Explodemon Blowing Up Exclusively on PSN this Winter

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Hello there, wonderful PlayStation.Blog fans!

My name is Ed Fear and I’m the PR & Community Manager at Curve Studios, an independent developer based in London, England. I’d like to take a moment of your time to introduce you to Explodemon, an awesome action-platformer coming to the PlayStation Network this Winter 2010.

I think the best way of telling you about Explodemon is with a suitably bombastic trailer, so take a look at this:

If that’s piqued your interest, hooray! If it didn’t pique your interest then, well, shame on you. Watch it again until it does.

Ready to continue? Okay, then let me set the scene: the nefarious Vortex have mounted a surprise invasion on the planet Nibia, destroying its entire Guardian defence force in the process. Only one hope remains: the malfunctioning prototype Guardian Explodemon, locked in stasis after a, shall we say, ‘devastating’ activation experiment.

As his name suggests, Explodemon’s problem is that he’s ‘prone’ to exploding. It turns out that, surprisingly, Explodemon’s explosivity (so totally a word) will come in useful for fighting back the Vortex onslaught, navigating around the environment, and solving tricky physics-based puzzles.

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Featuring 12 huge levels of pulse-pounding platforming, a deep control system, devastatingly up-close-and-personal combat, upgradable special abilities, comic-book style cutscenes and a story that’ll make you giggle, cry, or simply sigh with indifference, Explodemon isn’t your average game. No way. It’s above average, at least. No, wait – so way above average that it’s pure awesome. That’s more like it.

We’ve been working on Explodemon for almost five years now, in some capacity or another, so we’re immeasurably excited to actually get it out to people before the end of the year.

If you’re thinking ‘Five years?’ then, well, that’s understandable. It’s a very long and dramatic story, featuring MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTORS! LAST-MINUTE DEAL BREAKDOWNS! HIDDEN USURPERS! and BOUNCY CASTLES! – well, okay, not the last one (I can dream). But it ultimately culminates in us deciding to follow our instincts and venture into the brave new world of self-publishing. But you look a little fidgety, and I don’t want to go on too much, so let’s save that for another blog post. Or possible movie rights.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this little introduction to Explodemon, and that you’re suitably excited for what I can personally guarantee is the most EXPLOSIVE game to launch on PSN this Winter. If you’ve got any questions or comments, post them below – I’ll be skulking below in the comments section like a lonely man at a house party, gripping his drink and staring intently at his shoes, desperate for a snippet of conversation to latch on to.

P.S. Oh! I almost forgot! Make sure you follow us on Twitter @curvestudios to keep up-to-date on all the latest information and get exclusive screenshots not seen anywhere else. There are free copies of the game up for grabs too!

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38 Comments

14 Author Replies

  • Exclusively?! That’s exciting! I remember in one of the announcement trailers it was planned for WiiWare at one point, but I’m glad that you are focusing your efforts on one platform. And Winter is coming up soon, which means we don’t have to wait much longer for this game!

    • Hey Nintendo451,

      Thanks for the kind words!

      Yep, exclusive! We’re only a small developer, so it makes sense for us to focus all of our efforts on one platform and do the very best we can for that.

      And yeah, not long now – we’re in the final stretches! Speaking of which, I should probably be working on it now, but I’m having too much fun replying to comments :D

  • It’s looking great Ed, can’t wait to play it! I’ll likely be contacting you soon on behalf of our site as we’d be happy to review the title.

    Would you say ‘Splosion Man offered some inspiration for this title?

    • Hey! Thanks for your encouragement! And yes, definitely shoot me an e-mail :)

      Regarding ‘Splosion Man, there’s no influence at all; it seems like it’s that classic case of the same idea being developed by different people at the same time. An almost-finished prototype version of Explodemon was entered into the Independent Games Festival in 2008, before ‘Splosion Man had ever been announced, so our basic design was locked down way before we even knew ‘Splosion Man existed.

      In truth, they’re quite different games. ‘Splosion Man focuses more on navigating the environment and fast reflexes, while Explodemon is more about using the explosions to fight enemies and solve puzzles, in addition to all the jumping around.

      We’re quite honest about our Mega Man influence though – we all love Mega Man a crazy amount, and it was a desire to return to that kind of 8-bit platforming that gave birth to the project. I’m pretty confident we’ve put a major twist in the formula, though, so it ain’t no copy! :)

  • Looks awesome! :D

  • loving the game and the music :)

  • I’ve been waiting patiently for this game. I will continue to do so.

  • Looks alot like Splosion Man from the 360, alot like it.

    I didnt care for that game at all…

    However…if Explodemon has a demo at launch, I will try it out and give it a fair chance before passing it off as a clone.

  • It looks pretty interesting and I always like Playstation exclusivity, but one pretty big problem, the music is really annoying. Watching the trailer gave me a headache, I doubt I’d last the whole game. Id still give a demo a try though.

  • I like it… classic gameplay is a sweet thing these days..

    The Blog Stalker

  • Hooray it’s finally coming out! I remember reading about Explodemon for the first time back in 2007 or 2008, I thought it was canned as I didn’t hear anything else about it ever since.

    There’s an obvious inspiration from Megaman series here, but I like how you didn’t go for the whole “retro-graphics/retro side-scrolling” bs. As an old gamer myself, I think retro pixelated graphics should remain there in the past where I can remember of them in a fondly way.

