Happy belated New Year to all our friends and fans on PlayStation Network! This is Tatyana from Creat Studios here but I speak for the whole team when I say that we are incredibly excited to announce our latest game, the minis title Mecho Wars, is coming to the PlayStation Store for €4.99 on January 25th as well as to PlayStation Plus on February 1st at a discounted price. Based on the characters, world, and distinctive visual style crafted by Luc Bernard, Mecho Wars is a turn-based strategy game where you command your troops to expand into enemy territory, control and collect resources, and conquer your enemy’s structures.

Jump into an exciting war between the Winged Crusade and the Landians! The story of Mecho Wars details the rise of the Winged Crusade in the distant land of Divination Deserts. This is not your typical desert, however, as there is plenty of water that separates land masses. To sustain your army capture factories to expand your maximum army support, take-over cities to earn gold from the rich economic hubs, and defeat the enemy by capturing their HQ building while simultaneously defending your own. Don’t forget strategic unit composition and troop positioning as each unit type has its own strengths and weaknesses. The game even features a day/night cycle where the water that normally restricts your movement paths during the day freezes at night, allowing for unexpected skirmishes and ambushes. In addition to the rich, story-driven campaign, the Mecho Wars minis title features a new and extended soundtrack, a special set of individual challenge maps, and remarkable local multiplayer support on a single device for both the PS3 and PSP!

Mecho Wars achieves the perfect balance between the intense competitive strategy of army composition and troop placement and the invitingly casual and leisurely gaming experience lent by its turn-based combat system. The beauty of Mecho Wars is you can spend hours on end formulating the perfect strategy, unit composition, and battle placement tactics to best defeat your foe, or you can take your time and casually complete a turn every once in a while as you eat lunch or watch the news.

Everyone here at Creat absolutely loves playing Mecho Wars and we believe that, if given a chance, it can become one of your favorites as well. Thank you for the continued support you all have given us and we will continue to work our hardest to deliver awesome and ridiculously fun games to you guys. We always value fan feedback so leave us a comment below or get in contact with us on Facebook or through Twitter for all of our latest news and announcements.

Rumble Trucks is not your classic racing game. Playing it feels like a rollercoaster ride: high speed, steep hills, huge jumps.

Big jumps allow for big tricks, perform them and you’ll gain a speed boost, use it wisely and reach the end of level as fast as possible to win a medal. On the way to the finish line don’t forget to collect the stars scattered around the levels as they give you a time bonus.

You’ll be able to choose between nine vehicles with different stats and then race on one of the twenty four levels divided in three worlds. Obviously you will need to unlock the trucks and the levels before being able to play on them.

Reaching the final level in each world unlocks the next world, but those final levels are so tricky that it’s hard enough just trying to get a gold medal and collecting all the stars. It’s a real challenge, but you will enjoy it.

Hi – I’m a game designer at Die Gute Fabrik, a small Indie Studio based in Denmark. We are just about to release our debut on PlayStation Network minis (PS3 and PSP). It’s called “Where is my Heart?”, and it’s about a family of monsters lost in the woods. In the game you have help them find a way back to their home – a mysterious tree with a heart in its branches. The whole story is set in an 8-bit style environment made up of woods, mushroom caves, crystal rock pools, fern fringed creeks and waterfalls.

Nils, our artist, is going to talk more about the concept art and environment design of the game below. As for the game mechanics: the basics play just like a usual platform game, but the world is visually sliced into rectangular fragments (or panels) which are placed on the screen at unexpected locations. With this game mechanic – the messed up way of representation – I attempted to evoke the sensation of being lost. On top of that, the visual slicing also allowed us to add further mechanics to the game. These mechanics make use and build upon the visual confusion caused by the panels. One of these game-play elements is the ‘panel rotation’.

The Rainbow Spirit -one of the monsters- can use this mechanic to its advantage. When the player presses the L and R shoulder buttons of the game controller the Spirit can make the panels spin around the screen center. This allows the Spirit to hop from frame to frame, outside of the physical game world. It’s a bit hard to describe. Looking at the trailer above will fix this – it’s easier to grasp when seen in action. Playing around with the Spirit Rotation was a very satisfying experience to our testers. We spent a lot of effort into making it feel just right. It’ll make the puzzle muscles in your brain as sore as legs after a marathon.

