E3: Cerulean Dreams To The DS

MezCo Studios, the Long Island, NY-based studio working on Cerulean Dreams has announced that they are now developing Cerulean Dreams for the Dual Screen.

The announcement was posted on their website:

As you know, MezCo Studios has been hard at work developing Cerulean Dreams for the GBA. While we’re certainly still very much dedicated to this project, we have decided to change it a bit.

Of course, these changes are mostly to accomodate the fact that we will now be developing it for the Nintendo DS.

Since GDC, we’ve been planning and discussing a development change to the DS. In fact, the more we talked about it, the more we realized the DS would let us do not only some of the things we originally worked out of the game to accomodate the GBA, but also some pretty new, cool things that would make it all the better.

With that said, here are some of the key changes in the design, generally stated, since I can’t be too specific due to the nature of our industry.

-Flight-combat stages will now use 3D models for main ship sprites, enemy sprites, and some obstacle/terrain items.
-All HUD information will be displayed on the touch sensitive screen, and all standard gameplay will be displayed on the other.
-The menus on the touch screen can be scrolled through and accessed while the game is going, or while it is paused, giving you more “quick and active” control over the game as you play
-New functions will be added that allow you to better control your ships functionality. This one I can’t expand upon more than that, but let’s just say the touch sensitivity will be utilized, and it will add a lot more depth to gameplay.
-Multiplayer co-op will be completely possible. Previously, our plan was to allow multiplayer minigames and boss battles. GBA limitations didn’t allow us to easily do a cooperative story mode. However, the DS changes all this, and you’ll be able to play through the main game with your friends along for the ride. Wireless access makes it even better.