PixelJunk Monsters & Encore - Trophies, custom soundtracks, youtube NOW!

**cliffbo** · 12-05-2007, 09:31 PM

Monster Madness

+ Posted by Dylan Cuthbert // President and Executive Producer, Q-Games Ltd.

Monster Madness
Hi everyone, the response to my blog entry in August was great, and I finally have some spare time. So here’s an entry about our latest PixelJunk title: PixelJunk Monsters!

Everyone here at Q-Games loves real-time strategy games, from Warcraft through to Command & Conquer and Company Of Heroes, etc., but the Japanese public simply don’t buy that genre yet. So one thing I really wanted to do with Monsters is take the simple RTS concept of building and researching and having base defenses (a concept that has been used in Warcraft tower-defense mods and more recently in its Flash incarnations) and wrap it all in a completely different style and mode of gameplay that the Japanese public (and hopefully the West too, of course!) would really get into.

RTS’s are historically controlled by a roving cursor (either a mouse, or an analogue controller) and right from the start I decided to take that away and replace it with a cute character you control. You run around as this little defender-of-the-forests type chap, collecting money and building defensive towers along the paths to your base. You can only build towers where we have placed trees in the stages, which gave us enormous control over the design and balancing of each map. As a result we have over 20 very different stages, all of which are unique and addictive to play.

Another major help in the design was the addition of gems that the monsters sometimes drop; using these gems you can research more advanced towers, or upgrade existing ones. If you like though, you can upgrade existing towers by doing a little rain-dance-type performance in front of them too. The longer you dance, the more powerful the towers become!

Out of all the games I have made over the years, PixelJunk Monsters was probably the hardest to balance and tune! In the end, it took a whole team of planners (Japanese for game designer) to play the game non-stop for a month and record their data into a database from which we adjusted money/gems/toughness of enemies etc., accordingly. They were all thoroughly addicted by the end of this process and even after completing the game in its entirety numerous times they still boot it up for “one more go.” The online rankings are going to be pretty competitive for this title and there are separate tables for cooperative and single play. The cooperative mode actually gets people to talk to each other as they play, and seeing as girls love this game (no, honestly, they do!), Monsters could become an important tool in every lad’s arsenal!

On a completely different (but important) note, some people might be looking for flashy graphics with thousands of polygons and in-your-face transparency/effects everywhere but if every game is like that things begin to look the same; so for this title we have purposefully gone for a style that hearkens back to the pre-PlayStation era. By using a ton of meticulously hand-drawn 2D art instead of 3D modeled graphics, we have tried to re-create the feel of some of those older classics (we still go overboard on shader effects though, as they are so much fun to program!).

Our next title will be yet another completely different style (as was PixelJunk Racers). In fact, this freedom of style and expression we are discovering is one of the great things about developing indie games. With your continuing support (i.e. please keep buying our games, they only cost approximately 1.5 beers!) we’ll continue fiddling and experimenting with new concepts and styles for as long as we can come up with the ideas and cash to support them!

PixelJunk Monsters will be available on PlayStation Network globally in January.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/...nster-madness/

**OmniStalgic** · 12-05-2007, 09:41 PM

Nice twist--and definitely a first for a download title on PS3...

We'll see how it turns out...

**cliffbo** · 12-05-2007, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by OmniCloud

Nice twist--and definitely a first for a download title on PS3...

We'll see how it turns out...

something VERY interesting in the PSP forums too!

**Domination** · 12-05-2007, 09:45 PM

An RTS title? Awesome! I may purchase this one when it launches.

***LaLiLuLeLo*** · 12-05-2007, 09:45 PM

I am intrigued.....

**cliffbo** · 12-05-2007, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by LaLiLuLeLo

I am intrigued.....

a little snippet from the PSP article:

He went on to confirm that Sony is looking into the possibility of bringing PS3 PlayStation Network games such as flOw and Everyday Shooter to the PSP.

