Konami has announced the grand prize winner of its open call for indie developers to revive older series from the company’s back catalogue, with the winners announced at Tokyo Game Show, and first place going to Takumi Naramura, director of La Mulana and La Mulana 2, who plans to remake Konami’s The Maze of Galious, which he cited as a significant influence on La Mulana.
The Maze of Galious was originally released as a sequel to Knightmare for the MSX computer platform in Japan in 1987 and brought to the Famicom later that same year. The game is a side-scrolling platform RPG featuring two heroes with their own unique skills named Popolon and Aphrodite, who are trying to fight their way out of a castle filled with monsters. The game can be considered a Metroidvania and sees the player exploring a series of interconnected rooms, gaining experience points for defeating enemies, and searching for power-ups and keys.
In Konami’s press release, representatives from the panel of contest judges stated that they “could feel tremendous passion for The Maze of Galious” in Naramura’s initial proposal, especially since he outlined the original game’s strengths and noted the challenges involved in bringing it to modern audiences. Naramura also stated that if he hadn’t won the contest, “I’d probably just stay quiet and make the game anyway.”