During Tokyo Game Show last year, we (Henrik and Rickard), together with Sony Japan, announced that Pavilion would be coming to PS4 and PS Vita in 2014. Still, most people might not have heard that much about Pavilion, so we felt it was time to shed some light on the game.
“Pavilion, the fourth-person puzzling adventure from Visiontrick Media, throws you directly into its mysterious world without any text tutorials or beginning explanations. It is a puzzle game portrayed through exploration and audio-visual imagery. By interacting and observing you gradually, bit by bit, learn things about both the puzzling gameplay and the world itself.”
Let’s talk a little bit about the term “fourth-person,” which is something we’ve used over the past year to describe the way you interact with the main character. Basically, the character is not your avatar and you are not in control of him. Instead, you have to find different ways — mostly through environmental interaction — to guide, influence or even force him to explore and fulfill the purpose of the world. This indirect control is what we refer to when we say fourth-person.
This method of control has resulted in some interesting reactions. Some people feel it’s just a buzzword, while others are rather intrigued by it. In the end, we’re happy to see people giving it a thought and talking about it.
Like many other games, Pavilion will be an experience best played without knowing too much about what lies ahead — so we’re not going to give away too much. However, we’ll be posting more details about the game here on PlayStation.Blog in the coming months. Until then, you can follow our Twitter feed or Facebook page for more daily updates. Thanks for your time, and see you on PS4 and PS Vita later this year!
P.S. From Friday, March 7th to Sunday, March 9th, Pavilion will be playable at the Kyoto Indie Games Festival — BitSummit. If you happen to be in Japan at that time, come by and check out all the games, listen to some speakers, and just hang around with all the cool developers and gamers for a couple of days.
We hope to see you there!
First!
@1 grow up
The game has a kind of “Black & White” god game feel to it, looks promising. I will have to give it a try.
Hoooray! More indies ;). I hope it is a cross buy title, huh ?
Yes! We’re planning on having both cross buy and cross save functionality.
Interesting. I look forward to trying this out on my vita when it’s out.
This looks like it relies heavily on having a touch screen. Vita seems like the perfect platform for this game.
How are you planning to handle this on PS4?
The PS4 is the main platform so it’s already working great with a controller. Then the PSVita version will have additional touchscreen controls to better fit the device.
“throws you directly into its mysterious world without any text tutorials or beginning explanations. It is a puzzle game portrayed through exploration and audio-visual imagery. By interacting and observing you gradually, bit by bit, learn things about both the puzzling gameplay and the world itself.”
Oooooo, that reminds me of Myst. Color me interested.
Looks quite interesting.
My only concern is how the interaction and exploration work – is it like point-and-click adventures where you have to search your entire screen for that one clickable area? I don’t technically mind that, but I wonder if it’d be more difficult with the smaller screen of the Vita, which is where I’d play it since I have no intention on getting a PS4.
We’re happy that you find it interesting.
The objects which you can interact with is quite noticeable and will reappear throughout the game. I would say that they are more like tools for you to solve a bunch of puzzles rather then unique items to solve one specific puzzle. So no need to worry about that the PSVita screen is to small!
Subtle
Great trailer, made me very interested.
Oh so that’s what it is…. I never knew it was “fourth-person” when I played LocoRoco on PSP all those years ago.
/sacarsm
Looks interesting!
It’s worth it for the visuals alone. Very interesting.
@Adam-12 you do realize the DualShock 4 has a touchpad right?
Game looks interesting. Keep up the good work.
Thanks, we’ll do our best!
And as you say the DS4 has a touchpad that will be used for certain interactions, but not to the extent as the touchscreen on the PSVita will be used.
I’m gonna buy this game.
Ah yes, I think I remember seeing this during Sony’s TGS livestream (why did I stay up so late to watch it? lol). Looked quite interesting.
I’m curious about your use of the word “force.” Does this imply that the game will have a darker tone, as in we’ll have to force the character into dangerous places? Or do you mean it as the character will act stubborn and sometimes we need to give him a kick in the butt :P?
Sometimes you might have to do what’s best for the greater good, even if the character might not agree with it. And then there’s conflict of interest…..
And they say where are the original games at for the PS Vita. I see alot coming out for the platform. The year of the PS Vita for sure Doods!!!!!!
Thanks everyone for the uplifting comments and keep the questions coming!
Conflict of interest? Now that is interesting. Im not sure i exactly understand what that means but being a phrase ive never heard used pertaining to actions in a video game puzzler, color me intrigued.
Now, “greater good” on the other hand, is a term i revile. It too often is used in place of a demand for you to trade whats in your self interest for what is in someone else’s self interest. Very few things are truly good for everyone, and most of those things are as realistic as unicorns.(Like world peace, for instance) Being that this is a game, i suppose its possible we are trending into the fantastic, so i will keep an open mind.
I dig the music for sure. Im looking forward to hearing the whole soundtrack.
I loved it!
Looks interesting one question
what the estimate length on how long the game will be?
Right now we’re looking at around 4 hours for the critical path, but then there might be more to it then just that. ;)
yay for adventure games! looks like isometric 2dHD games are a bit of a thing on PS4 :)
are the art assets 1080p native, or will there be scaling artifacts? some of the 1080p 2D games don’t look that great because they’re scaling assets originally optimized for 720p (or even 480p).
will the audio be 24-bit/lossless?
Yes the art assets are native 1080p so it looks very nice and crisp on a full HD TV! Regarding the audio, I can’t answer that at the moment, but we’re aiming to keep the quality of audiovisuals as high as possible.
Looks pretty good, will definitely give it a go when it comes out!
Fourth Person Puzzler…. This has my attention now. :)
looks dope :D