Awakening

If you consider the Text in the following screenshot, there are two unusual things about it:

First, the font is in italics which is quite unusual for a pixel font and certainly a typographical challenge.

Second, the text is in German. The screenshot is from the 1993 GameBoy game “Zelda: Link’s Awakening” (actually, the GameBoy Color remake). I remember back when it came out, it was one of the first GameBoy games that were actually translated into German. It was quite amazing because translating a game into a foreign language means not only translating the text but also making sure the font features the right letters like ö, ä, ü, or ß for instance.

I always admired Link’s Awakening for featuring such an unusual font which is so versatile. Because of my recent discovery of Fontstruct, I was able to recreate that font and even improve upon it by adding EVEN MORE foreign characters. Ladies and Gentlement, I herewith give you:

You are free to use the font right away but be aware that because there is no way to edit metrics in Fontstruct yet, the characters will need more kerning for a good readout. Also, word spacing is WAY too low, you might want to use double-spaces. I will update the metrics as soon as the guys from Funstruct implement the feature.