The Legend of Zelda's 40th anniversary is upon us this month, as witnessed by the wealth of Zelda collectibles vying for your money, but you can also celebrate by playing the games from indie devs that have been influenced by the iconic series. One of these is Ratcheteer, which takes the classic top-down Zelda structure and gives it a mechanical, subterranean twist. Originally released for the black-and-white indie handheld console Playdate, it's now getting a full-colour release on Switch and Steam, aptly titled Ratcheteer DX.
"As a child of the '80s, I was weaned on the NES and the Super NES, and so when Cabel [Sasser, co-founder of Panic, developer of the Playdate] was like, 'Hey, do you want to port your game to the Nintendo Switch?', it was kind of a dream come true," Ratcheteer DX's solo dev Shaun Inman tells me. "Ratcheteer was inspired by Link's Awakening on the original Game Boy, and so obviously I took inspiration from the Link's Awakening DX remake on Game Boy Color."
