Speaking of mid-bosses, this is one of the highlights showing the game’s milestone. Even though it’s not a massive boss, we still want somewhat of an impact. That’s how several room guardians have grown larger in size when compared to the original version. Also, some of the older designs have changed along the way.

The room guardian’s size is big so, unlike the small enemies, the shape must be firmly decided before creation. Otherwise it’d never be high-quality. We can’t just go for an attractive design, but must consider things like movement of segmented characters and economizing parts.

Within the movies we’ve shown up until now, there are room guardians made by multi-joint, segmented construction called [ Algos ] and [ Buell ]. Actually, there are people who don’t like this, but there’s a good reason for it.

We can understand the opinions regarding the departure from the retro game feel of the original. If you think about games coming out in this era, simply doubling the size of smaller enemies would be quite ugly.

Furthermore, this time around the animation of smaller characters is much more details with more patterns and design than the original game. The fear is that if the room guardians movement is as rich as the smaller enemies, then the image data would look quite cumbersome and a bit overkill.

With that, the image milestones were made and the segmented construction was adopted to enhance the rich animation. This time, the aim of the new La-Mulana itself is the evolution of a 2D game, so we thought it was natural to put in the segmented characters.

That means there are several things such as graphics adjustments, but all the program for normal enemy is done.
Thanks to the lengthy development schedule for the original La-Mulana, it became a game with unnecessary and unwieldy volume. There were loads of small characters. However, there was not enough time or ideas, so they would be enemies that just walk around, or there were several meaningless enemies that wouldn’t even bother you.

The basis for the new La-Mulana is the same as the original version, but with the added fixes. The changes made to attacks and movement, large-scale changes, the game has become a version upgrade from the retro game-like movement and display to a new environments.

Well then, let’s take this opportunity to introduce a few of them.

First is the <<>>. The attack has not changed, but the movement is aggressive.

Everyone’s favorite cat ball, <<>>, who falls off his ball.
He looks cute when tripping and the ball goes flying, but it’s not advised to get too close to him. That can be dangerous.

The hippopotamus was unimpressive in the original version. When seizing professors in water, it swims at high speeds and hits with its body.

Others would be naga that holds unlimited spears, the sakusi who is able to evade the professor’s attacks, lizardmen who holds attack patterns impossible for normal enemy characters, etc. I believe people who have played the original version can once again play La-Mulana with a new feeling. Or rather, maybe they would enjoy it from seeing the differences of what they knew.

Well then, the creation of the mountain high load of RoomGuarders and Guardians will begin.

First, I’d like you to remember the basis of the sub-weapon in the original version of La-Mulana. Remember, La-Mulana is a game created so that it can be conquered and cleared with only a sub-weapon. So, please think of the new sub-weapon as an extra. It’s not like you can’t beat a guardian or solve a puzzle without it. Think of it as being a variation to the path of the ruins.

Well then, the first of the newly added weapon is one of the ninja weapon, Makibishi.
We made this simply to have something to attack with that was not in the original version. You throw it behind you.
The thrown makibishi rolls on the ground and remains on the ground.
This will give damage to enemies who step on it.
This is thought to be used against enemies chasing after you to step on or enemies with shields to step on.

The other one is the chakram.

I think this was a weapon from India. There was a discussion to have a boomerang type sub-weapon, but a boomerang would not fit well with ruins, so we decided on a chakram. Even if it’s thrown, it returns to back to the Professor. It still follows even if you jump. If you catch this returning chakram, the number of bullets won’t decrease. On the other hand, if you get too in to it and throw the chakram while jumping around, it will fly outside of the screen. You would use it to attack enemies with shields from behind. Regardless, this is an enjoyable weapon.

Speaking of which, there was something that was changed within the sub-weapons in the original game. The distance of the muzzle is
shorter. But it explodes like fireworks. The existence of the throwing knife is gone. There’s no way something like that would roll on the ground while flipping, so it was changed to a wheel-shuriken.

Now we can rest assure and roll on the ground. And it climbed up the slope.

Honestly, we thought maybe there wouldn’t be any use for new weapons in the already complete world of the original version. But a player betrays the developers’ intentions. There were several in the original version, but we look forward to seeing people who conquer by using these new weapons in unimaginable ways to appear.

Surely, his knowledge of La-Mulana must be fairly comprehensive since he is able to clear the game in such a short time,.
This play test is on an incomplete pre-alpha version and there were no major bugs or misses, so we had the functional feel of the basic game checked.

He said, “It doesn’t seem to have any problem for the action.” Again,
citing his comment, “My feeling from playing it is this is an easy-to-play La-Mulana. This is it. It doesn’t have the ‘8-bit parts’
such as needing an MSX cartridge to save so it’s much friendlier.
I’mnot saying that it’s a sell-out, but rather that this is still the real La-Mulana.
With this even people who may have been frustrated with the original version will be fine.”

Those who liked the functional feel of the original version can rest assured. There are a few changes made to adjust to current game
circumstances, but the sense of exploration and adventure you get from playing the game is the same. I believe those who played the original version will easily adjust to it.

The bugs and requests found during this test play is currently being examined. I would like to have more people test play, but this is quite difficult to accomplish. Some day I would like to find a way to hold an event to have people from overseas test out the game before it launches.

LA-MULANA was elected by the article “Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2010″ in the Wii section of 1UP.com.

I stayed at home in the time to clean the whole house at the end of the year and the new year, because I’m just scared of my wife.
If a man doesn’t earn, he could only follow his wife… How about America?

