This is the Police developer Weappy has announced their next, rather different game: The Eternal Life of Goldman. In development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and PC, it’s a platformer with a thoroughly lovely art style.

Set in a fantasy world that is torn asunder by mysterious forces, you play as the titular Goldman in a side-scrolling adventure. This older gentleman looks rather unassuming, but comes with an upgradeable cane that lends new ability after new ability to get around the world. A sturdy hook on the handle lets Goldman latch onto balloons with rings or pull certain objects around, while the bouncy shaft turns the cane into a pogo stick, which can be souped up to ping him higher into the air as well. There’s further abilities like a laser pointer and a globe aura that Goldman can emit.

The island that Goldman fights to save is filled with creatures and elements inspired by ancient fairytales and fables, with Weappy drawing upon Greek, Jewish, Mesopotamian tales. The narrative will have a bit of an existential twist to it, questioning life and death… but there’s also just some great looking boss battles featured in the trailer.

The Eternal Life of Goldman comes with a classic hand-drawn and animated visual style. The intention is to capture some of the lustre of classic 16-bit platformers, but with modern fidelity. Weappy take great pains to state that there’s no generative AI used in the making of this game. Everything is hand drawn – we clarified that it’s mostly by hand and mostly in digital form, but with many pieces starting as physical sketches – inspired by the traditional ligne claire style made famous by Hergé’s Tintin adventures, and the game uses classic frame-by-frame animation techniques.

This is one I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of, and THQ will be featuring the game at Gamescom later this month.