UPDATE: Hey, folks. Thanks for all the comments. It’s always great to get feedback straight from the fans. I just wanted to give you a short update on Eden.
First of all, be sure to check out the demo when it hits the PLAYSTATION Store tomorrow. Just a hint – if you explore the “main menu” you’ll find access to more than one demo stage. Also, to give you an idea of how cool the YouTube recording function works, here are a couple of videos taken by someone at Sony today.
This first one shows single player on an early stage.
This second one shows some 2-player action on a later stage, although the
demo and the full game feature multiplayer for up to 3 people.
Don’t forget to download the demo tomorrow!
Hello, this is Dylan from Q-Games (the Cuthbert one, not the Warhawk Jobe one – when did all these Dylans suddenly start turning up eh?).
We’ve just wrapped up PixelJunk Eden, and it has been an incredibly interesting project from start to finish. We started off by getting an intern programmer from France to try and implement Baiyon’s out-of-this-world foliage designs, and he did a good job with the help of one of our tech guys, and managed to replicate the look. So after he went back to France, we assigned a proper team and went gung-ho into development. That was around December last year. Back then all it had were plants. There was no player character or any real idea for what the game would become, but over the new year I had some sparks of inspiration and that’s when things really started getting moving, leading to the demo video we played at GDC ’08.
Anyway, this all leads into trophies somehow. Ah yes, because our development cycle is so short, we find ourselves being able to implement all the latest OS-supported features before anyone else can. For PixelJunk Monsters it was Dual-Shock 3 support, but this time there have been a couple of really cool new features and we have put both in. These are the Trophy support and the YouTube video upload support. Both of which are really cool.
Initially we implemented all our own trophy screens etc., but then Sony Computer Entertainment built it all into the OS, which really helped us out. The trophy comparing and your “gamer card” screen really up the ante for those hard core gamers out there. In fact, it might make some of the non-gamer types even turn hard-core as chasing trophies can be rather addicting.
PixelJunk Eden is a short-form PSN title so there are fewer trophies when compared to, say, a Blu-ray title (which can have the esteemed platinum trophy), but we still managed to pack in quite a few. To begin with, you can get a bronze trophy for opening every “seed” in a stage. This is quite a challenge on some of the stages as the gardens are large and expansive. Then there are trophies for a load of other things, such as destroying 500 of the “prowlers,” or collecting 15 “crystals” in one jump. My personal favorite is a trophy that you can only achieve in 3P mode, where you have to “volley” a player between you back and forth five times without him/her landing on a plant, a bit like tennis.
The YouTube upload feature is going to revolutionize how people share tips. Up until now it has been limited to people with video capture equipment, but from now on, anyone can record their game and upload it directly to YouTube from within the game! It is as simple as pushing one button to start and one button to stop and upload, and there is no affect on the gameplay thanks to the power of the PS3 and its abundance of SPU processors.
For more info on the YouTube API and PixelJunk Eden and to see it in action, take a look at the YouTube API Blog.
Oh, and we have been totally inundated with requests for trophies in PixelJunk Monsters via some kind of patch. As this goes to press, I can say we are definitely looking into it – you just need to badger Deborah Mars and her team in Santa Monica to get some dates set. If we release a patch, we will not only implement this but we will also implement XMB music and a couple of other things.
One final note about Eden, I really can’t emphasize enough how much pure fun this game is, and I’m saying this as a gamer, not as the developer of the game! My mail box has been overflowing with direct mails full of the same kind of comments from online review sites who have preview copies and I have never had that before, so we must be onto something (fingers crossed)!
Most excellent news Dylan. I’m really looking forward to playing PJ Eden tomorrow.
I hope we see PJ Monsters get trophy support. I’m still playing the game on a regular basis after all these months. It would be excellent if we could get trophies and some other XMB goodies.
Thank you so much for making such fine games for the PS3. And your remote play support is FIRST CLASS!
I honestly can’t wait to buy this. I will purchase it as soon they release it. I’ve been hearing plenty of good buzz surrounding it.
Q-games FTW!
I’m checking this out for sure. The Youtube idea is brilliant!
I can’t wait to try the uploading feature. It’ll most likely make recording a lot easier for me than the way I already have to do it.
Also… what ever happened to the second blog posting for the PixelJunk couple winners?
fantastic news, i bought pixeljunk monsters encore last week (i had pixeljunk monsters since its release date though) and now you say you might bring trophies… & eden coming out tommorow!!! i can’t wait, this is a first day purchase.
Will definetely buy on day 1, Nice job Q Games :)
49
TheHater
anybody can get a visa prepaid card at walmart
Oooooh! I’m stoked for Eden, and not even just because of the trophies (though majorly stoked for those!) I can’t get enough Pixeljunk!
can’t wait! PJM is the greatest co-op game of all time- you’ve got big shoes to fill.
good news..
this game is so different & I will buy it.
Wow.. what a huge response to my blog entry today!
To answer a few of the queries, the July 31st release date is worldwide (touch wood), I think this even means Australia.
This is NOT the last game in the series, by a long shot. However, we are going to be secret – we actually work on a lot of ideas and already have a “lost work” (ie. a title we cancelled halfway through development because it just wasn’t working the way we wanted it to)
I also heard there will be another blog enry tomorrow with some more info from the team at Santa Monica.
Oh and there will be a demo for the EU store too for a change! (a first for a PixelJunk game)
I think that will go up simultaneously with the full game next week.
I really can’t see anyone not buying it after playing the demo ;-)
(but I am bound to say that, right?)
Thanks for the TON of fan-mail we have been getting by the way – I try to answer most of them directly but if some got missed I apologize.
This is NOT the last game in the series
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hell ya.
any thing about pixeljunk dungeon??
@Dylan Cuthbert
Not the Last!? That’s great news!
I think you guys would build a great full blown RTS game, A step above tower defense, and a step below overly-complex.
Think about it, the entire PlayStation catalog has very few RTS’s, and much less RTS’s that count as an RTS.(ie. Age of Empires, Command & Conquer, etc.)
Also I was wondering if you could answer the .blog community a question.
Q: How do you go about finding your inspiration for a new game, as an individual or a team? (ie. what gets the ball rolling on a new project?)
You’ve lead me to believe by your post, that it’s an extremely artistic approach, versus the more commonly known commercial method most seem to have adopted these days. Sounded like a fun process.
What happens is we think up a concept or two, see if the team gets their teeth into it, if they don\’t then we move onto the next concept, until one sticks. The initial concept and prototype has to be strong and have potential for us to take into full production.