Hello everyone! My name is Patrick Horne and I’m a Producer at Hands-On Mobile. Hands-On has made games for mobile phones for over 8 years, and we’re really excited that our first venture into hand-held consoles is going to be two games for the new PSP minis launching with PSPgo on October 1st. The minis really stood out to us as a great opportunity to make high quality games on a new platform. There were a lot of internal discussions on what our first games should be for this new platform and we eventually settled on two games, Brainpipe and Bloons.
Brainpipe is an exciting arcade style game that had previously been released online for the PC. It’s a unique spatial navigation game where you are flying through a moving and curving tunnel filled with a variety of deadly obstacles. The objective is to make it through the tunnels, avoiding the obstacles, and pick up the special glyphs and ultimately transcend your humanity.
One of the best things about Brainpipe is the combination of the visuals and the audio for the game. It has a really trippy audio track that goes perfect with the funky visuals of the tunnel and obstacles. It’s one of those games where after a few minutes of playing you realize how dry your eyes are because you haven’t blinked since you started playing. All of the levels are procedurally generated, so each time you play a level you’ll have a totally unique experience. We spent a lot of time tweaking the difficulty and tuning the controls to make sure it feels right for PSP, and we think people are really going to enjoy Brainpipe.
Bloons is a puzzle game based on the idea that popping balloons is just plain fun. Balloons are arranged in a variety of ways and you have to pop them with the darts that you are given in each level. This may sound simple, and some of the levels are pretty straight forward, but there are several twists in the game, like special balloons, that make the puzzles more challenging. It’s fun to spend some time and figure out what each of those special elements do and how they help you complete the puzzle. Bloons is a great game that you can pick up and play for a few minutes while you’re queued up at the store, or you can sit on the couch for hours as you work your way through the 70 levels included in the game. And as an added bonus, we’ve included a level editor where you can create your own balloon puzzles!
Everyone at Hands-On is really excited about minis on PSP, and we hope you all enjoy playing Brainpipe and Bloons.
14 CommentsAdd Yours
1
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:02 am by Hodgi92
Bloons!!!
Great stuff.
So that is like…5 Minis I’m buying this week
2
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:06 am by Demadred
I love Bloons! and brainpipe just looks too freaky not to buy it
is Bloons coming out today with the others? if so, yay… and in your face america
3
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:07 am by Alonemusic
BRAINPIPE!
I loved the demo on the mac but I had a niggling feeling i’d not get enough play on my work computer, so having it on the psp is an instant purchase. Great stuff, I love games like this, Everyday Shooter, Rez etc…
4
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:11 am by iorkara
I really hope Tetris is a launch title.
5
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:12 am by Ravenblade86
Brainpipe = sold! Simple idea, but it looks very cool and that audio is fantastic
6
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:16 am by Darkscorpius
I’ll be getting Brainpipe today, I was sold 20 seconds into the video.
7
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:35 am by Razgriz375
Brainpipe looks awesome, definetly a day 1 purchase nice work!
8
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 11:47 am by Apnomis
I’m really liking these new Mini’s, they almost make me want to get a PSP! I’ve never been overly bothered about the idea of playing full retail games on a handheld, only because I don’t really travel and am never away from my PS3 for extended periods. But the idea of having lot’s of mini-games that you can just drop in and out of when you have a spare 2-minutes seems like a good idea – just not a £200 good idea though!
Any chance of Mini’s coming to PS3 in future? The Store needs more reasonably priced sub-£5 titles, there were loads of great little £3.49 games when it first launched, but now they seem to price most games at £7.99 – even though a lot of them aren’t worth £7.99, and in some cases the same game can be bought on the iPhone for around £1.99!!!
Or you could introduce a PSP Emulator for the PS3, so you could play all PSP games on your TV if you wanted to…
9
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 12:20 pm by Tielo
NO UPDATE FOR HOME IN EU?
10
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 12:28 pm by LordCartman
@iorkara
“I really hope Tetris is a launch title.”
EA are apparently working on Tetris for the PSP, don’t know if it is a launch title though. I would imagine so.
11
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 12:29 pm by Hux1ey-uk
come on where is the EU update? The US got a mother load today.
Vice city is in there if you search. Cant find the theme to let you download GT for the go!
12
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 4:01 pm by Gavin_Rozee
Bit disappointed that I paid £3.50 for Bloons on PSP, which has 70 levels, when I could have bought it for my iPod Touch for 59p with 150 levels!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll be going to the App Store for my purchases in future.
13
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 4:41 pm by Carnivius_Prime
@12
At least on the PSP you’re not stuck with crappy touch or tilt controls. I don’t mind tilt controls on something like a Sixaxis but when it’s a system where you end up having to tilt the screen too, it annoys me greatly as does the lack of proper tactile buttons and d-pad/analog.
14
Posted on 1 October, 2009 at 4:55 pm by zedzee
Is that scoreboard in Brainpipe seriously that big in the actual game and in the position where it is in the video?!
That’s stupidly in the way of the game’s action.
We close the comments for posts after 30 days. If you would still like to comment on this post, please use our contact form.