Flying Hamster II: Knight of the Golden Seed looked like an absolutely adorable RPG platformer when it launched on Kickstarter last year. It had an adorable hamster knight protagonist, beautiful cartoon-styled graphics, and a host of cool gameplay mechanics. Despite how polished the campaign looked, it was only able to gain about 21% of its $150,000 goal before being canceled. However, there was a silver lining – indie game publisher FDG Entertainment saved them and would help to get the title released! It was a relief for Kickstarter backers, especially since they were still promised a copy of the game. And yet, that wasn’t the end of the story.
In the latest update, developer Game Atelier has revealed an even bigger turn of events. Flying Hamster II is now Monster Boy: And the Wizard of Booze. This is based off the games Monster World, and in fact original designer Ryuichi Nishizawa is on board to help. It is an official Monster World game now in all ways except for the specific title (as Sega owns that trademark). As the name implies, you’re also a boy now instead of a cute lil hamster. The art style remains colorful but some character transformations were changed. The rest of the gameplay remains as promised, so one could consider it “Flying Hamster II with a facelift.”
How exactly this shift occurred hasn’t been explained yet, but it is an immensely interesting event. Who decided that Flying Hamster II looked like a good candidate for a new Monster World game? It’s super weird, but also exciting. Hopefully backers of the campaign are not too disheartened. They are still receiving a game although now it goes by the name of Monster Boy.
Will changing the name really make that much of a difference?