Bringing the summer vibes of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker to Mika and the Witch’s Mountain
If you read our previous post From Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service to Mika and the Witch’s Mountain you already know two things: art and narrative are the most important things for us, Chibig, when developing games and that The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was one of our main inspirations.
But while Kiki’s Delivery Service was for the story and the main mechanics, flying with a magic broom delivering packages, Wind Waker was for the visuals.
And not for the first time. This wonderful game of The Legend of Zelda saga has also inspired some of our previous adventures, such as Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara.
The importance of setting the world
Although each game we have developed has had a particular visual style for different reasons (co-productions with other studios, different artists, different “stages” of the studio), all of them coincide in showing a nice, simple and colorful aesthetic.
In some cases, like Deiland Pocket Planet or Ankora Lost Days, the atmosphere has been somewhat more muted for narrative convenience, while in others like Summer in Mara, Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara and, now, Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, the colors are more vivid and bright.
And in this case, the aesthetics created for The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker really appealed to us to try to achieve a similar experience for our community and for the rest of the players.
Wind and Water
The magic in Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is not as obvious as in other games where you cast spells or there are fantastic animals, but we wanted to make it more subtle, linked to the routine of the real world.
Therefore, the fact that a smoke factory works with a special magical coal extracted from the mountain is not strange, or that the island is surrounded by strong air currents that seem to come out of nowhere, does not surprise its inhabitants.
The wind also plays a very important role, since our little delivery witch Mika will learn to use it to her advantage to move more quickly through the environment, reach new corners to discover secrets and, in the end, return to the top of the mountain with the Master Witch Olagari.
This concept, which in addition to being part of the visuals also plays a very important role in the gameplay, was inspired by the use of wind in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, with the Wind Waker itself, and the ability to interact with the currens to access new locations and complete puzzles.
Water, on the other hand, does play a different role between Wind Waker and Mika and the Witch’s Mountain.
The original idea of our game conceived the idea of a sea with different islands, as we did in Summer in Mara, but finally it was limited to a single island in order to develop it in depth and provide it with many different details and experiences.
Even so, the team’s intense work with water in Mika and the Witch’s Mountain has allowed it not only to play an important part in the artistic section, but also to be one of the elements with which we will constantly interact in the delivery of packages (some packages are sensitive to water).
In The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, water is a vehicle, with a very characteristic color and shape, but also a place full of secrets worth discovering. Something that was a great inspiration when we developed Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara with its small archipelago of islands and a navigable sea full of little secrets and hidden minigames.
This is how, as fans of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (and the saga in general) and video game developers, we decided to follow in the footsteps of the works with which we have grown and enjoyed to create Mika and the Witch’s Mountain.
Always from respect and admiration, and with the goal of creating something with our own essence.
If you want to know more about the works that inspired Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, you can check out our previous post about Kiki’s Delivery Service, or see what’s beyond the game.
You can also join our Discord server to chat with our team and community about our games or anything else – we can also lend a hand if you have any questions or suggestions!
May the winds be kind to you ~