The game is loosely based on an experience I had with my parents three summers ago. We were hiking in the woods near our home. And guess what – we lost our bearings, got really frustrated, and started bickering with each other. That’s the short version of it. The long version entails family issues and the dark sides of personalities. If you’re interested in reading more about the game’s source of inspiration, please go here.

By the way we also had our first review by eurogamer and they gave us 8 out of 10.

I’ll pass on to Nils now, our artist.”

Nils Deneken: Hi, I’m the graphic artist here at Die Gute Fabrik. In 2009, after the first Where is my Heart? prototype was displayed at the Independent Games Festival, Bernhard asked me if I wanted to do the artwork for the game. Already the prototype that Bernhard had submitted to the IGF 2009 had a very distinct art style. Obviously it’s a game that uses pixel graphics and thus refers to games from the creator’s childhood, but it has some aesthetic twists that sets itself apart from the games of yore (and just as much from the games of today).

One visual twist is the representation of the game levels as comic panels. It is one of the basic mechanics of the game which has both a strong influence on the level designs and the visuals of the game. The other distinctive visual element is the bold choice of colors, which is quite unusual for games in general.

While other games tend to use fairly realistic colors to represent their environments, Bernhard chose a strange palette of pastel colors. The grass wasn’t a saturated green, like it is in most game graphics, but a very light green, which seemed to glow almost neon-like in front of the browns and grays of the rocks. The sky was light purple instead of sky-blue and sprinkled with yellow stars that would fade in and out. Then there were the three little monster characters and a big tree with a face, whose emotions were ranging from grumpy to sad. The old tree, the Heartboxes, which the player has to unlock to progress, and Antler Ancestor, which the Brown Monster turns into, seem all to be taken straight from the traditional German fairy tales. The heart boxes remind us of the gingerbread house from Grimm’s “Hänsel und Gretel”, while the Antler is clearly derived from a Bavarian mythical creature called the Wolpertinger. Their representation, however, is more inspired by Japanese anime, games and pictogram culture. The whole strangely coloured mix of Japanese cuteness with German fairytales distinguished it as something very contemporary.

I was excited. It was liberating not having to do world and character concepts from scratch, but to work with the constraints that came with Bernhard’s prototype level concepts, to refine them and build new worlds with that feel and colour palette that he had introduced.

The locations the levels are taking place in are all tied to the overall topic of getting lost in the woods. The environments, even though fantastic with flying platforms and such, are rooted in a moderate climate. They are believable settings for the fiction we created around the three monsters. Besides the forest, I added different kinds of caves to the environments, since they would bring variation to the levels without breaking the overall theme of the game.

Some environment designs required night settings. We decided to have the scenery change into night time, when the Brown Monster transformed into the Antler Ancestor. We aimed for the most satisfying feedback that comes with his transformation, where he would literally step into “the Land of Fireflies”.

When the grey monster transformed, he would open a window into a dark parallel world, the “Land of the Bat”, where he could use different platforms and secret passages, which meant that some levels needed a land-of-the-bat version as well.

The three family characters Bernhard created in his IGF prototype were interesting and had a lot of personality already, but I took the liberty of changing some of them a little to make them more distinguishable from each other and more coherent with the game style at the same time.

For more information about the Artwork of Where is my Heart and other projects, feel free to visit http://gutefabrik.com/.

As was the case with its predecessor, Arcade Essentials Evolution is a collection of 5 arcade games, remakes of the classic arcade hits of the 80s that we all know. Each game consists of 50 levels, so there is quite a lot of gameplay time here. We made minimalistic visuals with lots of special effects, so that they would feel like we are in real arcades. To get an idea of how it looks like and plays, please check the trailer:

First game is an enhanced version of a game about asteroids. In the beginning, levels are quite easy, however as you progress further, difficulty increases and new bonuses and asteroids types start to appear. For example, there is a bonus that allows you to fly through the planets destroying them as you move forward. There are indestructible asteroids that you cannot shoot. There are bonuses that make you fly faster and many other cool things.

In the next game called Toader, you need to cross the road safely and reach a safe zone. Once safe zone is reached, you need to jump over the floating islands into the top part of the screen. As usual, there are lots of bonuses that improve your characteristics and help you out.

