Side-scrolling shoot ’em up Xenoraid revealed for PS4, PS Vita

Hello everyone! I’m excited to be back on PlayStation Blog to announce Xenoraid, a vertically-scrolling shoot’ em up with a unique feel, driven by a great combination of features.

I’m personally in the driver’s seat of Xenoraid, and the whole concept of the game stems from the fact that I personally enjoy shmups. Or at least the shmups that preceded the bullet hell movement. To me, bullet hell games feel too much about memorisation, dodging and extreme precision. I prefer my shoot ’em ups to be about good old-fashioned blasting enemies to bits!

Xenoraid has minimal bullet hell traits. We set out to innovate on how we’d get the focus on the act of shooting, and make the game about destroying enemies in a deliberate and effective way. The first thing we did in the original prototype was make the starfighters turn lightly when moving left and right. In other words, the fighters don’t always point towards the top of the screen, which in turn grants the player the ability to fire in angles. It felt immediately great, and brought aiming into the mix of game mechanics in an awesome way.

When we had the aiming mechanics down, we took a hard look at shooting. It dawned on us pretty quickly that in order to make shooting matter, squeezing the trigger had to be a conscious decision. This, almost by itself, gives a cease fire a role to play as well.

After trying a couple of things around these ideas, a weapon overheat system was born. This means that in Xenoraid you can spray and pray, but you won’t be able to do that for very long. Constantly blasting will overheat your guns, and they’ll lock down for several seconds to cool down. This instils a sense of pressure on the player to actually aim a bit, to hit and destroy the intended targets instead of keeping the trigger down and counting on hitting something eventually.

 
The weapon overheat mechanic also works beautifully with the third major idea we wanted to incorporate. In Xenoraid the player goes on missions with four starfighters, and gets to switch between them at will. Having guns locked due to overheat is a great reason to switch in a fresh fighter. Other valid reasons include being on the verge of being destroyed due to taking too much punishment, or needing to bring in the big guns of another fighter to take down an enemy miniboss.

I, and everyone at 10tons, would love to hear your thoughts on this! Xenoraid will be released this year.

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Microscopic survival game VEV: Viva Ex Vivo announced for PS4

Hi everyone! Souha here from Truant Pixel. We’re proud to announce that our indie game VEV: Viva Ex Vivo will be launching this summer exclusive to PS4 with planned support for PlayStation VR.

The premise

Viva Ex Vivo’s tag line is “survival on a microscopic scale.” The game features a unique take on arcade-style survival gameplay.

The player assumes the role of a busy microbiologist in the not-so-distant future, whose research partner has taken off for the week for some much-needed R&R. Players will find they’ve been tasked with sifting through their partner’s notes, and completing their team’s work: researching biological samples using a nanoscale artificial organism capable of surviving in a multitude of familiar and foreign microscopic environments.

The VEV 1.0 Module

Dubbed the “Virtual Eukaryote Visualizer,” or VEV for short, this tiny, artificial protist acts as a surrogate explorer, similar in many ways to the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV drones, that we are familiar with today.

Rather than being a remote-controlled aircraft, however, it is a durable biological machine, remotely-controlled through an augmented reality computer simulation that allows the user to see the surrounding microscopic environment, only on a massive scale. Worlds normally smaller than the head of a pin become vast expanses to be navigated, owing to the technology of the quantum confocal microscope, or QCM, hardware that powers the VEV interface.

VEV modules in the calibration matrix

A drop of water or a drop of blood becomes a vast, open field for players to explore, where they need to collect valuable organic particles and avoid competing and predatory organisms while testing the limits of the VEV module. As players gather organic particles from their surroundings, they will have two options to harness much-needed biological energy:

1. They may choose to absorb each bit of food to harvest the energy as soon as possible.
2. They take a gamble and delay absorption, aggregating the particles on their VEV’s surface. This allows for weak nuclear bonds to form between the compounds, resulting in “molecular crosslinking.” This, in turn, increases the efficiency of absorption, and thus increases potential energy multiplier to a total much greater than would be collected by absorbing said particles individually.

The downside to crosslinking is the risk of losing it all to aggressors in the environment.

