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Citizens of Earth delayed, taking office in January 2015
The launch of Citizens of Earth has been delayed to January, Atlus announced today. The game will now enter office on January 20, 2015. Citizens of Earth was previously expected to arrive in September, then set a date for this month before its delay this week. Developed by Eden Industries, the game incites memories of other quirky, lighthearted RPGs such as Earthbound. In Citizens of Earth, the Vice President of the World investigates strange happenings in his town while recruiting 40 different citizens as battle party members, delegating his team to fight in his place. While Citizens of Earth fell short of its $100,000 CAD ($91,600 USD) goal on Kickstarter in October 2013, Atlus picked up publishing duties for the game this past April. The game will cost $14.99 (€11.99) and will be available on PS4, Vita, 3DS, Wii U and PC. [Image: Atlus]
Atlus elects to publish non-Kickstarted Citizens of Earth
Atlus announced plans to publish Citizens of Earth, a quirky RPG that follows the Vice President of the World on his quest to investigate the bizarre happenings in the town. Developed by Eden Industries, Citizens of Earth fell short of its $100,000 CAD ($91,600 USD) goal on Kickstarter in October 2013, raising just $36,875 CAD ($33,778 USD). The modern RPG takes after popular SNES classic Earthbound, with its humorous approach to world-saving adventures and includes recruiting mechanics in line with the Pokemon and Suikoden series. The Vice President brings "regular characters into the spotlight as heroes" for them to do his dirty work in battle, continuing their day jobs when not engaged in combat. The game includes 40 citizens, though ambitious fans are encouraged to enter a contest by Friday, April 18 on Atlus' site to create the 41st one for the game. Citizens of Earth is in development for PS4, Vita, 3DS, Wii U and PC and is expected to arrive on each platform's digital channels in North America and Europe in September 2014. [Image: Atlus]
Citizens of Earth gets Kickstarter campaign, channels Earthbound
Citizens of Earth's Kickstarter campaign began on Friday, and if you've grown tired of saving the world as a young amnesiac or destined warrior, you might want to check it out. The game will follow the Vice President of the World's quest to save the day through recruiting the efforts of everyday citizens in a humor-oriented RPG that's comparable to Earthbound. If you'd like an example, the Kickstarter pitch video shows the Barista, Baker and Conspiracy Guy battling a pair of phone-crowned deer in the woods called Telefawn. The Kickstarter page states that every person in Citizens of Earth will either be "a recruitable character or an enemy," meaning you'll be amassing an extensive party as you progress through the game. Since these are everyday people, however, they'll be managing their day jobs when they're not helping you in battle. Leveling them up in battle will improve their aptitude towards their work, allowing players to "develop the world at large" by leveling up characters instead of just bumping up stats. Citizens of Earth's "citizens are optional to recruit and most areas are optional to explore," meaning there should be something to love for both hardcore adventurers and those hoping for a streamlined romp through a bunch of jokes. Should the campaign's goal of $100,000 (Canadian) be met, Citizens of Earth will launch on the PC, Mac and Linux. Stretch goals include ports to the Wii U, 3DS, PS4 and Vita as well as a slew of gameplay improvements like additional stories and multiplayer battles.
Snapshot: Waveform (PC)
There are so many games out there we couldn't possibly review them all. Welcome to Snapshot, where we tell you about games that might fall outside our usual coverage but are still something we think you should know about. Today: Waveform for PC. The games industry has entered a tense period of existence, with all the trash talk, petition-signing and next-gen jitters compounding into a nice, industry-wide hemiplegic migraine. We need something to soothe our psyches without boring our minds, a game that straddles the boundaries of "peaceful" and "challenging." That game just might be Waveform.Waveform offers a polished, pretty glimpse into the life of a light wave as it travels from Pluto to the sun, dodging dark matter and collecting light particles along the way. Players control the sine wave itself, straightening, elongating and bunching it up to guide the piece of light into the path of delicious particles, without crashing into any space trash.The endearing pomf pomf pomf of consumed light particles satisfies the senses like a far-away fireworks show, and the entire experience is ridiculously calming -- until the Singularity appears.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, developer Ryan Vandendyck describes the beauty of a sine wave in an innovative wavelength platformer, titled Waveform. A Kickstarter for Waveform is counting down rapidly -- if you like math, space, or fun indie games, give it a look and donate to the cause! What's your game called and what's it about? The game is called Waveform, and you control a wave of light transmitting through space. By adjusting the wave's amplitude and wavelength, you line it up to collect objectives, avoid obstacles, and interact with a whole bunch of objects that affect the path of your wave, and the world around you, in interesting ways. It's a simple and strange concept, but a ton of fun to play. It's designed to be effortless for anyone to jump into and enjoy, but the gameplay hearkens back to old-school action games. We like to think of it as fast-paced fun distilled down to its purest form so it's fun for everybody -- those looking for a unique and interesting game to experience and those looking for a challenge. How did the idea to play with light and dark matter come about? Back when I started this game in 2009, I had an idea to make a game that focused around one core gameplay mechanic. And, coming from a mathematical background, I ended up thinking of what it would be like to play a game as a sine wave. I prototyped that within a few days and found, a bit to my surprise, that it was fun manipulating a wave in a game! But I didn't really know what else I wanted the game to be about. So I started thinking about waves and figured I could either make the game about sound waves or light waves. At the time I had no musician working with me, so I didn't want to go with a highly audio-dependent design -- so I decided on light waves. From there I just started adding features and mechanics that had to do with light, and a lot of things flowed pretty easily from that decision, like adding mirrors to reflect off of, particle accelerators to boost through, and the dark matter to sap your light away. What started out as a simple doodle on a piece of paper emerged as a fun game all about wave manipulation.