In this game, you need to shoot the worm that is coming from the top of the screen. Each time you hit it – it divides into 2 parts that run in different directions. If any part of this worm comes to the bottom of the screen – that’s it, it’s a game over.

This game was inspired by brick-shooting games, such as Arkanoid and Breakout. The goal of this game is to destroy all the bricks across 50 levels.
And finally:

A Lunar Parking game, where you have to park your spacecraft on specially designated locations. You are challenged with gravitational forces and inhabitants of the planet that are running around.

And that’s all for today. Thanks for reading this and hope you will enjoy this game!

For more information on our games you can visit our website www.nordcurrent.com or our Facebook page on www.facebook.com/Nordcurrent

Hello Guys, just when you thought it was safe to go back on the blog, here I am again.

Around here, February is minis month and to celebrate this year we’re pulling out all the stops with a fantastic sale on some of our very best minis.

Throughout February we’ll be offering you the chance to grab forty, fantastic minis at only 99p (€1.19) each, so if you’ve never sampled the delights of the minis before, there has never been a better time to jump in with both feet.

February 2nd to February 16th we’ll have 20 titles available at this knockout price and then from February 16th through to March 2nd we’ll be offering 20 more. These minis will include some of our most popular titles and will come in all shapes and sizes, meaning there’s bound to be something for everyone.

Here’s what we’ll be offering from February 2nd until February 16th:

• Monopoly
• Hero Of Sparta
• BREAKQUEST
• Championship Manager 2010 Express
• SPOT THE DIFFERENCES!
• Zombie Tycoon
• Stand O’Food
• Fieldrunners
• 5-in-1 Arcade Hits
• Bowling 3D
• DynoGems
• Echoes
• Red Bull X-Fighters
• Arcade Darts
• VEMPIRE
• Bloons TD
• VT Tennis
• Tehra: Dark Warrior
• Sneezies
• Mahjongg Artifacts

And here are the titles you can grab from February 16th until March 2nd:

• Ice Road Truckers
• YetiSports
• Let’s Golf!
• Pinball Dreams
• Age of Zombies
• Bloons
• Brick Breaker
• Bubble Trubble
• Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
• Dracula: Undead Awakening
• Vector TD
• This Is Football Management
• Cubixx
• NormalTanks
• The Mystery of the Crystal Portal
• Alien Zombie Death
• 4×4 Jam
• Coconut Dodge
• Aero Racer
• Supermarket Mania

I’m here to talk to you about a game that was just released this week in the minis section (compatible PlayStation 3 and PSP) of the PlayStation Store: SHIFT extended.

It’s actually a very unique platform/puzzle game where you have the ability to reverse each level to find new ways out. It’s all based around this concept of “shifting” and the black & white art style.

Basically, you’re the subject of an experiment and you have to go through the 120 twisted levels using the only power you have: shifting. It lets you completely change the environment and the very structure of the level by reversing the gravity and the colours: black becomes white, plain becomes void and vice-versa. It’s not the easiest thing putting this concept into words, but you’ll instantly know what I’m talking about once you have a look at the trailer.

This extended version of SHIFT was specifically developed and enhanced for the PlayStation 3 and the PSP. The content from the original version was doubled and there are five new gameplay features added as well (converters, mobile blocks, mobile spikes, elastic blocks and a time attack feature) which you can have a glimpse of in this second video.

I was really curious about the making of such a unique game so I asked the developers, Fishing Cactus, a few questions.

Why is the entire game in black and white? It doesn’t seem very complicated to add a few colors so why didn’t you?

The art style is completely driven by the gameplay mechanic. It’s the idea of completely reversing the space, of being able to play in a level and a second later in its negative form, which dictated this choice. Not to mention that a black and white game is much more pleasant to look at than, let’s say, a red and blue game for example.

On top of that, the levels are not overloaded with information. There’s a reason why the levels are so uncluttered: with that original a mechanic, it’s important for the player to be able to focus on the puzzles and therefore everything must be slick and intuitive. Having too many background elements would cause some confusion to the players.

When you think about it, this particular art style contributes to the success of the game: when you see a screenshot of SHIFT extended you just can’t confuse it with another title, it’s what makes the game so unique!

60 in the original version, 120 for SHIFT extended. How do you manage to keep the player interested after so many levels?

