Chillingo working on He-Man game for iOS (Video)

Chillingo is developing a side-scrolling beat ‘em up/platformer title set in the universe of popular 80’s cartoon franchise He-Man.

Developers in attendance at EA’s London gaming expose said the gameplay is similar to console classics such as Golden Axe and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Case in point: the main plotline sees He-Man set out to foil Skeletor’s evil plan to release a malicious mobile app.

The nostalgia-fuelled romp seemed a bit Castelvania-esque to us (which is a good thing) and has an interesting and intuitive control method – instead of on-screen virtual buttons and D-Pads you can simply drag left and right on the left side of the screen to move, while on the right side of the screen tapping will swing your sword (and you can do combos).

It’s also the right side where you can use a variety of swipe gestures which allow you to jump and execute a range of unlockable special moves – including a throwing axe and a spinning whirlwind attack.

As if that wasn’t enough you’ve got a couple of power ups, one allows you to change into one of the other He-Man good-guy characters, such as Man-At-Arms, for a limited time, while the other is the legendary ‘Power of Grayskull’ which makes you invulnerable for a time and allows you to deal damage to enemies by running into them – rather like Mario’s star power up.

The game features 27 levels across 7 distinct ‘zones’ within the setting of Eternia and as well as taking on a variety of weird minions there’ll be boss fights against Skeletor’s iconic henchmen, such as Lockjaw, Beast Man and, eventually, Skeletor himself.

He-Man will be launched on iOS as universal title – meaning if you buy it on iPhone you’ll also be able to play on the iPad or iPod Touch. It’s set to land on the App Store in the next couple of months.