Do you remember Voodoo Vince? If you’re not one of us… older gamers, you might not. Voodoo Vince was an action platforming game for the original Xbox. Even if you never got the chance to play it when it was originally released, you will have a chance now. The goofy game about a voodoo doll that could is getting remastered.
The game’s creator, Clayton Kauzlaric, wrote up the announcement on the Official Xbox news site. He tells of how the pitching process for the game was a large an arduous one, and how great it was to finally see the game come to fruition.
Yes, I am old enough to have received a promotional Voodoo Vince doll.
“We shipped Voodoo Vince in September of 2003 when the original Xbox was nearing its peak, but Vince soon disappeared in the churn of other games and a new generation of consoles. Our engine used some convoluted custom code that made Vince ineligible for Backward Compatibility during the Xbox 360 era so Vince seemed destined to remain in the past,” he said. “I started getting emails from fans the day Voodoo Vince came out. Later, it was Facebook messages and tweets from people who loved the game. And it never stopped. We never really had merchandise, but fans made their own. I have pictures of homemade Voodoo Vince dolls. I’ve seen fan art from people all over the world. The more committed have Vince tattoos. It was a small audience but Vince clearly meant something to them.”
(Kauzlaric’s statement about not having merchandise isn’t exactly true. I have proof. See the photo)
The remastered version will feature all sorts of updates. “It’s wide screen now, of course, in glorious 1080p and running at 60fps. The rendering engine is being rewritten from the ground up with lots of crisp new textures and rendering effects. Xbox Live was still a twinkle in Microsoft’s eye when VV launched, so we’ve got profiles and achievements,” said Kauzlaric “We never finished hooking up rumble in the original game, so yay: We have vibrate-y goodness. The gameplay is mostly untouched, though. That was important to me. Vince moves, animates, and controls exactly like he did in 2003. You can just see a lot more detail in his world when he moves through our twisted version of New Orleans and the Bayou.”
The game slated for release in early 2017.