***LaLiLuLeLo*** · 12-05-2007, 10:10 PM

Interest level RISING.

**cliffbo** · 12-05-2007, 10:12 PM

Originally Posted by LaLiLuLeLo

Interest level RISING.

**OmniStalgic** · 12-06-2007, 12:30 AM

This could be another breakout title on PSN--I just rediscovered how fun CaC was a few days ago with my girl...

Keep em coming Sony!!!

**CreativeWriter** · 12-06-2007, 02:46 AM

So is this a full-blown RTS or just a tower-defense game? The article makes it sound like a simple tower-defense game, like those flash versions. I'd love to see a real Warcraft 3-like RTS. I'm pretty sure I'd play nothing but that for weeks... Damn you Blizzard-Activision! (better get used to the sound of it, pretty soon BA will become as hated as EA, just you watch

)

**venomv** · 12-06-2007, 03:18 AM

It defently looks liek a tower defense game, but I love tower defence (On WC3 and SC anyway).

***Luis*** · 12-06-2007, 10:57 AM

Dylan Cuthbert | December 5th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Hey everyone, thanks for all the comments (I spotted the comment about devs not responding but here in Japan it is only just morning so I have only just had the chance to read through everybody’s responses)

I’m amazed at how positive everyone is - we have really gone out on a limb with this SNES-like style (because we like it!) and I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received.

The game supports cooperative play (which I think is a first in a tower-defense type game?) and crisp full-HD 1080 at 60hz. Also, the soundtrack is unique and original.. quite weird and ambient though, a style not many people have heard before.

We also support PSP remote play and it is probably one of the first games that supports this really well - ie. it is totally playable through your PSP, even at low bandwidths.

Oh, don’t forget dual-shock 3 support too, for those really early adopters out there.

There’s an article going up on newsweek.com (n’Gai) today which hopefully has some illustrative/concept artwork and also keep an eye on http://pixeljunk.jp for more info about this game and the third title (and eventually fourth and fifth of course). We will be posting a movie on there today or tomorrow.

By the way, the thread title is quite misleading. This is PixelJunk Monsters.

**cliffbo** · 12-06-2007, 12:42 PM

i just copied the headline... i thought it sounded familiar because there is another game called Monster Madness that was on the 360 and is rumoured to be coming to PS3. i'll PM a mod and get them to change it

**HighOnSunoco** · 12-06-2007, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by cliffbo

a little snippet from the PSP article:

I just hope we don't have to rebuy the games for the PSP.

***Luis*** · 12-06-2007, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by cliffbo

i just copied the headline... i thought it sounded familiar because there is another game called Monster Madness that was on the 360 and is rumoured to be coming to PS3. i'll PM a mod and get them to change it

The problem is that Monster Madness is actually a terrible, terrible game and has nothing to do with this one, thankfully.

**cliffbo** · 12-06-2007, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by Leedogg

I just hope we don't have to rebuy the games for the PSP.

i'm hoping for a Lair type situation!

***Luis*** · 12-06-2007, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by cliffbo

i'm hoping for a Lair type situation!

That doesn't have anything to do with that, but didn't you read the bold part of my first post?

**cliffbo** · 12-06-2007, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by VG Aficionado

That doesn't have anything to do with that, but didn't you read the bold part of my first post?

WOW! i missed that! +rep fella, great news

**Segitz** · 12-06-2007, 05:47 PM

In the comments of the SCEA page, he says that "this is (he thinks) the first tower defence game with coop"... What I sucker, he doesn't even know the genre he programs in...

Warcraft 3s tower defence maps nearly all supported coop, and that very good (even officially since Blizzard released some TD maps)... And, if I am not mistaken, this was the first game to majorly introduce tower defence.

**curryking1** · 12-06-2007, 05:57 PM

^Yaaaaaaaaaa!!! Warcraft III!!! I used to play those kinds of maps all the time, they were so fun :P

Good call... I would've called that if I was here first

Nice to see the variety in these downloadable titles just growing like this, awesome