Everything depends on the skill of our Level Designers, doesn’t it? More seriously, we introduced a lot of new mechanics since we have had a lot of creative possibilities. Actually, the biggest issue was to make sure that we were not redundant and that each level had its unique look and sequence, despite the recurrent black and white paradigm.

What’s the most time-consuming: the level design or the technical development?

Actually it’s quite the same for me since it is a 2D game with only one-screen levels. The development of the level is made in same time as the level design. The only restriction we had was to fix a well-adjusted curve of difficulty, and to make sure that the player had fully understood the mechanics we had introduced through the game before bringing new ones bit-by-bit.

What are the levels you are the most proud of?

The 20 last levels are among our favourites. Those are also the hardest of the game, so maybe is it linked. There is one we particularly appreciate. We can’t wait to see how long you will need to get through it.

SHIFT extended was released on January 19th on the European PlayStation Store for €3.99/£3.49. You’ll find it in the minis section (as it’s a minis, when purchased, the game is playable both on your PlayStation 3 and/or on your PSP). Everyone from Zallag and Fishing Cactus hope you’ll have a blast playing it!

You can find more information by following SHIFT extended and Zallag on Facebook.

Our official website at Zallag.com is also a great way to keep in touch with news, blogs and many ways to contact us.

Check out the all-new, full trailer for the game.

With “Who’s That Flying?!” we’ve combined side-scrolling shooting action with elements of tower defence and even some up-close and personal quick-time events for the super-dramatic moments.

What that means is that the character you control, the “Guardian of Earth” is pretty much invulnerable, blasting enemies apart and grappling giant bosses with ease – but the cities you are defending are hugely vulnerable. So your goal is not to survive, but rather to stop too many enemies getting past you and destroying your cities.

The story starts out with the Guardian of Earth on trial for allowing the invasion to take place; each level is played out as a flashback as you submit your version of events… in the most dramatic way possible!

The game is now available on the PS3 and PSP worldwide for the price of £3.99/€4.99.

We’ve piled as much as we could into our latest game – INCLUDING (but not limited to):

• Story mode with full animated cutscenes detailing the trial of the Guardian of Earth!

• Five unique stages and over 40 individual levels!

• 4 Infinite mode challenges to unlock with local highscore boards!

• Challenge mode with 24 unique trials to unlock!

• 17 different enemy types!

• Masses of bonus artwork and awards!

• Huge finishing moves!

• Combos, medals. Power-ups and more…!

The response we’ve had to our previous minis, “Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess!” has been phenomenal – thanks to everyone who’s supported us, and we’re really hoping that with “Who’s That Flying?!” we can raise our bar even higher!

For more information check out the Mediatonic website, or find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks again for all your help and support! If you have any comments, please drop them below and we’ll do our best to respond!

Core Urbanix’s gameplay is a mixture between Xonix and Qix – you control a tiny little tractor that needs to conquer the playfield. When you are travelling over the unoccupied land, you leave a trail. If the trail is hit by an enemy or yourself – you lose a life. Very simple, yet deep gameplay. To get a better idea of what is going on in Urbanix, please have a look at Urbanix video.

Urbanix takes place in three worlds – Town, North Pole and Moon Base. Apart from the visuals, these worlds are fundamentally different in terms of gameplay. In Town, you just need to conquer and empty territory. In North Pole, you need to clear the area from the snow first, and then conquer it (so you need to conquer the area twice) and in Moon Base you need to conquer the area three times.

Each world consists of 50 levels, so you have plenty of work to do.

We have 3 enemy types in Urbanix – Landrunners, Helisharks and Housecrashers. Landrunners are the easiest and the dumbest ones. All they do is run from one side to another without even changing their direction. If they hit you or your tail, you lose a life. Helisharks are flying after you, and if you’re caught, you need to break away by rapidly pressing the L and R buttons. If you are successful, you will get away; if not, you will lose a life. And finally Housecrashers – they are harmless, but very annoying. They run around and destroy the houses you’ve built. So as soon as you see one, you need to scare it away as fast as you can.

Urbanix has numerous bonuses, both good and bad. Look out for those, as they might determine your success.

And last but not least, we wanted this game to look good not only on handheld screen, but also on TV. That’s why we’ve gone for full 3D that also looks great on PS3.

Thanks for reading this and hope you will enjoy this game.

For more information on our games you can visit our website or our Facebook page.