Gameplay

Gameplay progression in Viva Ex Vivo is straightforward: explore your environment, find food, and avoid predators. Your ultimate goal is to gather the maximum amount of potential energy possible, and maximize your VEV’s functional lifespan within the time limit. Everything you do, from your swimming speed to your encounters with indigenous organisms, affects your base energy consumption rate.

Players will find themselves in a race against time and a race against entropy as they explore each sample, harvest energy, stay alive, and build that elusive high score.

Though we present VEV as a decidedly laid-back experience (players cannot harm or direct hostile actions toward other creatures), the game is by no means easy. All elements within every biological sample, including composition of the environment as well as placement of food and indigenous life, are randomly generated with each level load. Small ecosystems, including creature behaviours, tend to occur sporadically within each sample. Organic particles have a tendency to spawn within caves and other nooks and crannies, though they may also be found floating about in the open should they be displaced by a wandering microbe. In Viva Ex Vivo, feast or famine may be around every corner.

Stages

There are two kinds of stages in Viva Ex Vivo — “in situ” and “ex vivo.” For our purposes, in-situ refers to those samples in which you are viewing indigenous organisms in their native environment, such as a drop of pond water or a dollop of mud.

Ex vivo samples are samples of organic tissue taken from a larger organism, such as a drop of blood or a sample of cerebrospinal fluid. Between the two sample types, ex vivo samples will prove to be the more challenging, as elements of an organism’s immune system carried within the sample will see the VEV as a foreign invader and attack it.

This occurs because VEVs are created by hybridizing molecular machinery of common cellular species (such as staphylococcus and pseudomonas) that are infectious in larger organisms. These derived elements still contain antigenic potential which may activate a host tissue’s residual immune responses.

In addition

Viva Ex Vivo holds additional content for those players skilled enough to unlock hidden “research goals” with unique bonus levels for added value. Beyond these four sample types, the game also features added simulated calibration and challenge modes, based on the popular system software themes that your team has currently installed on their Quantum Confocal Microscope hardware. These modes will also provide players insight into the personality of their lab partner, known only as “S,” whose disarrayed notes cover their mutual workspace.

Viva Ex Vivo features a professionally composed mix of ambient electronic music, designed to fit the mood of each individual stage. Each song features evolving and dynamic elements based upon proximity to key elements within each stage, from the amount of accrued mass on your VEV’s surface, to the ominous drumbeats which signal approaching enemies

Viva Ex Vivo has been designed from the ground up for easy transition to VR. This includes everything from the control scheme to the 3D interface which is presented to the player at all times. VR mode will be offered as a free upgrade once it is available.

In closing

We appreciate the chance to finally share our game with everyone. As a first-time effort for our tiny company (Really, it’s just the three of us!), it has been a truly educational experience. We have other, larger projects in the works which we hope to bring you in the near future!

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Chaotic co-op cooking game Overcooked announced for PS4

Hello world! My name’s Phil, I’m part of a two-person indie studio called Ghost Town Games based in rainy ol’ England. We’re her to tell you about our upcoming PS4 project, Overcooked, which is a chaotic co-operative cooking game for 1-4 players.

Oli and I started Ghost Town to make the kind of games we wanted to play. When I was a kid my life was all about multiplayer games. Whether it was hurling green shells at my brothers in Mario Kart or luring my friends onto proximity mines in Goldeneye, I just loved that experience of crowding around a single screen, laughing, screaming and arguing as the carnage unfolded on screen.

When I was older and I got a job as a Designer at Frontier Developments. I still craved that same experience, and would often gather together with my friends at lunchtimes to play whatever local co-op games we could get our hands on.

 
One of the things I started to notice about co-operative games is that it often devolved into a game of ‘find the fun’. Players would end up competing to see who could grab the loot first, or kill the next enemy quickest. What if there was a co-op game which was truly about co-operating; where no one person could carry the team? Where instead it was the team’s ability to work together that would be put to the test?

A kitchen seemed like the perfect setting for such an experience; a place where people were constantly forced to work together, to communicate and co-ordinate their actions all while surrounded by implements which could cause actual bodily harm! So together with our friends we built a quick prototype for Overcooked and it instantly struck a chord.

