'Chasing Aurora' brings indie game style to Wii U eShop

Chasing Aurora for Wii U makes an appearance at PAX Prime 2012.

PAX Prime's Indie Megabooth was stuffed with games for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, but we only saw on Wii U GamePad amongst the group of independent developers. It belonged to the creators of Chasing Aurora, an asymmetric multiplayer game coming to Nintendo's eShop.

The demo version of Chasing Aurora pits one Wii U GamePad player against four others armed with Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers, with one player in pursuit of the other four.

With its sharply angular characters and 2D, pop-up book style, Chasing Aurora doesn't really look like anything else on the Wii U. The downloadable launch window game gives players control of origami birds who fly high above the Alps — the visual inspiration of Vienna-based developer Broken Rules. This is the studio's second game, a follow-up to And Yet It Moves for WiiWare and PC.

Designer Felix Bohatsch spoke with Polygon at PAX to discuss the Chasing Aurora's various multiplayer modes, some of which are based on traditional backyard games like freeze tag and hide-and-seek. The eShop game is expected close to the launch of the Wii U, with other platforms under consideration.