The Must-have minis selection contains some of our favourite minis both new and old. The full list is:

Young Thor from Frima Studio
You are the young and mighty Thor, god of thunder. As such, you hold more power than you’ve ever dreamed. With fifteen different attacks, eight artefacts to collect and a hundred levels to gain, you’ll have everything you need to defeat Hel and the horde of mythical creatures she commands.

Supermarket Mania from G5 Entertainment
Supermarket Mania is a highly addictive time management game. Running grocery stores can be a lot of fun! Help Nikki keep five stores stocked to the rafters with the provisions customers want.

Cubixx from Laughing Jackal
Classic action puzzle gaming brought into the 3rd dimension. Cubixx is an old school test of skill, requiring lightning reflexes and split second decisions. Evade or annihilate deadly enemies as you attempt to destroy faces of the cube, unleashing the energy within.

Alien Zombie Death from PomPom Games
You are a lone Spaceman doing something or other on a mining platform floating around a random planet. They are the Alien Zombies. Intent on the destruction of all Spacemen doing stuff… in space. How long can you hold off the hordes?

Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess from Mediatonic
Those fiendish and misshapen fools have (as far as we know) made off with your true love – and they haven’t even had the good grace to leave a shred of evidence to follow. Only sweeping accusations and devastating style can save her from the fate she will (possibly) face now!

Carnivores from Beatshapers
Carnivores is a hunting game, which lets players explore huge non-linear locations as they attempt to track down a variety of dinosaurs that are armed with advanced AI; these are dangerous creatures that are able to see, hear and sense the hunter. With 15 different dinosaurs across 5 distinct environments including forests jungles and muddy marshes.

Blast Off from Halfbrick Studios
Blast Off is an interstellar arcade game featuring gravity fields, lost astronauts and bizarre planetary systems. Use your rocket ship to rescue astronauts and carry them through the warp gate to safety. But be careful: gravity can help you on your journey, but it can also bring you crashing down.

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS from Slitherine
Based on the hugely successful TV series, Ice Road Truckers lets you take control of these huge 18-wheelers and drive your way across the ice roads.

Flying Hamster from The Game Atelier
Take control of Newton, the Flying Hamster, in this action-frenzy horizontal shooter. Fly to save your girl across six levels filled with various foes (animals, robots, aliens…) and beat the most ruthless bosses with any item you may find on your way.

Rocks N’Rockets from TikGames
Are you ready to take the hero’s seat in this addictive arcade game? We hope so. Civilization is threatened by a terrifying global multi-phased meteor attack – thousands of strange meteors are heading towards earth! Your mission is to protect our cities by controller a rocket launcher that is built to protect our city.

Please note that this promotion is only open to residents of Austria, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom and you have to be over 18 to enter. For full terms and conditions please visit eu.playstation.com/competitions

Good luck!

We were inspired to recreate that awesome feeling of achievement to be had from finally burning all the way through games like Gradius, G-Darius, or Thunderforce (to name but three classics), while still injecting the game with our own unique identity.

Ace features an eye-popping cartoon art style, inspired by the greatest sci-fi TV series and cartoons of the 1950s and ’60s (think ‘Duck Dodgers’ for some idea). We’ve really gone to town on this one, as you can see in the seriously epic trailer below:

Pretty exciting, eh?

Ace also features some seriously tight-but-punishing gameplay and a unique weapons system; instead of collecting power-ups, Ace must down enemies using his standard cannons and then hoover up the swirly, colourful leftovers using the awesome power of his Recyl-o-Ray! That done, he can turn the Scumbags’ own weapons against them!

Ace, our hero, must battle against a dozen kinds of Scumbag – psychopathic cephalopods with see-through freaking heads. He’ll need to master a mean-as-hell mother ship, blast through a dangerous asteroid field, destroy a rampaging robot on a factory ship, take down Generalissimo Scumbag on the enemy home world, and then (if he’s still on one piece) enter Dimension X to take down the true menace behind the Scumbag invasion force – clue: this enemy may or may not resemble a HUGE octopus with a see-through head.

Ace’s levels feature wave after wave of evil Scumbags that show no mercy. Expect to seriously exercise your trigger finger – this is a workout for even the toughest gamer. This game is going to hurt your pride before it lets you into its heart.

