BigFest set to rock your PS Vita

Hi all. I’m Steve, from On The Metal, based in Sheffield, UK. On the Metal is a new company, formed in late 2012 around the idea that it’s better to push for a great result than settle for something generic.

We build our own technology to make sure we maximise the potential of the platforms we work on. But we’re not a technology company – we drive our engine development by what is required by our art and design teams – we build technology that can bring ideas to life.

We’re a small team of under 10 people with a core who have been working together for years. We’re looking forward to growing and delivering fun, high quality games for years to come.

We were approached by Sony late last year about getting involved with BigFest. The concept is terrific – promote real unsigned bands in a festival that you build yourself. We were very excited by the concept and keen to get stuck in, working closely with them to make the game a reality.

The game’s essence is “your music, your way”. You browse and select music from a large online music catalogue, which will be regularly updated. The music you choose is more than the soundtrack to your game though. You’ll be promoting your bands, taking them from unknowns and making them super stars, giving them the tools to do their job and sharing your efforts for them with your friends – who will have an influence on how well you do. And the game will be using real bands, so along with having lots of fun, the game will be breaking real bands in the real world.

So, how do you as a player break a band? We don’t want to give too much away yet but a big component is building and customising your very own festival, giving your bands the best venue to play in. It’ll take time and effort to build something to attract hundreds of Visitors to generate the Vibe to really catapult your bands forward. Maintaining it will require attention too and you’ll need to make sure you don’t overwork your chief roadie, Big Dave, and his crew, because they can only do some much at once.

You’ll also be visiting your friends’ festivals and, if you’ve earned the right to do so, you can rate them too. But if they’re getting a bit too big for their boots you can dish out a little pressure, playing all manner of hilarious pranks on them that they will need to deal with.

We are very excited about BigFest and have a lot more to share with you in the coming months. Watch this space folks!