Sproing Interactive Media has announced a brand new ‘Survival Horror’ game for the Wii. In Cursed Mountain players takes on the role of a fearless mountaineer as he climbs into the Himalayas on a quest to find his lost brother.
As he ascends the mountain, he encounters an ancient curse. The souls of the people who died in that region are stuck in limbo, caught in the ‘Shadow World’.
“Aside from the challenge to develop an innovative title with spectacular levels and new controls, the focus in Cursed Mountain is the overwhelming environment of the Himalayas,” said Harald Riegler, CEO of Sproing. “It is really important to us that the player experiences nature’s powers as realistically as possible, and that the game’s viewing distance allows the player to see the monumental landscapes at all times. We are also going to great lengths to make the dead souls look as convincing as possible in order to deliver the level of immersion necessary for really effective and believable survival horror.”
The Sproing team has developed its own software, the revolutionary “Athena” game engine, which is simulating the Himalayas on Wii at a quality never seen before. The highlights of Athena include amongst others, HDR-Rendering, shader simulations developed especially for Wii in order to display ice, heat and water (realistic reflections and refractions), an ultra-fast particle system for amazing snow storms, soft particles for realistic fog and smoke, depth of field, motion blur, dynamic soft shadows, spherical harmonics lighting, as well as a high performance level-of-detail and streaming system in order to provide long viewing distance of the huge maps.
In order to create an exciting atmosphere when battling ghosts, the game will use a number of custom-created special effects such as the shader simulations as well as a newly developed post-processing framework. “Our engine technology really takes the Wii hardware to its limits and Wii gamers can really look forward to a heart-stopping, and breath-taking world that comes alive with this title,” said Gerhard Seiler, Technical Director of Sproing.