You can keep abreast of all things Ace-related, as well as our other awesome games by checking out the Laughing Jackal blog

We’ve all worked really hard to make Ace Armstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags! both great fun and a real challenge to those who fancy themselves as ’1337s4uc3′ gamers.
I hereby lay down a challenge to anyone who can match my awesome skills. I’ll be posting level play throughs on the blog in the weeks after launch, so man up and I’ll see you there! Good luck!

Can’t remember all that? Here are some of AAvtAS’ coolest features!

• Brutally tough old-school side-scrolling shooter.
• Cool power ups – tri-shot, laser, burst, scattergun and more!
• More than a dozen different flavours of Scumbag, and five HUGE bosses to defeat.
• 3 fearsome difficulty levels – sorry, but even ‘Rookie’ makes baby kittens cry.
• Great, cartoon art style and a truly awesome soundtrack!

Ace Amstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags! is exclusive to PlayStation minis and available on PlayStation Store from Wednesday 6 October 2010 for £3.99 / €4.99.

Then, we brought compatibility with PS3. Just pay once and you can play minis games on both PSP and PS3, adding value and making them even more accessible.

But minis has always been about the games, with an aim to offer plenty of choice and plenty of different and unique games to play. We now have a mini army of more than 100 small, perfectly formed, punch-packing, bite-sized games available.

The pick of games on offer just goes to show the variety of entertainment out there as many smaller studios explore a whole new way to deliver games on PlayStation. This means minis offers something for everyone from puzzle, action, sports and more, plus a large number of Zombie related titles. Because Zombies are cool.

My favourite minis game is Vector TD, I have been quite addicted to it recently. It is quite simply a great Tower Defense game. What’s yours?

And minis is a category that just keeps on growing. With new minis launching every week including Angry Birds, Ace Armstrong vs The Alien Scumbags and Who’s That Flying!? all coming soon.

So I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to minis.

Also, look out for our Must-have minis section coming to the Store next Wednesday. If you are lucky you may be in with a chance of winning our favourites.

Here’s what will be available to Plus members from Aug 4th – Aug 31st

And here is what you can expect to see from the 1st Sept – 30th Sept

We’ve listened to your feedback on here so, rest assured, this is not all that will be available each month; look out for some more exclusive, surprise treats coming to Plus in August and September.

Hopefully there is plenty there to entertain you!

In this content list and the months to come, we will be using the suggestions of game content you gave use recently on here, and trying to include the most requested games wherever we can. We’ve already acted on some of your suggestions and have put fan favourites Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playground (the entire season) into the games you get.

As always, please feel free to tell me if there is anything in particular you would like to see in the Plus content list.

Enjoy all this and keep an eye out for some extra exclusive treats during the month!

From 4pm UK time we have:

• Antonio José, CTO & Chairman at StormBASIC Games, publisher of the minis Tehra Dark Warrior and Dynogems.
• Paul Croft, Cofounder & Director of Games at Mediatonic, publisher of the minis Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess and the upcoming Who’s That Flying?!
• Joe Dixon, Lead Coder at Tag Games, publisher of the minis title Car Jack Streets.
• Martin Brouard, Executive Producer at Frima Studio, publisher of minis Zombie Tycoon and Widgets Odyssey.

I didn’t think I would be back here so soon, but we’ve been hard at work creating a free update to Coconut Dodge!

It’s essentially a Director’s cut, as we’ve had a bit more time on our hands to add extra polish and extra features! We’ve also listened to all the feedback you’ve given us so far, and implemented a bunch of your suggestions

Here’s a list of the updates:

1) 3 Lives – This has been the most requested feature. The game is still a great challenge with three lives, and to reward you for playing the game without being hit, you’ll get 20,000 bonus points on levels 10, 20 and 30 if you manage to do it without being hit at all. So, the hardest of the hardcore will have the highest score

2) Quit and Restart from Pause menu. This is something we wanted to do initially, but didn’t have the time. It’s now in all modes of the game (gave something away there!) and works as expected!

3) A different SuperTurbo run animation. It’s faster, with bigger plumes of sand, so that you can tell easier when you’ve activated SuperTurbo speed.

4) A subtle sound effect for SuperTurbo. Again this helps to distinguish SuperTurbo from regular Turbo.

