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Best of the Rest: Jessica's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Threes Threes is ingenious. Its simplistic presentation belies beautiful, thoughtful design and butter-smooth mechanics. Threes isn't a matter of "less is more," it's fully encapsulated and pushed to the limits of what it intends to do, providing hours upon hours of repeated gameplay on that four-by-four tiled screen. On top of the brain-teasing numbers game, writer Asher Vollmer, illustrator Greg Wohlwend and composer Jimmy Hinson infuse Threes with personality, giving the numbers voices and faces, and tipping Threes from "Fun" to "Absolutely adorable. And, of course, fun."
Murasaki Baby review: A touch of weird
I'll say it first to get it out of the way: Murasaki Baby looks like something that spawned from the slimy, deliciously quirky mind of Tim Burton. Specifically, Murasaki Baby on the Vita looks like the gamification of Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, a short book of dark children's tales told and illustrated by Burton himself. It's important to note that this book is short, because it shares that descriptor with Murasaki Baby, and for an apparently similar reason: They're both too strange to support a longer format. From a holistic perspective, Murasaki Baby is a triumph of editing, in recognizing the limits of an absurd idea and executing it to its full potential – and no more.
Vita oddball Murasaki Baby on board next week
Murasaki Baby - AKA that touch-based Vita game where you guide a little girl who has her mouth on top of her head - is out on September 16 in North America and September 17 in Europe. It's priced $15 for regular users, but if you've got Plus membership you'll be able to grab it for $12 during its first week. Murasaki Baby marks the debut of Sony Europe's self-proclaimed "avant-garde" Ovosonico studio, which was founded by former Grasshopper Manufacture director Massimo Guarini. That might explain the why of the game, but not the what: Well, in it you're guiding the head-mouth girl, a lost child called Baby, through nightmarish landscapes. While you can drag, tap and swipe to help Baby along, you're also in control of the world around her. Swipes of the rear pad, for example, can change the background to useful effect, like bringing in a wind turbine to drive lurking bats away. You can also tap on the front screen to take out dangers like, er, flying safety pins. They may not sound the deadliest of foes, but if one of them hits Baby's heart balloon then she immediately dies.
PS Vita puzzler Murasaki Baby arrives in September
Side-scrolling PS Vita puzzle game Murasaki Baby is coming to the PlayStation Store in September, developer Ovosonico announced today. Helmed by Shadows of the Damned director Massimo Guarini, Murasaki Baby uses the PS Vita's dual-touchscreen functionality to add variety and challenge to its kooky collection of environmental puzzles. Players guide a young girl through a series of twisted levels by tugging at her balloon while swiping the Vita's rear touch panel to change stage backdrops and alter her surroundings. This .gif set offers an early look at Murasaki Baby's gameplay and its Tim Burton-esque visual style. [Image: Ovosonico]
These Murasaki Baby gifs make Tim Burton look normal
Technically, these gifs show off the various backgrounds that Baby, the main character in Murasaki Baby, must traverse by activating their various attributes with the Vita's rear touchpad. The gray Heart of Stone background weighs down Baby's balloon; the blue Frozen Hell background freezes the balloon and bodies of water; the green Eye of Scrutiny background shrinks Baby; and the red, neutral background calms Baby down. But really, these gifs are simply a joy to watch – they're equal parts adorable and eerie. Take a look at them in the gallery below. The game itself is just as adorable and weird, as we found out in our preview last year. Murasaki Baby is due out in 2014. [Images: SCEE]
North American Vitas getting Murasaki Baby, No Heroes Allowed this year
Sony recently confirmed the appearance of two Vita games this year in Murasaki Baby and No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either. The latter will launch this spring while the former will arrive in North America "later this year." Murasaki Baby, a twisted touch-based adventure from Italian indie developer Ovosonico, has players protecting a little girl from nightmarish threats. We spent a little time with the game in October and determined that it's "about as bizarre as could be." No Heroes Allowed: No Puzzles Either is the fifth game in the series, one of the previous being No Heroes Allowed for PSP. No Puzzles Either draws a few comparisons to mobile puzzler 10000000, as it challenges players with 64 levels of match-three-style puzzles to defeat over 200 enemies. [Image: Ovosonico]
Murasaki Baby is the weirdest game
Murasaki Baby is a very strange game, and I say that having played The Path. Mechanically, it's just a collection of pokes, prods and swipes on the PlayStation Vita's touch screen and rear touch pad. But everything else, everything else is about as bizarre as could be. The game stars a little girl (of sorts), whose only love in life seems to be a heart-shaped balloon she carries everywhere. Her affection is understandable, given that popping said balloon means her immediate death. You don't actually play as the little girl, though; instead you use your fingers to interact with the world, in some cases literally dragging the girl somewhere she doesn't want to be. Oh, and have I mentioned the little girl's mouth is on top of her head, and that watching her laugh is a nightmare on stilts?
Ovosonico partners with Sony Worldwide Studios Europe
Ovosonico, the development studio founded by Shadows of the Damned director Massimo Guarini, has signed up with Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Europe to work together on a new intellectual property. Ovosonico is the first studio in Italy to partner with SCE WWSE – "and due to the growing talent in this country; we believe the first of many," noted senior vice president Michael Denny.In the absence of information about Ovosonico's first game, allow us to use this space to tell you to go play Shadows of the Damned.
Shadows of the Damned director teases 'movie-length' new game from new studio [update]
After revealing his new studio, Ovosonico, last summer, Shadows of the Damned director Massimo Guarini is ready to start teasing its first project. The game is described as "a rich emotional experience packaged in a movie-length time frame" – but it's still in a "very early prototype stage."The announcement derided "throw-away iPhone games and 40-hour long traditional productions," and noted that the studio is exploring "a reasonable price" for its first game. No platforms or launch windows or themes or ... well, much of anything else was revealed, but Ovosonico encouraged interested parties to keep an eye on its Twitter and Facebook pages for upcoming news.Update: We spoke with Massimo Guarini via email this afternoon for more info on the mystery project. He told us, "The game will deal with unusual subjects, something definitely unexplored in a teenage-driven market," before he added, "I can guarantee that you'll find lots of crazy ideas, strong emotions, original settings, [and an] unconventional approach to gameplay and storytelling." Beyond that, he wouldn't budge on game details.Guarini also hinted at digital distribution for the title, though he said, "We're not targeting iOS/mobile or freemium models right now. If we do it, we will focus on product quality, not on ensnaring people with addictive tricks." He said we'll likely see more from the still totally ambiguous project this August.
Shadows of the Damned director Guarini leaves Grasshopper, forms Ovosonico
Though the marquee names associated with Shadows of the Damned were Suda 51, Shinji Mikami, and Akira Yamaoka, it was Massimo Guarini who actually directed the stylish shooter for Grasshopper Manufacture. He'll have a chance to amend that crediting oversight with his new studio, the just revealed Ovosonico Productions. Grasshopper confirmed to us that Guarini has left Suda 51's camp-heavy dev house. GameSpot noticed the site and dug through its source code, which revealed the slogan "Games, Music, Films with an attitude" -- not exactly a surprise given Guarini's multi-disciplined media production past. The main site also characterizes the company's work as "The sound of bold ideas," ambiguously hinting at its future. It's not exactly a huge surprise that Guarini left, given the depressingly low initial sales numbers of the excellent Shadows of the Damned, but it is a surprise he's starting his own studio -- Guarini's worked for a variety of studios across the industry, originally getting his start at Ubisoft. It's currently unclear where Ovosonico is based, but we've followed up for more info.
