Magrunner: Dark Pulse arrives on PS3 tomorrow

Hey PlayStation Blog! This is Olga Ryzhko with Frogwares, and I get to tell you about our latest game, Magrunner: Dark Pulse, which is coming to your favorite console as we speak.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Magrunner is a first-person action puzzle game. I’d say this is our humble attempt to experiment with puzzles and challenge your wits in a different way.

It was also a challenge for our wits! We consider ourselves (I mean Frogwares) to be quite experienced in puzzles and riddles; mainly due to 13 years of experience making Sherlock Holmes games, which are filled with puzzles. Some of you may have even played our latest one, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes on PS3.

However, we wanted to work on something that would expand on the games and puzzles we normally offer. We wanted to go further within the puzzle genre and explore some really dynamic puzzles, which is not really possible with the Sherlock Holmes games. Sherlock is quite the gentleman. He doesn’t even run! :-) And this is where Magrunner comes in.

Magrunner is based on reasoning, logic and thinking – this is where we put the word ‘puzzle’ into it. You are also going to shoot things, though you will not be gunning down nameless hordes of enemies, soldiers or zombies, but this is where the action part of the game pops in. This is our attempt to find the delicate balance between fun and challenge, between thinking and reacting.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is an action-driven puzzle game that combines cosmic horror with a near-future cyberpunk world on the edge of destruction. I do not really intend to elaborate on the story, which is actually a very strong element of the game. It was quickly mentioned on my previous post and it is also explained on the Magrunner site, so you may want to check them out for more details.

You are playing Dax Ward: you are young, smart and talented, of course. I’d say you are also brave but maybe a little bit reckless. You have this Mag Glove that you built yourself – you are really talented – and you can influence or magnetically charge some objects with different polarities in order to interact with them one way or another. And your goal is to navigate through almost 40 levels using these magnetic properties.

With Magrunner we always start with very simple and basic mechanics and introduce the more complicated ones as you advance. This way you get a feel for the key elements throughout the game as you move on to the more sophisticated levels. Once we introduce the basic principles and elements of the game, we mix them up for some very dynamic puzzles. You are going to use platforms, both vertical and horizontal; you will play with a number of cubes of varying sizes size; and you can also influence scalable energy based on simple kinetics. With all of this, we expand the game mechanics in various directions, allowing for a huge variety of puzzles.

The interesting thing in Magrunner is that the main challenge is realising what you have to do and exactly when you need to do it. We tried to focus on the complexity of puzzle solving rather than the time you need to finish the level. Now please let us now if we succeeded.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is available from tomorrow on PS3 for €9.99/£7.99 and I really hope you enjoy it.