Powered-up puzzler Surge Deluxe announced for PS Vita

Hello PlayStation Blog readers! I’m delighted to announce Surge Deluxe for PS Vita!

Surge was originally released on PlayStation Mobile and was well received by press and gamers, who took to the leaderboards (and NeoGAF) to show off their skills.

Surge Deluxe is FuturLab‘s response to feedback received from top players on those leaderboards (and from the NeoGAF community). They demonstrated a deep understanding and appreciation for Surge that was way beyond anything we could have anticipated!

If you’re new to Surge, check out this trailer for the original game. The simple block-chaining and screen clearing mechanics gradually reveal their tactical depth as special blocks get added to the mix. Advanced players will not just vent pressure to stay in the game, they’ll utilise the vents at critical times to multiply their scores and create massive clearance combos.

So what can you expect from Surge Deluxe?

New Combiner block!
Our research has shown that Multiplier blocks are the most sought after for achieving big scores, but they rarely dropped in the right colour or at the right time. We’ve removed the colour requirement on the Multiplier block now and added a new Combiner block that allows players to create their own Multipliers. If you’re quick and careful enough you can create 5x, 6x, 7x and higher multipliers for use in strategic play!

New Chain Linker block!
The Chain Linker block allows you to connect different coloured chains together. Simply connect a chain of blocks to the Chain Linker, and then connect to any other coloured block to create a bridge between colours!

The whole chain is converted to the same colour so you can use as many of these blocks as you can find to create MASSIVE chains!

Surge Deluxe is 100% colour blind friendly!
I’m colour blind and acutely aware of the frustration that comes from trying to discern and match colours in games like Surge. FuturLab received a whole host of requests for a colour blind-friendly version of the game, and with Surge Deluxe we’ll deliver just that.

Now each colour is represented by a shape, and we’ve made sure that you only have to glance at two blocks to know whether they are a match or not. I’ll have to find another excuse for being beaten on the leader boards…

Scoring system reworked for top level play!
When Surge was created, a score of around 4 million points was the highest FuturLab had achieved internally. When released to the public, the 10 million mark was broken within days.

The posts on NeoGAF from players competing for the top spot changed from talk about tactics and maximising scores, to discussing the restrictive scoring system. Their feedback was enormously helpful and we’ve used it to improve gameplay. The scoring system in Surge Deluxe has been redesigned to reward better players, increase the score spread, and remove any grinding. So thanks NeoGAF, this one is for you!

PSN Trophies and Leaderboards
Of course

Even More Community Requested Features

Puzzle Mode, Best Clearance Score Leaderboard and Unlockable Backgrounds have also made their way into Surge Deluxe! What can we say, we like making our fans happy J

Awesome Soundtrack

Those of you familiar with our games will know that we have a three pillar approach to quality; gameplay, visuals and music are all equally important to us, regardless of scale.

We’ve had such fun working on the Velocity games with Joris de Man – the award winning composer who made his name on the Killzone series – that we’ve brought him onboard for Surge Deluxe too!

So without further ado, let me present ‘Pressure Playa’ by Joris de Man; eight and a half minutes of bleepy, bouncy, bad-ass FuturLectro bliss!

https://soundcloud.com/futurlab/surge-deluxe-pressure-playa

We are aiming to release Surge Deluxe by early 2014. You can keep up to date
with FuturLab by signing up to the website newsletter at http://www.futurlab.co.uk, by following @FuturLab on Twitter, or by following me personally @FuturLabQuality.

Thanks!