Coming to PSN: Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3

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I’m writing on behalf of a small Toronto-based game development start-up called DrinkBox Studios. We’re currently working on our first original game: A monster-movie-inspired platformer called Tales from Space: About a Blob. I’m very happy to announce that we will be bringing the game to the PlayStation 3 via PSN toward the end of this year!

Tales from Space: About a Blob is a game about a race of alien blobs that land on an Earth-like planet and start eating everything around them. Eating is just what Blobs do — they can’t really help themselves. Although the Blobs aren’t really out to hurt anyone, mistrustful humans greet them with hostility.

The game is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer with a monster-movie theme and retro art style. Humour is also a big part of the style.

Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3 (PSN)Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3 (PSN)

Players will interact with the game environment using unique growth and absorption-related control mechanics, experiencing the world at vastly different scales as they progress. Both single-player and co-op play will be supported.

Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3 (PSN)

Two friends and I started DrinkBox back in 2008 after Pseudo Interactive — the larger Toronto-based development studio we had all previously worked for — shut its doors. Shortly after we started DrinkBox, a few more of our ex-Pseudo team-mates came on board. Since then we’ve continued to grow our team: We’re now up to about 10 employees.

Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3 (PSN)Tales from Space: About a Blob for PS3 (PSN)

Over the past couple of years, we have had the opportunity to contribute in support roles on a number of console titles being primarily developed by other studios, including some big games by EA and Activision. Most recently we’ve been helping out fellow Toronto-indies Capybara Games with their new title Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD.

Tales from Space: About a Blob, though, is the first console title we’ll be releasing on our own as a studio and we’re pretty excited about it. Sony has generously offered to demo About a Blob in their booth at E3 next week: If you’re attending, please do check it out! Also: A blog for the game has been set up at www.aboutablob.com, head on over for the latest updates.

Both Chris Harvey (DrinkBox CTO / lead designer on the project) and I will be checking back in here over the next little while to respond to questions. If you’re curious about anything, please let us know.

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54 Comments

7 Author Replies

  • Looks great! I love the music, too. This one seems like it’ll be a charming little game with some nice humor. I’ll buy it when it comes out.

  • So many games what’s for E3. hehe

  • This looks like fun, sorta. it reminds me of gish from the humble indie bundle :O
    i still wish there were more artistic games on PSN :\

  • Looks interesting, I’ll be sure to check it out at the booth! :)

  • scifi+ side scroller = win

  • Is this a PS3 exclusive?

    • We have no official announcement to make about exclusivity at this time.

      However, I will say that Sony has been really helpful to us over the course of development.. and the PS3 is really the only platform we’re focused on right now.

  • Looks pretty cool. Reminds me a bit of Locoroco. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more. Just make sure you price it right (as in $10, not $15) and you may have yourself a sale here.

  • I’m all over this silliness. And have a 5 on me.

  • Interested. Can we eat the cows?

    • The blobs can eat anything that’s smaller than they are, and they grow a little bit every time they eat. At the beginning of the game the blobs may be tiny, but by the end they’re absolutely huge–so cows are definitely on the menu.

  • Oh, I didn’t know you guys were helping out Capy on Clash of Heroes. Clash of Heroes was amazing on DS, and it will be even more amazing on PSN in HD. Can’t wait for that one. Congrats on that collaboration, Capy are one of my favorite indie devs (loved Critter Crunch).

  • Sorry for posting 3 times in this one thread, but I keep finding myself drawn to the trailer… The music and the visual style are very intriguing to me. Anyway, this time, I’m here to ask if LocoRoco is an inspiration on this? The more I watch the trailer and read your descriptions of it, the more it looks similar to LocoRoco, in a very good way (I like LocoRoco), and with the addition of more humor and quirkiness. Anyway, the game is looking great.

  • Looks just like Gish. How much?

  • The screenshots are all 576p(??); hopefully the published game will be 1080p.

    Who is doing the music? Will it be HD audio (24-bit and/or losslessly compressed) in the shipping game?

    Yay for co-op! I assume it will be local and non-splitscreen? Is 2 players the maximum?

    Will there be additional modes, like the puzzle mode that Critter Crunch had?

    • Hi!

      Yes, the published game will run at 1080p.

      The music is by a Toronto-based musician named Peter Chapman. He did some music for ModNation Racers as well – in addition to working on his own stuff.

      Local and non-splitscreen co-op = correct. Maximum number of players is to be determined.. we’d certainly *like* to do more than 2.. but all I can say at this point is that we will support at least 2 :)

      Additional modes of play is also to be determined. Our primary focus is on the main story mode.

  • looks nifty

  • The game looks really good. I see layers of Katamari Damacy, and layers of Gish. That’s a good thing.

    I had no idea Capybara was from Toronto! I thought they were from Europe or something else. Great to know that developers in Canada are still kickin’. I plan to join a Canadian developer in a few years after I get a degree in Computer Science.

    • Thanks for the comments!

      I think your ‘layers’ comment puts it pretty well, we love many of the games people have mentioned on here (Katamari, Gish, Loco Roco, etc).

      Of course we feel our game has many unique aspects all its own as well. :)

      Yes, Capy is from Toronto. They’ve been a great group to work (and hang out) with. The Toronto indie scene in general is pretty healthy right now!

      Ryan.

  • This game looks very cool!

  • Goodness! We sure are getting blessed with this plethora of PSN games heading our way! My wallet is going to love it!

