Jester’s Quest announced

Fendi of Slovakian indie studio Cybernautic writes in to tell me about a new metroidvania he’s developing called Jester’s Quest.

The premise:

Jester’s Quest is metroidvania pixelart platformer where you have to save the kingdom with the pixie helpers and a killer unicorn. Jester’s main weapon – pogocello can smash enemies into bloody parts in easy two button combat system and you can also upgrade himself, weapon and pixies.

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering what on earth a “pogocello” is right about now–so I’ve saved you a few precious seconds by Googling it. Go on, read. Got it? Okay, now back to the game.

Despite the fact that Jester’s Quest’s graphics will consist almost entirely of pixel art and frame-by-frame animations, Cybernautic are creating the game in Unreal Engine 4.

Fendi states that there is not a single word written anywhere in Jester’s Quest–all communication occurs iconographically through sequences of symbols, in a language he refers to as “ikontalk.” You can see a bit of that in the game’s teaser trailer:

The game’s official page describes other planned features:

• Jester with his main weapon – pogocello, can attack enemies with two buttons combo style combat system. You can link primary attack (damage dealer) with secondary (radial damage or block breaker) and mix them together with multiple secondary weapons like magic cards or “jack in the box” bombs or with special fairies attacks.

• Pixies are small fairy tale fairies which will help jester on his quest. They have special abilities like lockpick, repair or summon light and also special attacks like fireball, lightning or poison. They can also charge jester’s pogocello up to five tiers so he can unleash all the energy in it with a devastating blow.

• And did I mentioned that jester can ride a killer unicorn? Oooh yeah. This fantasy beast beats everyone with its magic horn. But will be jester able to tame it?

So yeah. Suffice it to say that this game looks quirky as all hell. Jester’s Quest is being developed for Windows; it’s currently planned for release sometime in the second quarter of 2018.