Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom

Overview

Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom is an action platformer that is part of the Wonder Boy franchise developed by The Game Atelier with assistance from series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa. The game was published by FDG Entertainment on December 4, 2018 for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One as a digital title with physical editions also released for the PS4 and Switch. The PC version was released on the 25th July 2019. The game was ported to Google Stadia in 2020.

Development

The Cursed Kingdom initially began in 2014 as a sequel to Game Atelier's Flying Hamster called Flying Hamster II: Knight of the Golden Seed which had hoped to gain funding through a Kickstarter campaign. However, after FDG Entertainment became the title's publisher, the game was reworked into a spiritual sequel to the Wonder Boy/Monster World series and the Kickstarter was canceled. The game was originally revealed as Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze but was eventually changed to Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom due to criticisms of the previous subtitle. The subtitle was not the only thing to change either, the game's art style went through many alterations throughout development with the main character's appearance being changed three times before the team settled on the current hand-drawn style.