Finally, it becomes the year LA-MULANA is released as it’s starting new year.
Of course, I can’t tell that it would be in this spring or this winter.

the on-sale date is not sure, because we can’t decided it for our own convenience.
However, we left only about one month to develop LA-MULANA.
We have already finished making without a demo and bosses. We believe that.

The date will be officially announced soon after finishing our development.
Then, we are going to develop download contents and start promoting LA-MULANA.
It means new pictures and movies would be announced one after another. probably.
The game which I made a couple years ago as my hoby is loved by people all over the world, and it is about to come to be in major market. I don’t know that in oversea countries, at least in japan, it’s a rare case which such a small creative group produce a game by theirselves in 3 years without supporting by big company.

we don’t have a power which we change game industry by ourselves. but, we’ll do our best as the group who make a different game from others.
If we succeed to make this way, I guess the people followed us would be coming and make another stream in this game industry.

This year would be the first year of that. we are going to develop LA-MULANA and announce lots of information playfully like a festival until releasing it. So, let’s jump up!!

I wish that it’d never end.

I’m pretty sure there are some of you who may have already noticed, but La-Mulana will be releasing next year.
What’s that you say? I told you winter of 2009? Oh, and it’s on the top page? You should really check the top page. I don’t see anything written there mentioning 2009!

Now then, since this erroneous release date has been settled this is more of a year-end greeting.
Discussions about La-Mulana on WiiWare were stirred last year, but the development didn’t actually start until spring of this year.
That means we’ve been developing La-Mulana now for over a half year.

Anyway, we decided this year to release the game on the WiiWare service.
It’s been difficult living and working while lacking enough budget or time.

But…

With this announcement of La-Mulana, I believe that, although it’s a small announcement, we can really kick start NIGORO as a console game development company.

And for those of you who are considering to buy a Wii to play La-Mulana, we’re working hard everyday for you. Our aim is to have at least one stable release each half year from next year.

So, if you buy a Wii, you’ll be able to continue enjoying NIGORO games. Please look forward to the next year!

But, I feel sorry about that. I upload the movie which the player is walking
around fields in current developing version.

Developing stage is in the homestretch.
How much can we make an improvement in the time we have left?
I wish Santa Claus would give us completed completed product.

La-Mulana was praised by many players, but on the other hand, there was voice that it was quite vicious. One of the reasons, I believe ,is that there weren’t enough explanations. That’s when we thought about developing this elder’s hint system.

This time, in the newly implemented laptop software menu, if part of the software is loaded a special application can be executed. In there is a thing called “xelpud mailer“.
It’s a piece of software, created by the elder, which is a one way mail from him–you can receive, but not send. When loaded, you will receive mail from the elder which include specific sight or puzzle solutions, info about items and hints directly from the elder. You can think of it as similar to the wireless call in Metal Gear.

New players will be able to read the mail and learn about new operations while advanced players can ignore these altogether. I don’t like the implementation of the game progress stopping in an action game to display an explanation, so I decided to do this method.

Of course, we’re talking about that elder, so there may be some junk mail, but try to be nice and appeal to the elderly.

The main role of the elder’s mail is to provide hints by explaining about items or game functions, such as one-way doors and the function of grabbing onto walls. Since La-Mulana’s settings and puzzle solutions are vast, I thought it would be good to have a character knowledgeable of the ruins that can help.

This is a new character. Duplex-san said, “we need to add more female characters” so that’s her role. This person sleeps in the field with the purpose of helping the chosen one take on the puzzles in the ruins.The name’s Mulbruk.

Fans of the original version may figure out the identity of this person from the name.

Don’t think that NIGORO has lost it’s touch to add a pretty and young female character just to level up in appeal. This person’s dialogue is almost done, but the personality isn’t a success yet. Don’t worry, that’s just the usual NIGORO.

This is something we just changed, but we fixed the image of the needle in the ruins. That’s because the specification of the needle has greatly changed:

- As long as you don’t fall from the top to upward needle, you won’t receive damage.
- If you walk along the side, you won’t receive damage.
- If you fall from the top and at one point stand in the needle, or as long
as you don’t jump on top of the needle you will not receive damage.
- In exchange, one damage from the needle will take about 1/5 of your
health.

This is in response to how many players felt that “there is no point in the
needle when the health increase in the latter half.” With this, you can
easily die any time in the latter half of the game.

The opportunities of players dying have increased, for example, being
crushed from becoming pinned to a moving wall. This is not to increase the
level of difficulty, but is a specification that was changed following other
specification changes.

In the original version players could only save at the Elder’s tent above
ground, but this time we’re planning to make it so players can continue from
the last holy grail monument that was touched. Basically, the areas where
players can easily die have increased, but it’s also easier to start over.

Another popular user opinion was, “it’s a hassle to save up money in the
beginning & in the latter half there’s too much money left over”. This time,
the game rom that was in the original version is gone so those hidden places
have become places with nothing. We’re planning to place hidden treasures in
those places. That means that there will be places where 50G to 100G more
than in the original version would be hidden.

There were also specification changes to the money in the pots so that they
have had their contents removed once will be empty. Even if you save and
load, it will not return. In exchange, the pots will also sometimes have
about 3-5G. I believe that with the increase of locations with hidden money
it will be a little easier to collect money in the beginning, but this will
not resolve the issue of money leftover in the latter half.

So for that, this time most of the weapon’s bullets will not be in the pots.
weights will also rarely appear. Please buy them at the store. And please
take advantage of the people in the pleasant store.

These things will be balanced for the first time once the game is complete
and constantly repeating test plays so please believe in NIGORO and
patiently wait.