    Sorry Red Dead Redemption, you’ll have to wait till you’re a Greatest Hit price for me to buy you now.

  • I want a meatball!!!!

  • This looks really cool. Definitely interested.
    Props on a great studio name, btw.

  • This looks pretty fun…..heck I’ll buy anything with cows in it. :D

  • wow. this looks great! It kinda reminds me of Gish, which is an awesome comparison to make :)

  • You found my weakness’s!
    Sci-fi, monsters, humor, and food.

    I love Little shop of Horrors, and Rocky Horror picture show, This game kinda gives off those vibes!

    Can’t wait!…Umm does this mean that if your Blob gets bigger then your co-op pal you can eat them? Hehe >.> Evil grin.

    • Our art director has similar .. style sensibilities ;)

      You can’t currently ‘eat co-op pals’, although there is definitely a semi-competitive feel at times during co-op play (maybe depending on who you’re playing with?). This is something we’ll be thinking about as we continue development.

  • This looks amazingly like Gish. In fact, the way the blob deforms is almost identical.

  • i totally hate comparing games but this looks like Locoroco Which is a great thing since i love(and i know EVERYONE LOVES) locoroco.

    so did you guys play Locoroco ? or is it coincidence? (if you didn’t you SHOULD!!)
    Looking forward to this anyways.

  • looks great!

  • Great to know the musician, but will the audio assets be HD (24-bit) like in Critter Crunch, Braid, and Blast Factor?

  • Awesome. I’m a programmer for a relatively small game studio from Montreal (we’re about 150, but that’s small when we have EA, Ubi and Eidos as neighbors), so I’ll be sure to support fellow small Canadian developpers!

    I’m also a big fan of side scroller and the game looks awesome, so I’m not just doing that to support devs like you.

    Can’t wait!

    • Hah. 150 people would be pretty big for Ontario! I’m not sure we even have any studios that large at the moment.. although the new Ubi Toronto studio has now opened up and started to grow.

      Glad you liked the game, thanks for the kind words!

  • This is basically Katamari + LocoRoco.

  • Looks and sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun!
    How are single player and co-op balanced – are there different co-op based levels/puzzles or more stuff to eat for example? I’ll most likely be playing it single player but I’m asking since lately we’ve seen a lot of (big budget)games where I felt the single player campaign and overall game design suffered because of the co-op focus.
    I’m really looking forward to checking this game out, nice company logo btw. ;-)

    • Hi AKGermany.

      Good question! I’m going to try to answer in fewer than 1250 characters to fit in under the ‘max post size’ cap. Hope I can get this right :)

      In single player:
      – In order to progress from one area of a level to the next, you need to eat enough objects to hit a ‘target size’ for the current area. A bit like PixelJunk Shooter or Katamari.
      In co-op:
      – To gain access to the next area only *one* of the player-Blobs needs to hit the target size.
      – Players are allowed to pass objects around between one another (shrinking/growing as they lose/gain these objects).
      – Once one of the Blobs hits the target size for an area, all of the player Blobs automatically level up to that same size.

      As a result there are always enough objects to progress to the next area, and all players start each new area at (roughly) the same size.

      We definitely don’t want to sacrifice SP level quality either: We’d rather make the main story levels work well in both SP & Co-op.

      .. and I’m glad you liked our company logo, thanks!

  • I like LocoRoco and this looks like alot of fun. I look forward to hearing more!

  • I get a really strong feeling of Loco Roco-type gameplay, but it still looks very unique with the little story of the aliens. It looks really fun though!

  • Looks very fun. Original too. Might just get it.

  • Go Toronto!

  • buying it ofr sure. cool retro, monster movie style. plus a nice little dev story. looks like u guys made something cool when u could’ve just walked away

  • Cows!?

    Count me in!

  • Is this a mini or a full release?

  • The creator of this game must be really stupid. Because only weird people would buy this game. It looks worse than jusin bieber

  • i meant justin

  • Day one purchase for me. I love seeing small teams do amazing little games like this. Any guess on a pricing point for this so far or too early? Really hope you guy’s can keep it around $9.99 or under. Also glad to see in an earlier comment you guys said it would run at 1080. One of the best things about the network games is generally how beautifully they look and run.

    Regardless keep up the awesome work, look forward to hearing more details on this including a more specific date for release :D

    • It’s a little too early for us to make final release date or price announcements, but hopefully we’ll be able to say something more concrete soon. Thanks!

  • This reminds me of Sony’s old SNES game: Smartball. Like… reminds me a ton.

    That game was not the best, but I was hooked as a kid. Will buy.

  • It always makes me smile when I see that 2D sidescrollers are far from dead. I absolutely love games like Katamari and Loco Roco…I’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for this one.

  • it looks fun

  • Looks like a purchase to me. The nephew is going to love it.

  • Definitely getting this game day one! Looks awesome…First Capy, now you guys, and the Canadian Indie scene is becoming my favorite ever so slowly…

  • Looks fun… and I’ll definitely be supporting it as a fellow Ontarian. ;)

  • Looks excellent, can’t wait to hear more about this

  • on a real now sony y do u bother wasting your time on things like this when you should be worrying about what we want and what you can do to make ps3 better.ps3 is very very boring and it seems like you aint doing nothing about it. i can’t speak on behalf of all the people that have ps3 but i kno some people will say this tales from space rubbish is a waste,blog things that will benefit our console not benefit your sales

  • Looks great and I love the music in Modnation Racers! Does the game have trophies? >from Ontario too!

  • Might give it a try.

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