It’s been a long time since White Ninja Studio gave us an update on its side-scrolling shmup Irena: Genesis Meta Fury. In fact, it’s been over five months. For a while it appeared that Irena was going to go the way of Cyber Mission and other promising Genesis titles that somehow fizzled out after completing their Kickstarter campaigns. Since White Ninja kind of went dark back in March, Mega Cat Studios and Broke Studio, the game’s original publishers, have pulled out, leaving the developer in search of a new partner.
This weekend, White Ninja resurfaced with more than just a text update on Irena’s progress. It surprised its Kickstarter backers with an exclusive five-stage demo as proof that the project is indeed very much alive and close to being finished. Most of the game is playable in the demo, and White Ninja reports that it’s at about 90 percent completion. Irena is reportedly on track to ship to backers within the next six months. Had the team said that back in March, I’d be more skeptical, but after playing the demo, it does seem like we could very well have this title in our hands sooner than we ever thought.
I spent a good deal of time with the demo and liked what I played. There are four difficulty levels: easy, normal, hard, and very hard. The environments are varied and very pretty, without slowdown or flicker, and it’s easy to see enemy fire. I did like the gameplay being similar to Thunder Force III in that you only use one button to fire, one to adjust speed (up to three times), and one for the special attack, which was a series of flame columns that move around the screen like Joe Musashi’s Kariu ninja magic in Revenge of Shinobi. Moreover, there’s a good deal of parallax scrolling, and the music is quite catchy!
Irena also has a cool autosave feature, and it keeps track of your high scores, number of completions and game overs, as well has how long you’ve been playing overall. I suspect meeting certain time goals may unlock some goodies, but even if not, it’s cool that it maintains a record of your progress. There is a typo in the memory screen, but I assume that will be fixed before the final build ships.
Another neat feature that White Ninja promised was Megascore, which is a password feature that can be used to share your high scores online. There was some concern that it might not make the cut, but it’s in the demo, and White Ninja reaffirmed its commitment in the recent update, saying, “Megascore is coming back very soon! We’re setting things up so you’ll can submit your best high scores online and compete with players from all around the world. Stay tuned!”
If White Ninja is unable to find a publisher, the group has said it would self-publish the game, but there’s still the question of the rewards promised to the over 1,000 contributors who made the project happen. White Ninja says the new publisher must be able to fulfill those rewards, but it’s unclear if such an arrangement will be obtained or if White Ninja can comply if it publishes the game itself. Refunds are available for those no longer interested in waiting for Irena’s release. For instance, I chose the reward category that included a complete physical version, along with digital versions of the game, manual and soundtrack. Those rewards should be easy enough to distribute, but I’m not as confident for those backers who chose more premium tiers. In any event, anyone interested can contact the studio using the instructions on the Kickstarter Q&A page.
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