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Cursed Mountain to use Athena Engine
Wii survival horror title to up the ante in visuals.
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Author: Jeff McAllister

Sproing Interactive has announced that is currently developing the Nintendo Wii Survival Horror game entitled "Cursed Mountain" for, and together with, Deep Silver. The player takes on the role of a fearless mountaineer as he climbs into the Himalayas on a quest to find his lost brother. As he ascends the mountain, he encounters an ancient curse: the souls of the people who died in that region are stuck in limbo, caught in the Shadow World.

“Aside from the challenge to develop an innovative title with spectacular levels and new controls, the focus in Cursed Mountain is the overwhelming environment of the Himalayas,” said Harald Riegler, CEO of Sproing. “It is really important to us that the player experiences nature’s powers as realistically as possible, and that the game’s viewing distance allows the player to see the monumental landscapes at all times”

To deliver the goods, the Sproing team relies on its proprietary “Athena” game engine, which is rendering the Himalayas on the Wii at a quality never seen before. The engine highlights of “Athena” include amongst others, HDR-Rendering, shader simulations developed especially for the Wii in order to display ice, heat and water, an ultra-fast particle system for amazing snow storms, soft particles for realistic fog and smoke, depth of field, motion blur, dynamic soft shadows, spherical harmonics lighting, as well as a high performance level-of-detail and streaming system in order to provide long viewing distance of the entire surrounding areas.

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