PlayStation Mobile: Puzziball

Hello again, PlayStation Blog readers! Heavy Spectrum here. It’s exciting to be talking to you all again so soon! After Bullion Blitz we’ve been working hard to get the second of our debut titles to the PS Mobile store, and tomorrow you’ll be able to check it out!
The game is Puzziball, and like our previous game Bullion Blitz, it came about from a desire to create something tactile and engaging. This time however, we focussed on sliding your fingers and how that could translate into a game which “felt” like a physical object.

As with the first title, we iterated through many control ideas quickly, and the moment we felt things fall into place was when we combined dragging objects around the screen with the occasional flick of the device to “bounce” the playing area. Inspired by vintage sliding block puzzle games (like the ones you had as a kid!), using this mechanism we devised a game that combined the fun factor of those classic games with modern twists to tax the brain.
So here it is – Puzziball, a dynamic puzzle with a ball trapped in a maze constructed of movable “sliders”. The sliders are arranged in two layers, and you can move the ball between them by aligning the holes in the sliders and “tipping” the ball – either literally, thanks to the all-knowing motion sensor, or by tapping the screen for those “I’m bouncing around on a rickety bus” moments.

That’s all you need to play – just slide the sliders and tip the ball. It’s simple enough to begin with, but we’ve added a few twists to make life more interesting – teleporters to send the ball across the stage, bombs to blow things up (controlled detonations good, unplanned explosions bad) and locked doors are among the devices that will challenge your brainpower.
As a note, to anyone so inclined, PSM as a development platform has been a really great way to get these new games up and running quickly. This accessibility for development, combined with the great support from Sony, was a leading factor in our choosing it as a platform for our first games. We’re excited to see it being used for so many different things already!
Puzziball can be purchased for £0.79/€0.99, with an additional pack of advanced challenge stages available for £0.79/€0.99 if you yearn for more puzzling goodness.

Once again, we really hope the puzzle game fans amongst you give the game a try. We’re sure you’ll enjoy it!
Thanks from everyone at Heavy Spectrum and Sony XDev for your time, we really appreciate you reading this post and taking an interest in the games we’ve been working so hard on.