"Life changing": Gorgeous Metroidvania hits 150,000 Steam wishlists, enlists Nier Automata and Dark Souls singer, and reaches 6x its $40,000 Kickstarter goal in one day

"This is life changing for our team," developer Little Legendary recently wrote on Twitter, and it makes perfect sense. The indie studio obliterated its Kickstarter goal for pretty Metroidvania SHADE Protocol in a single day.

Little Legendary wanted to hit its $240,000 Kickstarter stretch goal earlier this month after having already ground its base goal of $40,000 into invisible specks of dust. The developer was hoping to recruit Dark Souls singer Emi Evans, best known for her work as the main vocalist for the Nier series – and suddenly, it seemed like it could after donations flooded in with a spoonful of help from Evans herself, who shared her potential involvement with the game project on Twitter.

Ultimately, "We hit 150K+ wishlists, 10K followers on Steam, and surpassed $230K on Kickstarter all in the same day," said Little Legendary in a Twitter post earlier this month, "...and THEN Emi Evans, vocalist for NieR Automata and Dark Souls amongst many other games, shares that she's a stretch goal for our game." The studio exclaimed, "Don't wake me up please!"

As of writing, SHADE Protocol can comfortably add Evans to its cast. The game has $275,420 donations and counting, nearly seven times Little Legendary's original base goal. In fact, the music for SHADE Protocol – whose Steam page describes it as a fantasy where "music, code, and combat collide" – should now be able to feature both Evans and veteran Mega Man composer / stretch goal number three Matsumae Manami. SHADE Protocol's Kickstarter also confirms the game soundtrack will feature live musicians, who were part of stretch goal five, and the game will create an explorable biome devs are calling the Codesong, or goal seven, "the foundation of all reality, a place where music and code flow and dance together as one."

It's a good sign that Little Legendary is being so deliberate in choosing its music and the environments where it plays – it seems that blood-fortifying, adventurous music is integral to SHADE Protocol's story encouraging preservation of what's left of humanity in a technological collapse. In the game, layers will guide the black tea party dress-wearing android Zura through a lost civilization where there are at least many lovely pink trees. You'll use "Instruments" to defend yourself, which Little Legendary says in SHADE Protocol's Steam description are "powerful code-based weaponry inspired by music, each serving a unique role in battle and exploration."

It seems like SHADE Protocol could be a unique approach to what another developer might turn into another cyberpunk rhythm game, or another post-apocalypse. I'm eager for something new. After discovering its smash success Kickstarter, I'm hoping to experience SHADE Protocol for myself – and clearly, other people are, too.

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