5) Easter Eggs. We’ve added a few easter eggs for you to find! – they are things that have been requested from the community over at www.pspminis.com. They are very easy to find, you just have to look beyond the boundaries of Maze Master

6) Level 10 Bug Fix. This one slipped through our QA and Sony’s QA because it is very rare. Sometimes Level 10 would have no coconuts in it at all. We managed to track down what was causing this bug after a few days non-stop play testing, and eliminated it! Yay!

7) Finally, two of the earlier mazes (from levels 1 and 2) are now featured in Maze Master, replacing mazes 6 and 13.

Having had time to reflect on the game, we realised that mazes 6 and 13 do not fit very well, as they were designed to be used with the bouncy beach balls. Without the beach balls, they are too easy to complete and therefore a bit disappointing when unlocked by a player

We appreciate that removing something from the game to replace it with something else (which we feel is better) might be controversial for some people, and it’s a difficult decision we made due to memory limitations, which I can explain now.

As you will notice, Coconut Dodge has no loading times once the title screen has loaded. The entire game fits into the PSP memory. We did this to eliminate annoying loading times, and the frustrating logos you get at the beginning of every game too. The game is fast and responsive as a result, but it means we didn’t have a lot of room for more stuff.

So, we think the game is far more polished with these two earlier mazes replacing the weaker mazes, as it introduces players to the Maze Master mode a lot sooner, and gives players more of a chance to master the skills they need to progress quickly. We apologise to those people who grew attached to mazes 6 and 13 for whatever reason, but we think that this is a sensible change to the game.

There are other bits and bobs we’ve updated, but those are the major changes.

This update is free to anyone that has already purchased Coconut Dodge, but as patching is not supported by minis, you will need to delete your copy of the game from your PSP and/or PS3 first, and then download the new version! Don’t worry; your high scores will not be affected!

I should also mention that Coconut Dodge is still only £1.99 /2.49 Euros until July, at which point the price will go up astronomically, way beyond the price of a McDonald’s Quarterpounder

Thanks all and we hope you enjoy it – we are very happy with this update, as it adds all the things we wanted to have in the first place, but just didn’t have the time!

James

Just a quick announcement to let you all know about our brand new PSP and PS3 Minis title, Vibes, which is released on the PSN Store on 9th June for the bargain price of £3.99 / €4.99!

Vibes is an action-packed rhythm game, which includes a lucky 13 music tracks, covering everything from Classical to J-Pop, to Psychobilly, to Punk. With three levels of difficulty to master, your fingers will be well and truly wrecked

The game is squarely aimed at fans of the rhythm-action genre and has a steep learning curve. So, if you think you have conquered Guitar Hero then give it a try!

Starting off on the easy difficulty will allow you to get used to the control mechanism – the difficulty then builds and builds and will push players to the limit on the harder difficulty settings.

One feature we’re particularly proud of is the music-video-inspired background sequences during gameplay: these not only look awesome, but they’re also hilarious (if I do say so myself), and feature things like pulsating ducks, throbbing buildings and flexing sumo wrestlers. If that list isn’t 100% WIN then I don’t know what is – and don’t forget these items and more are all in the same game!

When creating Vibes, our principle aim was to create an addictive gameplay mechanism, accompanied by a fresh art style. We’ve definitely achieved both those things and – for my money – made one of the stand-out PSP / PS3 Minis titles. For more details on the game check out the Trailer (also available via the PSN Store).

For those who need reminding, Vibes is out on 9th June for £3.99 / $4.99. Hope you all like it!

Al

I want to introduce a new mini game for your “classical” game collection: meet Mahjongg Artifacts, arriving on PSP tomorrow, June 9!

Mahjongg Artifacts is a beautiful and engaging classical board game that is a prequel to Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 which you probably already tried on PSP! Yes, I know – this is not typical to release the prequel after a sequel, but haven’t you ever started reading a book from the end? Both chapters of Mahjongg Artifacts have a Story Mode featuring main character’s quest for lost relics. Thus, finally you have a chance to discover how the story of the game started!

Mahjongg Artifacts features three play modes which take you through five exotic cultures: China, Greece, Egypt, Mexico and Atlantis. The Story Mode represents a captivating comic story that unfolds a mystery of lost relics as long as you master the mahjong game, which becomes more and more complicated on each level. Besides, you have exciting twists like bonuses and special tiles to enhance your winning strategies in the quest. Bonuses and powerups differ from those in Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2, so the gameplay will not feel the same!

