Ring Run Circus Hits PS Vita on November 11th

Hello, PlayStation.Blog readers! My name is Ciro and I’m part of Kalio, a small independent studio in Uruguay. We are thrilled to announce that our latest game Ring Run Circus will be launching on PS Vita and Playstation TV on November 11th, 2014. The launch price will be $9.99, with PS Plus members receiving a 20% off discount for a limited time.

Ring Run Circus is a unique sort of game which we like to call a “ring-former”: an action-puzzle game set in a dream world of connected rings. Players take the role of three uniquely talented acrobats — Nina, Ned, and Nelson — and help them navigate this strange world full of hazards, circus animals, and tricky puzzles.

The goal of each level is to grab the colorful key and get to the exit door as quickly as possible leaving no stars behind. The controls are quite simple; one button to ride on the outside or inside of the rings, and another one to activate each acrobat’s special ability: Nina jumps, Ned punches, and Nelson triggers mechanisms to move rings around.

Don’t let the seemingly simple controls deceive you, though. There is enough challenge waiting, not only for your skill — proper timing to change rings, slapping enemies, jumping — but also for your wits: these puzzles are taken from the dreams of a bunch of mad men after all.

In fact, the goal of the game is to understand who Nina, Ned, and Nelson really are. And why is there a man with slicked-up hair meditatively looking out the window in every cutscene? This man is named Ringo, by the way, and he happens to be an amazing acrobat. He is also a bit stressed out. Can you imagine why?

Anyway, what’s interesting about the game is that you’ve never experienced a platformer like this one before, mainly because it’s not a platformer in the first place. It feels quite different from one and thus we chose to call it a ring-former. Also, the mix of skill and puzzle splits gameplay in two phases: solving the puzzle and finishing the level in the shortest amount of time possible to climb the rankings.

There are more than 50 levels (some of them with what someone called “old-school sensibilities”), a ton of Trophies, and the mighty rankings, of course. For the curious folk, Ring Run Circus was inspired by a bowl of washers. Yes. Bowl. Metal washers.

The long story can be found on our blog. The short story is that we were challenged by the fantastic Kokoromi Gamma 4 showcase for one button games in 2010 and we could not let the idea go away, so we spent about 3 years banging our heads until the fun emerged from the cracked skulls and loose nuts and washers. We went through many iterations (including making it a two-button game, instead of one) and discovered something we had always suspected: making new and original games is really, really hard.

We are very happy to publish our first console game (making our childhood dreams come true) in the best way possible: by joining the PlayStation family. We’re eternally grateful to Mike Foster and all the Latin America developer incubation program team for making it happen.

Stay tuned for more games from Kalio and see you in the rankings!