabe crap that every other video game uses nowadays.

[EmperorIng]

Well, if you looked at my earlier post in the topic, you'd see that I too liked the DS art, saying, (and I quote!) that it was "cute and appropriate."

The faces on these renders in that video thumbnail (and elsewhere) just seem to smack a bit too much dreamworks crap. In that sense I prefer the DS designs.

Already at 16 Gs (ha ha pun) in one day? Maybe they'll pull this one off after all.

[Friendly]

New gameplay video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je_xDGid1hM

@EmperorIng
I totally agree concerning the designs.

[psoslayer]

The world/music switching sounded interesting but seems to be incredible anooying during gameplay.

[Marc]

I really enjoyed the iOS version, does that have anything to do with the DS one or are they two different games? Either way, the C64 versions was Super Mario Suck for those that couldn't afford £45 a cart.

[Ghegs]

That was a pretty cool video, actually. I liked the world/music switching, was certainly interesting to watch someone who knows what they're doing go through it quickly. And props for using Machinae Supremacy.

[antares]

ios and ds versions are basically the same game.

so, am i the only one who loves the original giana sisters game? i always thought it's the superior game to smb, more interesting level design, better music, more power ups, just cooler overall
also i never understood why this game was pulled off the shelves. copying game ideas and designs was quite common at the time and there were a ton of other games that were much more obviously rip-offs of popular games, but thats another story.

for this new game i hope it turns out more of a challenge than the ds game. that one was clearly aimed at children in terms of difficulty.

[psoslayer]

No I like them too, they're not bad at all... and music was waybetter than mario.

Hard n Heavy was nice as well.

[Shatterhand]

ios and ds versions are basically the same game.

so, am i the only one who loves the original giana sisters game? i always thought it's the superior game to smb, more interesting level design, better music, more power ups, just cooler overall
also i never understood why this game was pulled off the shelves. copying game ideas and designs was quite common at the time and there were a ton of other games that were much more obviously rip-offs of popular games, but thats another story.

They were copying Super Mario Bros and they made no secret of it, the cover of the game even said something to the lines of "The brothers are now history!"

I think Nintendo just threatened legal action and Rainbow Arts got afraid of fighiting a giant japanese monster at time.

Its funny how a game that wasn't sold for barely more than 24 hours is so well known. Piracy is a funny thing.

[Herr Schatten]

ios and ds versions are basically the same game.

so, am i the only one who loves the original giana sisters game? i always thought it's the superior game to smb, more interesting level design, better music, more power ups, just cooler overall
also i never understood why this game was pulled off the shelves. copying game ideas and designs was quite common at the time and there were a ton of other games that were much more obviously rip-offs of popular games, but thats another story.

They were copying Super Mario Bros and they made no secret of it, the cover of the game even said something to the lines of "The brothers are now history!"

I think Nintendo just threatened legal action and Rainbow Arts got afraid of fighiting a giant japanese monster at time.

I think Nintendo wouldn't really have noticed if the first level of TGGS wasn't actually a 1:1 copy of stage 1 from SMB. Ignoring that Rainbow Arts copied the first level and the basic mechanics, TGGS felt actually really different, when you started playing it. The way the characters handle couldn't really be much more different. (Mario = faster movement, slightly floaty controls; Giana = moves like a tank, but very precise controls.)

Anyway, even if it has little to do with the original game, I'm vaguely interested in this. Also:

And props for using Machinae Supremacy.

[Friendly]

Yeah, except for the layout of the very first level, Great Giana Sisters and Super Mario are really nothing alike. It's not the same as this case: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=42427
By the way, there never was a lawsuit of Nintendo vs. Rainbow Arts. Nintendo simply pressured them behind the scenes into removing the game from stores.

I really like Great Giana Sisters, I think the Amiga game is the best version of the original game. Best music, too. The Atari port is the worst: It features no scrolling; the screen just flicks.

[Herr Schatten]

I really like Great Giana Sisters, I think the Amiga game is the best version of the original game.

Interesting. I actually prefer the C64 version. IMO, it played (very) slightly better than the Amiga port. But yeah, Atari ST version was the worst. IIRC, it didn't even have proper scrolling.

[antares]

Same problem as with many Atari ST games as it lacks hardware scrolling and hardware sprites but aside from the screen flipping it's equal to the Amiga version.
I also prefer the C64 version because the controls feel a little tighter than on the other versions.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I really like the graphics ( I guess I can ignore the hot topic fagginess of the character designs) and that one level looked solid from a game designing perspective. One thing that would probably annoy the hell out of me is the music changing whenever you go to the dark dimension or whatever and back, so if they fix that and put it on XBLA I will sure spend money on it. It's not like there are that many quality jump'n runs nowadays.

[louisg]

I tend to really like euro action games, having grown up with the C64 and Amiga. But I just don't see what makes Giana Sisters good. It sorta seems like a not very good SMB clone to me. Maybe if I hadn't played the NES one I would've liked it.

With Turrican, I felt like it was different enough from Metroid to be interesting. Same with Denaris/Katakis and R-Type. I'm not feeling that with Giana Sisters though.

Yeah, except for the layout of the very first level, Great Giana Sisters and Super Mario are really nothing alike. It's not the same as this case: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=42427

I.. I don't really see it. It's exactly like if you took SMB and remade it with programmer-art enemy design (like "here's a ball that bounces in place!") and without good attention to detail (like the way the collisions work, and you can actually see enemies falling off the side of the screen as it scrolls IIRC).

[EmperorIng]

However, I would say that the DS game (and more so this latest iteration) the "series" has done more and more to distinguish itself as something more than "a SMB clone."

[Marc]

I really like Great Giana Sisters, I think the Amiga game is the best version of the original game.

Interesting. I actually prefer the C64 version. IMO, it played (very) slightly better than the Amiga port. But yeah, Atari ST version was the worst. IIRC, it didn't even have proper scrolling.

You learn something new every day. Flick screen? Damn that sucks. I remember plying a home conversion of Pac Land that did the same, you could get hit by enemies as you were about to exit a screen, that blew as well.

[Friendly]

Because several people were asking for a reward tier offering a physical copy, they just annouced that they will

[Friendly]

Update: New reward tiers added; you can now get a physical copy for $60 USD. The physical copy isn't included in higher or lower tiers.

JEWEL EDITION – The new $60 tier gives you a jewel case containing the game, the soundtrack and the art book on DVD, plus a backer pin in addition to the contents of the DIGITAL PACK* (with free shipping worldwide as normal). Like the digital pack, this tier isn’t included in later tiers and doesn’t contain previous tiers.

*(The DIGITAL PACK – The new $40 tier offers a package consisting of a DRM-free copy of the game, a digital version of the soundtrack, a digital version of the artbook and the early level sneak peek. This new tier isn’t included in later tiers and doesn’t contain previous tiers.)

[Shatterhand]

I really like Great Giana Sisters, I think the Amiga game is the best version of the original game.

Interesting. I actually prefer the C64 version. IMO, it played (very) slightly better than the Amiga port. But yeah, Atari ST version was the worst. IIRC, it didn't even have proper scrolling.

You learn something new every day. Flick screen? Damn that sucks. I remember plying a home conversion of Pac Land that did the same, you could get hit by enemies as you were about to exit a screen, that blew as well.

Spectrum and MSX versions had flick screen. It was my first contact with Pacland and I loved the game. Imagine how I felt when I first saw the arcade game