Hello again, readers! I can’t believe this day has come, but it has: Explodemon is out TOMORROW on the wonderful PlayStation Network!

To celebrate the launch we’ve got a brand-spanking new trailer, carefully designed to amaze you so much that you can’t resist buying a copy:

So, what do you get for your low-low £7.99/9.99 Euro?

Well, you get an epic story spanning three diverse worlds, full of funny one-liners, comic situations and deeply heartwrenching pathos (maybe). You get 12 massive, sprawling levels filled with secret areas, devilish puzzles and perilous traps. You get tons of unlockable abilities and permanent character upgrades, all crucial in evolving Explodemon into the ultimate badass exploder-dude. You get a finely nuanced control system designed to make speed-running a graceful and compulsive experience. AND – most of all – you get the undying love of an indie developer that believed in its vision too stubbornly to give up.

Everyone here at Curve is ‘double rainbow’-levels of excitedness about the fact that you’ll soon be getting your mitts on our labour of love, so make sure you let us know what you think!

Oh, and if you’re a little light on money this month, fear not: we’re giving away THREE copies of Explodemon RIGHT NOW! If you want to know more, make sure you follow @curvestudios!

I’ll be hanging around in the comments section if you’ve got any questions (related to the game, of course – still having nightmares after last time). Otherwise, I’ll see you on the leaderboards, chump!

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Hello again, PlayStation Bloggers!

Hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year! Explodemon is out in just a few weeks’ time – February 8th (save the date) so we thought it would be nice to ease the wait a little with a look at the long, long history of Explodemon and the realities of life as an independent developer (and now publisher).

Our wonderful design director and (non-biological) father of Explodemon, Jonathan Biddle – known almost exclusively as Bidds – has documented the whole five year saga. It’s a long tale, so I’ve formulated a super-condensed version here – but if you want the full, unedited saga, point your Internet Machine over to http://www.onebitbeyond.com

To set the scene: Curve was founded in 2005: a pretty dire time for game developers in the UK. The fledgling company got some work making ‘joystick games’ which, while it could be considered a comedown having previously worked on triple-A products, turned out to be a great chance to get back to gaming’s roots. I’ll let Bidds pick up the story from there:

After finishing a long, complex, demoralising project, working on getting five 2D games out of the door within three months was refreshing and liberating. The constraints of the system, combined with my love of classic arcade, SNES and GBA games made for an interesting period.

One of the joystick games we were working on at the time was a Spider-Man platform game, and I’d had to spend a good deal of time explaining to the game’s coder the basics of platform game control. The more I thought about it, the more my neurons flickered with my multiple past replays of Yoshi’s Island, Treasure’s Astro Boy and Gunstar Heroes. These kinds of games possess a certain quality to them; something about the pixel art; the depth of gameplay, deriving from simple rules; the accessibility; the collecting; the level designs; and the perfect controls. I felt a burning desire to create my own game that explored these mechanics.

Explodemon prototype (above); Explodemon final version (below)

Over the next few months, the game began to take shape. Those interested in exactly how the mechanics in Explodemon! came about should check out the unabridged Part 2 and Part 3, but for this whistle-stop tour we’ll scoot forward into March 2006, when the prototype was considered complete enough to show colleagues. A spontaneous showing to a visiting publisher brought favourable reactions, so we decided to cast it further afield.

Publishers initially showed interest in it, but would always find reasons to not get involved – concerns about an exploding character in the post-9/11 climate, or that it was too Japanese. Nevertheless, our art team ploughed ahead and made a concept render video of how we imagined the finished product to look like, which we used to get more interest from a publisher and to secure a PSN slot for the game. But when that publisher pulled out in early May 2008 we found ourselves once again back at square one.

While one platform holder decided that we hadn’t progressed enough to keep our slot, luckily Sony believed in us and let us soldier on. We started our first coders working on the engine in November 2008 and Explodemon’s lead artist joined in January 2009.

Then, on one unsuspecting March day, we were sprucing up the website when we decided to put the concept trailer up on it, as it was mostly only publishers that looked at it. Simultaneously, we switched to a new piece of software and the manufacturer asked if they could put out a little press release about us.

Perhaps we were naive to think that the two wouldn’t be connected, but the next day – April 1st – the Internet was ablaze with stories about Explodemon. While it was great for the team to see such excitement about a game that had been knocked back so much by publishers, the high was to be shortlived.

