Every time I see my SNES gathering dust in the back of the closet, I get a little teary-eyed. In the early 1990s, that piece of grey-and-purple plastic was a better friend than most of my skin-and-bones acquaintances. But when the N64 hit the market, the SNES was tucked into a box, and we haven't spent a lot of quality time together since.
But thanks to a Kickstarter project by the folks at collectorvision.com, that old-school console will once again find its way to the center of my entertainment system. A 16-bit title called "Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death" is making its way to the Super Nintendo.
Here's how CollectorVision describes the title on its Kickstarter page (via Siliconera):
Armed only with his trusty boomerang, Sydney must navigate dark caverns while avoiding bats, ghosts, hot lava and other obstacles. If you can survive all 10 caverns, you will be able to win your freedom.
Essentially, it's a 16-bit Indiana Jones platformer. In fact, the Kickstarter video includes several crystal skulls. See for yourself:
This isn't the first time that the folks at CollectorVision have tackled a retro-themed release. Actually, they have dozens of titles under their belts, but only two of them are SNES compatible. The vast majority of CollectorVision's games were released on the ColecoVision, a contemporary of the Atari 2600. Though, a handful were made for the Intellivision, Atari 2600, and the TI-99.
The Kickstarter is only five days old, but it's already hit the $11,000 mark, which is a thousand bucks more than the campaign's goal. And with 55 days left on the clock, there's a really good chance that CollectorVision will managed to hit a few of its stretch goals.
Hopefully, the pledges will pass 40K, because then we'll get an Xbox One edition.
According to CollectorVision, Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death won't hit the market until early next year. But if you're the impatient type, I have some good news. The company is releasing another SNES title in June.
Justice Beaver, which was successfully crowd-funded last year, follows a heroic beaver as he makes his way through four "challenging levels with colorful graphics." The title was originally going to be a Rick Dangerous clone, but the gaming community complained, sending CollectorVision back to the drawing board.
It's difficult to tell if Justice Beaver and Sydney Hunter will stand up to SNES powerhouses like Super Mario World and Mega Man X. Though, that's not really the point, is it? These games don't have to be particularly good. They just need to tickle the nostalgic portions of our brains, and makes us giggle. So, in that sense, they're already successful.
