Could there be a new game on the way from Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi? A new website drops some teasing clues...
NewsKickstarter's provided a number of veteran developers with a means of getting their latest games off the ground, whether it's David Braben's Elite: Dangerous or Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9- his spiritual successor to the classic Mega Man.
Koji Igarashi, the creator behind Konami's Castlevania series, could be the latest to head down the crowdfunding path. Earlier today, Tyrone Rodriguez - the founder of indie developer and publisher Nicalis - tweeted a link to a new website, swordorwhip.com.
Follow the link, and you're currently confronted with something like this:
The choice between a sword or a whip is a clear reference to the Castlevania series, and the chap seated at his gothic-looking throne appears to be modelled on Igarashi himself.
See those runes behind Igarashi's head? Those first emerged at last year's Penny Arcade Expo, where a leaflet was handed out to attendees of a panel devoted to Inafune's Mighty No. 9. According to Siliconera, those runes were soon decrypted, yielding the legend, "What a wonderful night to have a KS."
The KS is, surely, short for Kickstarter. Could this mean that Nicalis and Igarashi are teaming up for a spiritual sequel to the early Castlevania games? While nothing's been formally announced as yet, it seems almost certain that a crowdfunding campaign is imminent - the hashtag near the bottom of the screen, #igvania, provides a further hint.
There's also a further clue in another message on the site. Click on either the sword or the whip, and the words, "This is not my true form - two dimensions were never strong enough to hold me" appears on the screen, along with a number of other cryptic lines ("Your vote counts. For something"). The reference to two dimensions could be a suggestion that the game will be a 3D reworking of Castlevania's mechanics, though this is mere conjecture at this stage.
Igarashi left Konami last year. With Hideo Kojima recently making a similar exodus, is he likely to be heading to Kickstarter soon as well?