Also on April 1st, the most insane thing happened. Something that I still can’t really believe to this day, something that shows that truth really is stranger than fiction. A few hours after our video was revealed, a totally different developer on the other side of the world independently announced a 2.5D platform game with an exploding lead character. We literally couldn’t believe it.

Explodemon prototype (above); Explodemon final version (below)

With all the media interest, though, guess who came knocking back on our doors again: yep, the many legions of publishers. Once again we went back into their green-light processes. By this time, we’d not progressed a huge amount with our limited resources, whereas the other guys were gearing up for release. Once again: all rejections, this time because of our new competition, which was (deservedly) going down a storm.

That game launched at the end of July, to great acclaim and sales. While we were happy for the developers – they’re nice guys, and it’s always good to see indies prosper – they were dark days for me. With our tiny team and massive collection of publisher refusals – about 20 companies – we’d been unable to make an impact on production. We were at a crossroads. There was no getting away from it this time; there would be no funding from any external sources; we would have to make this game ourselves or just give it up forever. What was it going to be?

Well, given that you’re here now, reading this, you can pretty much figure out what happened: we put our money where our mouth was, hired a full team and, in late 2009, the project entered full development, with a full team of artists, programmers and designers all beavering away at producing an overwhelmingly awesome experience.

We were still unsure of how it was going to turn out back then, and we weren’t always convinced that it was going to get finished. And because running an independent games developer is very hard and very stressful, it’s true that things haven’t always gone smoothly.

One thing’s for certain though: when Explodemon is finally released, I’m just as convinced now as I was then that our belief in the game will ultimately enrich the lives of everyone in the world and bring peace and harmony to all. Or it’ll just be a great video game, whichever is more important.

Let’s start with the latter.

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Hello there, beautiful PlayStation.Blog fans!

My name is Ed Fear and I’m the PR Manager at Curve Studios, an independent developer based in London. I’d like to take a moment of your time to introduce you to Explodemon, an awesome action-platformer coming to the PlayStation Network this Winter 2010.

I think the best way of telling you about Explodemon is with a suitably bombastic trailer, so take a look at this:

If that’s piqued your interest, hooray! If it didn’t pique your interest then, well, shame on you. Watch it again until it does.

Let me set the scene: the nefarious Vortex have mounted a surprise invasion on the planet Nibia, destroying its entire Guardian defence force in the process. Only one hope remains: the malfunctioning prototype Guardian Explodemon, locked in stasis after a, shall we say, ‘devastating’ activation experiment.

As his name suggests, Explodemon’s problem is that he’s ‘prone’ to exploding. It turns out that, surprisingly, Explodemon’s explosivity (so totally a word) will come in useful for fighting back the Vortex onslaught, navigating around the environment, and solving tricky physics-based puzzles.

Featuring 12 huge levels of pulse-pounding platforming, a deep control system, devastatingly up-close-and-personal combat, upgradable special abilities, comic-book style cut-scenes and a story that’ll make you giggle, cry, or simply sigh with indifference, Explodemon isn’t your average game. No way. It’s above average, at least. No, wait – so way above average that it’s pure awesome. That’s more like it.

We’ve been working on Explodemon for almost five years now, in some capacity or another, so we’re immeasurably excited to actually get it out to people before the end of the year.

If you’re thinking ‘Five years?’ then, well, that’s understandable. It’s a very long and dramatic story, featuring MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTORS! LAST-MINUTE DEAL BREAKDOWNS! HIDDEN USURPERS! and BOUNCY CASTLES! – well, okay, not the last one (I can dream). But it ultimately culminates in us deciding to follow our instincts and venture into the brave new world of self-publishing. But you look a little fidgety, and I don’t want to go on too much, so let’s save that for another blog post. Or possible movie rights.

Considering that I’ve just sold Explodemon to you so well, you’re gagging to have a go, right? (Yes. You are.) Well, you’re in luck – Curve Studios will be out in force to show off Explodemon to the world at the MCM Expo, from October 29th to 31st at the ExCeL Centre in London. We’ll also be giving away goodies and even copies of the game, so make sure you pop on by and say hello!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little introduction to Explodemon, and that you’re suitably excited for what I can personally guarantee is the most EXPLOSIVE game to launch on PSN this Winter. If you’ve got any questions or comments, post them below – I’ll be skulking below in the comments section like a lonely man at a house party, gripping his drink and staring intently at his shoes, desperate for a snippet of conversation to latch on to.

P.S. Oh! I almost forgot! Make sure you follow us on Twitter @curvestudios to keep up-to-date on all the latest information and get exclusive screenshots not seen anywhere else. There are free copies of the game up for grabs too!

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