Stylish exploration adventure forma.8 steers a course for PS4 and PS Vita

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Stylish exploration adventure forma.8 steers a course for PS4 and PS Vita

Striking side-scroller promises intrigue, puzzles and a unique world to explore

Hi PlayStation Blog! Italian indie studio MixedBag’s here again. Last Tuesday we announced our crazy shoot ’em up Futuridium EP Deluxe coming exclusively to a PS Vita near you, and today we are here to bring you more PlayStation love.
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As anticipated last week, our big project – the one we opened MixedBag for and the game we always wanted to make – is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. We are immensely proud – drum roll – to announce forma.8 for PlayStation with a brand new teaser trailer.
forma.8 is an action adventure game and our own personal take on the classic Metroidvania formula. We started working on forma.8 over two years ago, beginning with a little gameplay concept centred on an experimental control system for touch devices and evolving it in an adventure of epic scale. It’s the kind of game that, as a two-person indie developer, anyone tells you “hey, don’t start with something big like this!” Err…
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In a distant future, the small exploration probe forma.8 is stranded alone on the surface of an alien planet. He got separated from his companions by an accidental event and has a life or death mission to accomplish: he needs to find and recover a powerful energy source deep under the surface before it’s too late. Ancient civilisations, great perils and dystopian visions awaits him, and not everything is as it seems…
Floating gracefully in mid-air, with a control system that aims to give the player a true sense of flying, forma.8 starts with no powers, no weapons and no hints of what to do and where to go: it’s up to the player to explore the planet, deal with its often hostile inhabitants, and slowly uncover the story. There’s no verbal communication in the game, everything is conveyed to the player only with images, sounds and by the gameplay itself.
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Physics is a big part of forma.8 too: everything in the world is physics-based, with plants, ropes, waters, enemies, rocks and all the moving elements interacting and reacting in a realistic way, offering unexpected twists to the game.
As you can see, for forma.8 we opted to use a peculiar graphic style, using hand drawn vector graphics mixed with 3D elements, rendering everything at the highest resolution possible with a massive amount of antialiasing to get a very clean and crisp look. The results? You don’t see pixels, only smooth lines, and the game looks gorgeous on the PS Vita screen as well on a big TV rendered in 1080p. And it runs at 60frames per second, obviously.
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The soundtrack and all the sound effects are in the skillful hands of Qubit, aka Omar Ferrero, who is also working on some music tracks for Futuridium EP Deluxe. If you like the audio vibes from the trailer, he’s the one to thank.
So a little recap:

  • An expansive world
  • Everything is physics-based
  • Exploration!
  • Puzzles!
  • Secrets to uncover
  • An intriguing and mysterious story
  • 60 frames per second super fluid action
  • Lots of enemies
  • Lots of BIG enemies
  • Some more BIGGER enemies
  • …and all the power-ups you need to take care of them and to avoid all the nasty stuff you’ll face on the remote, alien planet

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A big thank you for your attention from me, Mauro Fanelli, and Andrea Gellato, the two Co-founders and members of MixedBag. We’ll share more information about forma.8 and Futuridium EP Deluxe soon. As always, I’m here to reply to your questions, so don’t be shy to ask!
And to be always up to date, please follow MixedBag on Twitter , Like our page on Facebook and read our blog on Tumblr !

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