Droplitz Drops in to PSN

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Hi, I’m Steve Stopps. I’m a project director for Blitz Arcade (the downloadable games division of Blitz Games Studios) and I’m really excited as we’ve just released our new puzzler Droplitz on PlayStation Network. Why so excited?

Droplitz-PS3

Well, partly because this is an original Blitz game idea. Blitz is one of the biggest independent game studios in the UK with more than 230 of us working together. And here’s the really cool thing: anyone with a game idea that’s good enough has the chance to get it made. Droplitz is one of those games. It was the brainchild of a Blitz staffer James Parker and from the very first prototype it had everyone hooked. From the first time I saw it I could always imagine people from all over the world playing Droplitz.

Droplitz may not push any technological boundaries, but it’s a blast to play – and totally addictive. You can pick it up to kill a few spare minutes or you can dig in for a long, relaxing session. It’s got a magical, hypnotic quality that captivates and sucks you into the game play. I’ve lost track of the amount of times we’ve been testing the game and before long gathered a small band of spectators staring contentedly at the screen. I’ve never been able to work out exactly why this happens, but I can’t remember another puzzle game being such a draw for spectators.

Droplitz-PS3 Droplitz-PS3

Although Droplitz can look a little intimidating to some people when they first see it, it is incredibly easy to get the hang of things. You have a board made up of lots of little dials, each with a path cut into it. At the top of the board you have droppers, that drop droplitz into play, and all you have to do is rotate the dials to allow the droplitz to flow from the droppers at the top to the collectors at the bottom. It is an incredibly simple (though elegant) premise. Once you have made a path you will get bonus droplitz that will flow down the path and when it gets to the collector the path you have created will explode and new dials will fall into play -and off you go again.

I think there are a couple of hints I can give from the outset. Firstly, you’ll start losing droplitz from the instant the game starts – DON’T PANIC! This is a game of creating paths. Once you have created a path you can start to regain the lost droplitz. Secondly, once you have made a path don’t just sit back and admire your handy work –you can either make more paths or you start to get the dials ready for when the current path is destroyed, which will make life much easier for you.

Droplitz-PS3

At its heart Droplitz is a great little casual game but it has a hardcore mentality. It has such depth of gameplay that it really lives up to the cold cliché, ‘minutes to learn, months to master’. When I first played it I found it a little daunting, but got the hang of it really quickly. In no time at all you start to find strategies that really work for you; simple things like getting rid of some of the trickier dials as soon as you can, or working out ways to get the best out of other dials. Once it clicks you’re hooked, and the fun really starts.

I can’t wait for people to start playing Droplitz, and from the early reviews and comments it seems that people get the relaxed vibe we were aiming for. This could be the ideal game-between-games for the hardcore looking to unwind, or for the casual gamer looking for a more challenging experience. But Droplitz is an amazing game in its own right and a real favourite of ours at Blitz.

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62 Comments

  • First post

  • This looks great! When is this coming out? ANd will it support trophies? How much money should i expect to pay in order to get this?

  • Welcome to the blog. Looks like a fun game.

  • @1 Footballrule
    Congrats, now GTFO

    Second, you guys have 230 working for you and you made this game? Or are you guys working on several other projects at once? If 230 people made this game, then I honestly do not know what to say.
    PS: It nothing against the game, but 230 working on such as small game is just weird. That almost 4 times as much as the people that worked on inFamous.

  • PopCap.

    Peggle.

  • @2 It’s out now came out thursday. It’s 10 dollars i think?

  • Why is there a post about a game that was released last week?

  • Are you going to release a demo for this on PSN?

    There’s one on XBLA.

    Seems interesting, I’d try it if there was a demo.

  • @7 To give you some info on the game before you buy it maybe?

    The game looks cool.

  • @7 To give some info on the game before you buy it maybe?

    The game looks like fun any chance for a demo?

  • Yeah it’s out already … $9.99
    I picked it up and rocked it over the weekend!
    I LOVE THE MUSIC!
    The game is a TON of fun and can easily play for hours!

    Wish the game was 1080p and some of the graphics were cleaner but the game play more than makes up for it and I really only noticed the hard edged graphics on the menus.

    Worth the $9.99!

  • @8
    So demo it on XBLA …

  • I would love a Demo of this game
    Also i think the $10 price tag is a little bit to much for that game when i can get Trash Panic or poyomama for half the price.

  • Demo please

  • @2
    Since your the first AND second post … IT’S FREE!

  • it looks interesting… will there be a demo available anytime soon?

  • @13
    Can’t compare this to Trash Panic or Piyotama.
    $9.99 is TOTALLY worth it.
    WAY MORE levels, addictive game play, high replay ability, music just ROCKS!

  • Had you not charged $10 for this I might have picked it up. I’m sure it’s a great game, but for me, it’s not a $10 game.

    First Zuma had the balls to charge $10 (for a free web game… wtf?), and now we pretend it’s a standard tiny puzzle game price. Well, it’s not.

  • @2
    If you worried more about the content rather then being first post you would know the answers to all of your questions.
    But to recap …
    Already out
    12 Trophies
    $9.99

  • Missed the game last Thursday, so I’m glad you’ve posted this today.

  • Very addicting game. Well worth 10$ if you are into puzzle games.

