My affection for Renegade Kid’s Mutant Mudds is well documented. It’s a game that just resonated with me in a beautiful way that makes it still a joy to play. So I was certainly excited to try out the developer’s 2D platforming follow-up of sorts to Mudds, Treasurenauts. While Treasurenauts differs from Mutant Mudds in how it plays, the style and tone is similar. It’s a beautiful sprite-based game with an old-school sensibility.

The goal is to get tons of treasure through the different worlds and levels, and you’ll get a Wario Land-like reward depending on your total at the end. The typical adventure mode has you romping through the world at your own pace, collecting treasure and defeating enemies. The hardcore mode offers a time limit and no saving. It’s an interesting style that might not be the most forgiving, but could certainly be fun to try.

In the demo, we had access to three different characters, who were only different aesthetically. In the final game, there will be oodles of different characters, including some inspired by Renegade Kid’s other works. The character differences boil down to the three different weapons: sword, gun, and bombs. They all have different uses and styles, and you’ll need to make use of them to unlock every portion of the world.

The flow of Treasurenauts seems novel, mashing a few different game concepts together. There’s a world map that, according to developer Jools Watsham, is inspired by Super Mario World, but that map leads around to different levels that might restrict you in a Metroid fashion. For example, you can access the second world shortly after beginning, but you need the double jump to progress in it, which you get for beating the first world’s boss. However, if you team up with another playing using the two-player co-op (available through Download Play, too!), you can sequence break together. So if you play by yourself, you’ll need to follow a standard progression, but with a friend, you can bust things wide open.

The demo we checked out offered some samples of the full game. It consisted of four levels: one from the beach world, one from the jungle world, a curse stage, and a boss fight. The beach world is the first world, which culminates in the boss fight with a giant Mama Crab. The jungle world is the second world. The stages all had branching paths that had ample amounts of treasure hidden, some requiring different weapons to access.

The curse level, which is the equivalent of a ghost house in a Mario game, is especially interesting. The world around you gets drearier and colorless as you play, with Spelunky-like ghosts chasing you around as time wears on. However, hitting a crystal in the middle of the level reset the room, bringing it back to normal. The clock then resets and the level is cursed again. It’s a fun level type that could be an interesting change of pace throughout the game’s themed worlds. Essentially, it’s like the equivalent of a ghost house in a Mario game, so that comparison works very well.

Treasurenauts is still unfortunately a ways off, though. Renegade Kid is hoping for May/June, which is far off from the original end of 2013 release window. It got delayed mostly because the scope changed. That hardcore mode was the entire game, and it wasn’t until later last year that the friendlier adventure mode was added. Whenever Treasurenauts comes out, I’ll be waiting to play it. Everything I’ve seen so far is very promising.