The premise, as in a real kitchen, was to prepare, cook and deliver each new recipe which came in from the restaurant, the magic came in watching players try to divide the tasks between themselves and staying in clear communication when things ultimately took a nosedive for the worse : )

As players started to get to grips with the basics, we’d pile on more and more obstacles: pots catching fire, rats stealing food, cooking on a sliding boat, cooking on the back of a moving truck even cooking in the bowels of hell itself. Anything we could think of to keep the players on their toes!

 
Overcooked will see teams of brave chefs travelling across the Onion Kingdom to take on a slew of terrifying and exciting kitchens. Friendships will be pushed to breaking point as players are forced to work together to deliver delicious meals as the odds stack more and more against them.

Unlock new levels, new chef characters and new competitive levels to let teams go head-to-head. You can even control two chefs on one PlayStation controller (or share a controller with a friend!)

Endless variety, endless fun, Overcooked is the ultimate co-op experience coming to PlayStation 4 this Spring!

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9 PlayStation stories you might have missed last week

2016 refuses to let up, with another busy week of new releases, from major AAA blockbusters to more esoteric fare from the independent community. Whatever your tastes, your thumbs should be busy this weekend! And the news came thick and fast too. Here are some of the highlights from PlayStation Blog…

1. New on PlayStation Store: Far Cry Primal, Hitman GO, PvZ Garden Warfare 2, more

The Far Cry series turns the clocks back to the prehistoric era with Far Cry Primal. Spin-off stealth puzzler Hitman GO arrives on PS4 and PS Vita. Plus, there’s the colourful multiplayer shooter PvZ Garden Warfare 2 and The Walking Dead: Michonne to sink your teeth into.

• See the full list of this week’s new releases here

2. Vicious platform adventure Risk of Rain announced for PS4

Hopoo Games and Code Mystics have teamed up to bring the acclaimed roguelike platform to PS4 and PS Vita! In addition to four-player local co-op, Risk of Rain supports cross-platform online support, so PS4 and PS Vita players can get in on the brutal, unforgiving action together!

• Find out more about Risk of Rain here

3. Hitman PlayStation Plus beta announced, and new trailer goes live

Missed out on the Hitman beta a few weeks ago? Then we’ve got some good news for you – starting on 4th March, the beta will be open again exclusively for all PlayStation Plus members. And if that’s not enough, we’ve even got a new story trailer to keep you going until Hitman releases on 11th March.

• Get more details on the second Hitman beta

4. LittleBigPlanet 3 is Deal of the Week on PlayStation Store

We’ve got a hefty batch of savings on LittleBigPlanet 3 this week, including deals on DLC and costume packs. And don’t forget, we’ve still got a Call of Duty promotion going too!

• See all the deals here

5. Watch the new Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End story trailer

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is almost upon us, and Naughty Dog ramped up anticipation one notch further this week with a new story trailer. Watch it now to find out what’s at stake in Nathan Drake’s next adventure.

• Find out more from Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann

6. Coming to PlayStation Plus in March: Broforce, Galak-Z, more

You voted in your droves to bring Broforce to the PlayStation Plus line up this month, so we hope you enjoy some ’80s-themed action platforming in March! You’ve also got arcadey space shooter Galak-Z, fast-paced fire-fighting thriller Flame Over and more!

• Check out all of this month’s free games

7. Neverending Nightmares is coming to PS4 and PS Vita

Matt Gilgenbach, creative director of Infinitap Games, is bringing his hit atmospheric horror game, Neverending Nightmares, to PlayStation 4 and PS Vita later this year. With a unique hand drawn style and multiple endings, this is a horror experience you won’t want to miss.

• Real more about the distinctive horror of Neverending Nightmare

8. Hardware: Rivals gets new map and ranked play in free update

This week Hardware: Rivals added a fresh batch of new content – all for free. The 1.10 update brings with it Ranked Play and a new map – jump in a tank and ride through the uncharted tropical terrain of Mojito Bay.

• Find out all the details here

9. How multiplayer works in side-scrolling ‘Souls-like’ Salt and Sanctuary

Husband-and-wife developer duo Ska Studios show us how co-op multiplayer works in their ode to Dark Souls: Salt and Sanctuary. It’s shaping up to be a deliciously gloomy addition to the burgeoning “Souls-like” genre.

