He looks a bit pale, doesn't he?

WayForward Technologies, the company behind the bloody brilliant DS game Contra 4, has confirmed it is developing an exclusive title for Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWare service.

LIT is a 3D horror puzzle game that sees you facing off against a high school packed with monsters. The game’s central character, Jake, is tasked with locating his girlfriend in the demonic educational facility and must successfully progress through a series of classrooms by solving puzzles. As the title would suggest, light plays a big part in puzzle solving.

Although it’s a bit of an obscure link, this concept reminds us of the Atari Lynx classic Chip’s Challenge – which is certainly no bad thing. We could be proven wrong and the end product might be nothing like Chip's Challenge, but just let us have our moment of joy, won't you?

The 'emo' art style is original and unique - check out some of the production artwork here.

Here’s the press release:

Valencia, Calif. – (March 5, 2008) — Independent game developer WayForward Technologies announced today that its forthcoming game LIT will make its debut exclusively on Nintendo’s upcoming download service, WiiWare. LIT utilizes the unique features of the Wii to bring a tense and unnerving adventure to the Nintendo Wii audience.

“This is the first time in recent memory that our team has felt the freedom to begin experimenting on consoles outside the confines of established IP, budget, or publisher dictates,” said John Beck, CEO of WayForward Technologies. “The scope and business model for WiiWare really make this possible.”

LIT is a 3D horror puzzler set in a dark high school overrun by creatures. The game follows Jake, a below-average student and the game’s protagonist, as he makes his way through each classroom, utilizing what light he can find to create safe paths across the darkness.

Jake’s objectives are to escape his school and reconnect with his girlfriend, Rachael, who uses the school’s phones to keep in contact with him. LIT combines environmental puzzling with horror combat and boss battles to create a uniquely unsettling Nintendo Wii experience.

“It’s incredibly exciting to be working on an original game for the WiiWare platform,” said Adam Tierny, director of LIT. “After settling on the concept of light vs. shadows, a horror theme seemed to make sense. The team working on LIT had also recently finished a creepy demo for the Nintendo DS that I think whetted everyone’s horror appetite. We decided to make it an action-puzzler because of how infrequently horror and puzzling gets combined in games, and to squeeze out the greatest amount of gameplay possible from a limited file size.”

LIT is WayForward’s first internally-developed property since the hair-whipping, belly-dancing Shantae was released by Capcom on the Game Boy Color in 2002. LIT currently does not have a release date or price point.