ALICANTE – 12 March, 2025.
Spanish studio 4MHz has launched its Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of Malasombra, an action-adventure videogame designed exclusively for the NES. After more than five years of development, the project is completely finished and seeks to bring the magic of the 8-bit to gamers around the world through a physical cartridge edition and a digital version for emulators.
A terrible spell, a forbidden grimoire, an evil sorcerer, wizards, princesses, witches, bounty hunters, palace intrigues and magic, lots of magic await in Malasombra. You play Pirou, a humble aspiring magician who sees his beloved taken away from him on his wedding day by the evil sorcerer Malasombra, who turns everyone at the celebration into a frog. Pirou will need to gather the pages of a powerful grimoire, which will allow him to acquire new abilities through transmutations, in order to destroy Malasombra, recover his beloved and reverse all the evil he has done to the kingdom.
Malasombra is not just an homage to the classics, but an entirely new approach, created from scratch for the original NES hardware. Combining action and exploration mechanics with an immersive story, the game transports the player into a world of magic, conspiracies and challenges.
At this moment, the videogame is completely finished and the final prototype on physical cartridge is 100% validated. The Kickstarter campaign aims to finance the physical production of the game and offers different rewards for backers:
The campaign will run from 17 March to 17 April 2025 and rewards will start to be sent out in August 2025.
The 4MHz team has a solid track record in the development of video games for 8-bit systems and in the production of physical editions. Without a doubt, this is a guarantee that we are in for another great production.
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In a beautiful and faraway place, the celebration of the royal wedding between Astrid, the princess of the kingdom, and Pirou, a young apprentice magician, is cut short by the irruption of Malasombra, a sorcerer with a grudge against the king for condemning him to banishment some time ago due to his perfidious advice.
Malasombra turned everyone present into a frog except Pirou, who managed to repel the spell with his humble wand as an apprentice magician, and kidnapped Astrid, as revenge for so many years of suffering in exile.
Determined to save his beloved, Pirou sets out on a dangerous adventure full of challenges and dark secrets, determined to face any obstacle to restore peace and win Astrid back.
Malasombra began its development in March 2018 with several concept tests and scenarios for Amstrad CPC. During the first months of work, the project was maturing the story and growing in dimensions, until in October 2018, graphical and programming tests began on NES. After the first satisfactory results, the team decided to migrate the project to another platform, becoming an exclusive development for NES. A very complicated decision for the whole team, as it meant leaving the comfort zone, but with the certainty that it was the right decision given the ambition deposited in the project.
Since the end of 2018, 4MHz has been working exclusively on this project. This has been a huge challenge for the whole team, as they have had to learn in depth the ins and outs of the NES, a system unknown to everyone until now. On a technical level, a whole new engine has been developed in C and assembler, based on Nesdoug’s Neslib. Several exclusive tools have also been created to facilitate and accelerate the development process. All this has involved many hours of study and testing, as well as tackling new ways of working and documentation.
Since its inception, 4MHz has been committed to creating high quality physical editions, and this project is no exception. However, bringing Malasombra to cartridge format has been a considerable technical challenge, due to the advanced knowledge of electronics and NES hardware required.
Today, the team has succeeded in developing a fully functional prototype cartridge that incorporates two key innovations:
At this stage, the latest version of the prototype cartridge has successfully passed all tests in order to start commercial production.
Last Saturday 15th February took place the official presentation of Malasombra at the Vintage Arcade Museum in Ibi. A very important event for the whole 4MHz team, as this milestone represents the culmination of more than 5 years of hard work on this project.
In an incomparable setting, as is the Vintage Arcade Museum, and surrounded by great friends of the Retro scene, we had the opportunity to give a small talk about everything behind the development of Malasombra.
Title of the videogame: Malasombra
Platform: NES (NTSC & PAL).
Languages: English and Spanish.
Technology: In-house engine developed in C and Assembler.
Release date: second quarter of 2025.
Kickstarter Page: www.kickstarter.com/projects/malasombra-nes-game/malasombra-new-action-adventure-video-game-for-the-nes/
Price: According to Kickstarter rewards.
Price: To be determined.
Editions: Cartridge edition and digital edition.
Credits:Ā 4MHz ā www.4mhz.es
