If a remake is bringing an old favourite up to date on a modern platform, ‘demaking’ is the act of taking a contemporary form and representing it in a nostalgic or long-lost one.
That’s what Dan Fornace, a digital media major of Drexel University, has pulled off in his demake of Super Smash Brothers (originally released on Nintendo consoles N64, Gamecube and Wii).
He’s taken sprites from much loved characters Mario, Pikachu, Link and Kirby, rebuilt famous environments from their classic handheld games, and created Super Smash Land, a game that looks and feels like it was intended for play on an original Game Boy: in all it’s greyscale, green-tinted, and pixellated glory. Take a look:
Dan has collaborated with chiptune musicians Inversephase and flashygoodness, lending an authentic, 8-bit feel to the game’s action.
What a perfect act of creation: simple, thoughtful and fun. It works better for it’s low-res format, allowing the content to ooze nostalgia of the kind only a fanboy could hope to infuse.
Super Smash Land is available as a free download here.