In the Classic Mode you have an opportunity to choose layouts and tile sets you want to play, and in the Endless Mode your game never ends – the tower of game pieces rises, offering you most unpredictable arrangements of tiles.

Check out the video of Mahjongg Artifacts – you’ll appreciate game’s beautiful graphics and relaxing music. Don’t miss out – the game has a wealth of options and appeal for the whole family for just 4,99 euro/£3.99.

Special game features:

• Story mode featuring 25 layouts
• Classic mode with 100 layouts
• Innovative Endless mode
• 27 gorgeous backgrounds
• Five beautifully drawn tile sets
• Music tracks inspired by ancient cultures
• Manual smooth zoom in/out and auto-zoom option
• Compatibility with PS3!

My name is Jakub and I would like to introduce you to Grip Games and our first upcoming minis game that will be released for PSP and PlayStation 3.

Most of our team came from mobile games development houses, including Disney Mobile Studios. We wanted to switch from iPhones and PDAs to a real gaming platform. That is why we are here now.

The game I would like to tell you about is “5-in-1 Arcade Hits”. We couldn’t agree on what kind of game our first PSP project should be, so we made a little bit of everything

5-in-1 Arcade Hits contains five games:

Pairs (AKA Concentration) is a memory game. 8ball Pool is, surprise, a favorite Pool game. 15Puzzle is a logical game where you have to slide 15 tiles into a right order. Next one is Solitaire, a number one time-killer game in the world and finally, Tetroid, is a hectic action Arkanoid/Pong mix.

It definitely seems like a ragtag compilation of games, but we really wanted to have a game for anyone there. It does not matter whether you like all of the games or just one – there’s always something for you that you can play.

There are a lot of game modes and difficulty settings; there are singleplayer as well as multiplayer modes, including a Pong-like head-to-head battle for two players on one PSP.

Do you miss the Trophies and Leaderboards functionality in the minis games? We definitely do, so we have decided to do something about that. First, there are “Medals” that you can get for completing certain in-game tasks (sounds familiar? ) and second, the game generates a short alphanumerical code for you that you can enter at our web site www.grip-games.com and all your medals will be transferred online and you will be able to see how you are standing against the other players in global leaderboards.

The game will come out at the end of June. If you want to know more, simply ask, or follow us via Twitter or Facebook.

Cheers,
Jakub

Robin Hood is a shooting adventure game set in medieval England. You play as a Robin Hood, trying to defend local towns and villages from cruel enemies.

Robin Hood’s gameplay has its roots in classics shooting and hunting games, such as Duck Hunt or Moorhuhn, but with tons of little cool features. For example, each level has secret objects that you have to find and shoot, and if you find them all, you will get some bonus points. Or here, in Robin Hood, it is not only you who can shoot enemies, but also enemies can shoot you.

Robin Hood consists of 12 levels. All levels are different in terms of visuals as well as villains. As you progress further, you will be facing against new enemies – for example at some point you will meet a nice catapult guys. If you do not take care of them quick enough, you will be hit very hard.

You should also take care of the big guys, as they are the most dangerous enemies after catapults. They appear all of a sudden and they give you just a few moments before you can take them out, otherwise you will be badly damaged.

Well, that’s it for today folks. As always, we hope you’ll enjoy our game and if you need more information – you can visit our website www.nordcurrent.com or our Facebook page on www.facebook.com/Nordcurrent.

Just a quick update from Gavin Russell - your European Producer of the Feel for Two collection.

Feel For Two is concept built on the basis of cooperative play via the same PSP screen.

All 12 of the games have been created by our mad-capped group of games designers from our Tokyo Studio – all 12 titles offer a multiplayer experience.

As a minis game, you’ll get the additional benefit of being able to play these via PS3 Emulation

This Japan-centric group of titles includes:

• Busy Sweets Factory



• Charge! Tank Squad!



• Finger Connection



• Homerun Hitters



• Love Cupid



• One Two Boat Racing



• Pile Up! Bakery



• Pinball Duel



• Ramen Heaven



• Sheep Defence



• Sweet Reversi



• Tonzurakko

The Feel for Two collection will be available from Wednesday 26th May 2010 and all for the great value price of € 3.99/ £3.19

Here’s hoping you all enjoy a slice of Tokyo Madness.

Best,
Gav