• Find out more about co-op and PvP in Salt and Sanctuary

And everything else you might have missed this week…

• LittleBigPlanet 3 gets Inside Out Costume Pack this week
• Final Fantasy XIV update 3.2 goes live today, adding brand new features
• Carmageddon: Max Damage announced for PS4
• Superbeat: Xonic gets BlazBlue & Guilty Gear DLC today
• Action/tower defence hybrid McDroid launches next week
• Trillion: God of Destruction on PS Vita wants you to fight a boss with 1,000,000,000,000 HP
• Multiplayer twin stick shooter Square Heroes hits PS4 next month
• Creative slaughter sim 101 Ways To Die announced for PS4

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How multiplayer works in side-scrolling ‘Souls-like’ Salt and Sanctuary

If you’re not yet familiar with us or our game, hi! We’re Ska Studios, a husband and wife team that’s been making deliciously bloody indie games for like eight years now (what!?).

We’re working on a game called Salt and Sanctuary, an insanely ambitious platformer that aims to capture the “Soulslike” genre, faithfully reimagine it as a mechanically solid 2D platformer, and explore and develop the interplay of wonderful mechanics and themes like difficulty and danger, stylistic action and complex combat, and diverse, branching, and versatile character building.

One of the coolest things about RPGs is the party dynamic, but up until about a year ago Salt was purely a game of solo exploration. We wanted to explore cooperative multiplayer, and perhaps some PvP, but how?

Online multiplayer was (and is still) a crazy dream of mine, but trust me: online gameplay is an absolute nightmare to implement anywhere, and PS4 development is still pretty new to us. So we settled on the idea of sellswords.

Salt and Sanctuary centers around sanctuaries. A sanctuary takes on the role of a bonfire, archstone, Hunter’s Dream: it’s a place of rest, replenishment, and — when things go south — respawning. In Salt and Sanctuary, sanctuaries can be populated with NPC villagers. Tiny statues are scattered throughout the world, and placing a statue on a sanctuary’s altar permanently summons a villager of that type to the sanctuary.

The sellsword facilitates cooperative play. Placing a sellsword statue on the altar will summon a sellsword. Telling the sellsword that you’d like to “Hire” prompts a second player to pick up a controller. This player now gets to pick anyone in his or her roster, jump in, and get jolly!

Having a companion present tweaks a few things: enemy health is scaled up a hefty bit, and enemies will do a little extra damage. Prayers of healing aid cooperative players within a radius. A Revive prayer might even make an appearance. The synergy is something I wanted to experience in Salt years before implementing coop, and Michelle and I always tend to balance out our builds like we would in Dark Souls 2: tank and caster style.

 
But the sellsword doesn’t just connect adventurers with brave companions; he also sells Eggs of Wrath. Crushing an egg in the universe of Salt is a tradition of war, meant to signify the commencement of battle. As such, crushing an Egg of Wrath immediately initiates PvP. Once battle has begun, it cannot end until someone dies. But fear not! Your fallen companion will be found alive and well in the next sanctuary or shrine you visit.

PvP in Salt and Sanctuary is an interesting beast. Not all fights will be fair, but all fights tend to be interesting. Stamina and focus (spellcasting) management, parries and counters, crucial I-frames, and weapon ranges are all super important. And because of the nature of the Egg of Wrath, you can pretty much spring PvP on your ally anywhere. Boss fight? More like three-way free for all! Need a human punching bag to try out a new weapon you just crafted? Crush that egg.

We’ll be letting you know when Salt and Sanctuary will be launching really, really soon. In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed our little foray into Salt and Sanctuary‘s awesome multiplayer mechanics.

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Beat ’em up classic Double Dragon II: The Revenge arrives on PS4

For the younger gamers among you, Double Dragon II: The Revenge is an action game that was released by Technos Japan in 1989. In order to avenge your girlfriend Marian, Billy and Jimmy use their signature move So-Setsu-Ken to challenge mysterious armed forces. In the game, players can use even more skills than the previous entry in the franchise which leads to more intense battles.

