Indie publisher Ripstone has announced that they are bringing Pure Chess and Knytt Underground to the Nintendo eShop in late 2013/early 2014.
Ripstone has previously developed a reputation for aiding small studios in publishing their creations on a multiple platforms and the publisher looks to do this again with the release of these two critically acclaimed games on the Nintendo eShop. Both games had previously been released on the Playstation Store for both PS Vita and PS3.
Knytt Underground takes place in a typical apocalyptic setting. Players are given control of a speechless character called Mi, five hundred years after humans devastate the planet with war and depart it forever. The only surviving creatures, including Sprites and Fairies, live out their lives in subterranean tunnels, when Mi becomes involved in a quest to ring the six bells of fate before the planet is destroyed forever, encountering a whole host of quests and characters along the way.
Pure Chess is being developed by VooFoo Studios for both Wii U and 3DS, and aims to entice a wide variety of players into the game. Pure Chess features tutorials to introduce complete chess novices to the intricacies of the game, while also allowing more seasoned players to hone their skills and tactics as they strive to checkmate their opponent. The game will also feature cross-platform Multiplayer, allowing Wii U and 3DS owners to compete against each other, as well as tablet and smartphone gamers.
The Co-Founder and Creative Director of Ripstone, Phil Gaskell, expressed his excitement at bringing these games to the Nintendo eShop and reaffirmed the company’s commitment to indie developers:
“We’re committed to helping developers bring their games to as many digital channels as possible and this announcement demonstrates that commitment. We think Nintendo gamers are going to love spending hours exploring the world of Knytt Underground and will be blown away by the visual quality of Pure Chess, and we hope to announce more games for eShop in the future.”
Ripstone’s announcement follows Nintendo’s recent encouragement and support for small developers, with the man responsible for bringing indie titles to Nintendo consoles, Dan Adelman, stating that 20 to 30 additional indie games will be hitting the Nintendo eShop in the future. Nintendo also used last week’s Nintendo Direct conference to hype the wide variety of indie titles from European and Australian developers due to appear on the eShop over the next few months, including Cubemen 2 and Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut:
