A new game called Rakuen is being developed by Laura Shigihara, the composer of popular game Plants vs. Zombies. The upcoming game has been inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's highly successful Japanese animated fantasy film "Spirited Away".
Rakuen is an adventure game driven by the story of a young child and his boredom of having to live in a hospital. The story's protagonist is a young boy who goes on an adventure with his mother into the fantasy world of his favorite book. On this adventure he meets his fellow patients and discovers about their secrets and struggles. He learns about empathy and hope by helping his fellow patients, reported Polygon.
Shigihara also explained that the gameplay of this new game will be a mixture of Maniac Mansion, To the Moon and The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. But this game will be bereft of any fighting or battles. She also said that the game's story and character designs were inspired by Miyazaki's movie.
She added that the focus will be on developing programming, design, audio and in-game pixel character art for the game. The concept art for the game has been entrusted to Emmy Toyonaga, a former EA employee.
Shigihara has contributed her voice and music for games like To the Moon and World of Warcraft. She has also provided music for Minecraft, Ghost Harvest and Celestial Mechanica. She has created music and done sound designing form more thatn 25 videogame titles. Rakuen is expected to be released in early 2014 for PC.