The Arcade Archives series faithfully reproduces classic arcade games on PS4, while taking advantage of the additional features PS4 offers. Players can share screenshots and video with the Share feature, and can also compete with other players online to improve their standing on the leaderboards.

To celebrate the launch of Arcade Archives Double Dragon II: The Revenge, we spoke with the game’s original Director, Yoshihisa Kishimoto. Enjoy!

27 years have passed since Double Dragon II’s first release but now fans all over the world can play it on PS4. How do you feel about that?
Yoshihisa Kishimoto: I appreciate all the Double Dragon fans around the world! We completed the game because the staff worked tirelessly, so thank you to the staff as well.

Did you face any hardships while developing Double Dragon II?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: Originally we had made plans to change the ROM using the arcade board of the original Double Dragon. So it’s more like “Part 1.5″ rather than “Part 2.” Because it was produced in such a short time with so few people (about three developers for three months), we could not change the basic structure and didn’t have time to do all that we wanted. Even still, we made big efforts and added new characters in that limited time.

You’re the forefather of many masterpieces in gaming, including the Renegade series. Amongst all your work, do you have strong feelings towards Double Dragon?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: Double Dragon is my masterpiece and a precious work that helped spread fighting games and brawlers across the world. If you can be successful in the United States, you can be successful anywhere. Just like the world of film, it’s the same in video games. My first aim was to make a hit in the United States — so this was a dream come true.

Then, Double Dragon was filmed in Hollywood several years later. So my second aim, to turn my game into a film, was also accomplished.

Just as Bruce Lee — whom I respect — spread fighting to the world in Enter the Dragon, I think Double Dragon achieved something similar in the game industry. So I thank President Taki of Technos Japan Corporation and all the original staff.

 

How did you come up with the unique idea for Double Dragon?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: I originally had the idea of using items while I was developing Nekketsu Koha Kunio-Kun [the original Japanese version of Renegade]. When you defeat an enemy in Renegade’s first stage, he drops a stick. So I thought I could make a new fighting system by allowing players to pick this stick up. That’s how I came up with the idea to adapt this item system into a side-scrolling brawler.

Renegade was set in Japan, but that changed for Double Dragon. What inspired this shift?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: Things like Fist of the North Star, and also Bruce Lee and Mad Max — so I had great variety of influences. I appreciated their sense of violence and action, so I also made a car action game called Road Blaster when I was at Data East.

From the success of Double Dragon, a new genre emerged in gaming — the side-scrolling brawler. Not only did you make a hit game, but you made a new genre!

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: Double Dragon did help create a genre, and I was confident it would be a big hit. I thought I could lead the world for years while producing that game.

 

I suspect that the work out of Technos Japan at that time spawned many new ideas. Do you agree?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: I was in charge of planning, and I always settled on themes of something new, novel and stimulating. I aimed to be the first in the world. One of a kind. So that was our theme; we strove to make the world’s first game systems, settings, and so on.

Technos Japan Corporation had already produced many world firsts when I entered the company. The world’s first wrestling game The Big Pro Wrestling. The world’s first competitive fighter, Karate Champ. The world’s first dodgeball and volleyball game.

In-game purchases are popular nowadays, but Double Dragon III was the world’s first game to use that system — 25 years ago. Our company had a strong, challenging spirit.

What was the Double Dragon II development team like back then? What kind of people were they?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: The members of the staff were new, but they were all cool so I felt good about our work. They were all otaku. The person who wrote the animation we used was a top-ranking animation director at his animation company. He also designed the enemy character Brunoff.

 

Double Dragon has been a huge hit all over the world. Did you expect that degree of success?

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: I was confident we would make a big hit while I was drafting the business proposal. I have been working in games for more than 30 years. I’ve directed more than 50 titles, and produced more than 300. But Renegade and Double Dragon are the only two games I felt would be hits during their development. The 10 years I spent at Technos Japan Corporation are the most precious years of my life.

Finally, please leave us with a message to all the Double Dragon fans of the world.

Yoshihisa Kishimoto: We are planning to develop new Double Dragon games, so please look forward to them!

This article has been edited for clarity.

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