  • 10 bucks is too much for PC games and PSone games (that we can not sell or trade in for new games). Will we ever get a break? The Pushier looks like the only promising title at $10. And we need Blueray PSN games one one Disk Please!!! :)

  • hey bloodycow. What steve meant that is a small company wit h good work enviroment

  • looks like a nice tetris-like game :)

  • At first glance it looks a lot like the pipe hacking minigame from Bioshock. It was fun there. :)

    • You know, it *is* kind of like that, but more complex – and in my play session this weekend – more fun.

  • Needs a demo.

  • Im enjoying it, it’s a well designed game… but it really should have been $5. There isn’t anything happening here that a couple kids couldn’t rig up on a website using flash.

    I’m not mad that I bought it, like I said, it is a fun game. I just don’t understand how this is a $10 game and Trash Panic is $5.

  • Please use the same theme and colors from the blog or give us mobile users an option. This white is too bright and makes you lose the original and familiar feeling of the official blog.

    Thanks for the new “ability” of the blog, it is great.
    Hope you take my request into account, and if you cant dont worry, I know youre busy making the blog provide a better experience for us.

    Take care n cya l8tr

  • Will it have any add-ons in the future?

  • It could be a nice game for 5 bucks… sorry not for me. I appreciate a lot puzzle games but I’m fed up to spend ten dollars for this kind of game.

  • @4 Agreed!!!!

  • No demo, no buy.

  • @33
    LOL
    your loss!

  • Looks neat, however I agree there should be a demo for everything these days. Still might get it however.

  • Demo please. Thanx. :)

  • This game was amazing, too bad I can’t unlock the last two boards of arcade… must… get… all… levels.

    Do you suggest Items for practice or just play Zendurance until I get what I need down. I thought I was doing good but apparently not.

  • You know Jeff maybe you should make a blog post about all games having trophies for here on out to reduce the the comments asking for trophies in every game.

  • Does this happen to have custom soundtrack support? Consider it bought if it does. It seems like a perfect game to play while listening to music and spacing out.

  • I enjoyed the demo on XBLA but didn’t think there was enough varied content there to justify $10. Would have bought at $5 no question. To the idiot that had the first post, NO ONE CARES AND ALL PS3 GAMES HAVE TROPHIES FROM 1/1/09 ONWARD. GET A CLUE.

  • Also, several of the achievements on XBLA looked darn near impossible. No one seemed to be anywhere close to the 50x multiplayer after the first day.

    • It\’s not impossible, just requires practice and familiarity with the dials. The trick is to do it on the wide boards.

  • Why is there a demo on Xbox live and not on the PS store? It is little things like these that makes PS3 owners think twice about support third party studios. And yes, I do know that xbox live require every arcade title to have a demo.

  • Hello, thanks for all your feedback so far. Although we do have over 230 people at the studio, most are working on boxed titles. This is one of our Blitz Arcade titles and was made with much smaller team.

    Hsanrb – We are looking at posting some hints over the next few days so hopefully these will help you out.

    As for a demo, I’ll see what we can do :-)

    Steve

  • Off topic, but what happened to Critter Crunch? I’m DYING to buy it from the PSN.

  • Sorry, but it’s too rich for my blood given that it doesn’t have local co-op. It does look fun, though. :)

    If/when local co-op gets delivered (even for a little extra money, like in Blast Factor or Super Stardust HD), I’ll jump on it.

  • @45: Sorry but I don’t think this game will ever get Co-op unless the levels in local co-op are double the size of the largest levels in terms of width because it can be manageable once you play for a little while.

    I’m starting to make progress on unlocking everything, but I think I see how to score big but I have a hard enough time even thinking about chain reactions that I keep trying to clear the board of all the pipes.

  • I already tried this, and it’s an absolutely horrible game. I hope it’s not the only thing coming out next week, otherwise we’ll have nothing to look foward to Thursday.=(

  • I’m with a number of people here. Games like this, and indeed pretty much all PSN games should have co-op. It’s ridiculous that I have to look so incredibly hard to find something I can play with my brothers in the same room. Additionally, the fact that there IS a demo, but we don’t have it tells me this isn’t worth the asking-price. I’ve lived with, and even empathized with Sony’s choice to not make demos mandatory, but consider me fed up with it as of now.

  • i am getting really sick of some of the stupid comments on here as of late… A lot of you guys show no consideration to people bring their games over, all I ever hear are people whining and crying like little babies.. cheap babies…how old are most of you? I ask because you whine about the price of a $10 1.5gb ff7 game, one of the most epic rpgs ever, you whine about $10 psn games..you whine about updates happening to much but they benefit us all and would you rather things not improve, not get fixed? You guys (not all) really need to understand how technology and business works..not everything can be handed to you for free.

    And the xbot trolls need to stop. To people saying “and this is why we shouldn’t support 3rd party devs..” What are you stupid? Do you not realize you doing that will guarantee things not coming to us. And please stop comparing psn with stupid live…psn is way better and free…

    Sorry to rant but, I loved this game… I got it not knowing what I would be in for and played it hours straight. Of course it was published by Atlus, one of my favorite publishers. This game is addictive and totally worth the $10

  • Will there be a PSP version?

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