    Building up a retro-game and innovating on top of it is a much sweeter deal, it shows how you can evolve old concepts rather than cashing in on memories. I hope Explodemon delivers, because if it does, you’ll have my support!

    • Hey! Thanks for the kind words, and I’m glad you like our direction :) I’m pretty sure it will deliver, but I guess I’m a bit biased!

  • It looks pretty solid.

    I take it some of the platforming was influenced by Mega Man X, because it seems like a lot of it is taken from that (which I love).

    I noticed in the video, it showed a “Level Up” blip. Does that mean there will a lot of RPG elements as well?

    Hidden items and etc? Are the levels re-playable to find everything or does it just keep moving forward?

    • Hey JonJon,

      There are two types of character advancement in Explodemon.

      One is ‘temporary’, which is what you see with the Level Up blip. Basically by killing enemies you fill up the gauge on the left of the screen, and when you fill up one of the three ‘segments’ you level up – but get hit and it drops, meaning you can also level down. Getting it to max and keeping it there is quite a challenge!

      The other is permanent – by collecting the coins scattered through the world, you can purchase permanent upgrades in the shop, which affect things such as how quickly your Explosion Gauge charges and other abilities.

      And yes, there are TONS of hidden items that’ll definitely require replaying levels in order to get everything :)

  • Looks like ‘Splosion Man blended together with Megaman X lol. Considering I loved both of those games I look forward to playing this game :)

  • As someone has stated before it looks like a clone of 360 splosion man, well after seeing that this game has been in the works for a few years, maybe someone leaked this game and they created a clone for 360. Thus meaning Explodemon is actually the original…

  • seems like Mega Man X

  • Let me guess, only for PS3? Show some love to psp users lol

  • I am glad I am not the first one to point out the 360 game that was amazing. This game should bring me great joy as well.

  • It looks very Mega Man-esqe in my opinion. but with a cool twist that makes it distinguished.

  • Megaman X meets Bomberman. Sweet Deal. Music has a 16bitish, SNES thing going for it. I love independent re-imagined classics. I may consider picking this one up. Do you plan on releasing a demo?

  • Looks like another amazing game is coming to grace the ps3, day one purchase for sure.

    Please just include some hidden items to allow back tracking to levels and replaying them a bit, backtracking is always fun and welcomed :D

    • Oh you! This flattery will go to our heads! :)

      I can tell you know that there are LOTS of hidden items, some of which will be pretty difficult to get without upgrading your powers, so you’ll definitely be going back to the levels to get them all. Most of them are hidden behind some devious puzzles too ;)

  • Explodemon was in development before ‘splosion man was released. It’s definitely more influenced by Mega Man.

  • Exclusively on PS3, now? I’m glad Sony has given you guys a home and I hope self-publishing & everything works out. The game has air-dashing, so I’m sure it will be lovely.

    • Air dashing 4 eva!

      Thanks, Mr. Surge. I promise you I’m not towing the party line when I say that Sony have been amazing every step of the way, and have really helped us turn our vision into a reality. We <3 them! :)

  • I love me some exclusives.

  • Nice. Day one for me. Well maybe a demo will seal the deal.

  • The game is gonna be super sweet! I haveb been looking forward to this game! i think i saw this at GDC or E3 and i thought to myself ” This game is gonna be huge on psn!”

  • omg this game look so great. how you guys do it i want this game now lol

  • Oh man this looks great. I saw something in the video about Leveling Up. That could be epic if its a deep leveling system. Sounds like it could also leave room for good replayability. Can’t wait to check this game out. I was not expecting to be this excited over this game. Would love to hear more about it.

    • Hey matriXiXiX,

      Don’t worry, we’ve got lots more info to come… we’re thinking of starting a blog, too, for lots of behind-the-scenes info and stuff. It’ll be fun! Watch this space…

  • The Game looks great Ed, count me in!!! 8)

  • I have to admit, This looks like a really fun game. Will there be a demo in the works for this?

  • It’s like Megaman, meets Iron Man, who meet’s Bomberman…crazy combination for sure, but it looks like it works very well. Keep up the good work!

  • Remember seeing a trailer or something for this a while ago. Then Splosionman’s trailer… then Splosionman came out [and was awesome] and Explodemon was no where to be seen. ):

    I’m glad that it’s finally going to be releasing. :D

  • Finally. It felt like I was waiting forever for this game to come out. This will be a day 1 buy for me. Hopefully there will be some avatars released for this game as well as the main character looks awesome.

  • It looks nice, a demo would be nice tho.

  • Cool!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Great stuff! Are you guys going to take advantage of Sony’s PUB fund? I remember that they’d reimburse you some of your production costs if you gave them an exclusive game.

  • I DEMAND to know why nobody had told me about this game until now. Platforming, puzzles, fun visuals? I’ll be keeping an eye on this one!

    Between Lara Croft, Deathspank and Costume Quest, my PSN wallet has been haemorrhaging cash lately and this isn’t going to help. Damn youuuuu, Curve Studio!

    Also, be honest: just how cool does it feel to walk into a room and say, “Hi, my name is Ed Fear”? :D

  • Looks entertaining. Looking forward to its release.

  • Fantastic! Everything looks simply fantastic! I’m detecting some serious inspirado from the Mega Man series, and that’s a good thing.

  • looks like a lot of fun for sure.

  • Hey Ed and hi to the team of Curve Studios.

    Since I am very disappointed by the last Megaman games, I think Explodemon is a good alternative and a serious challenger. You guys did a great job and we can feel it through the bombastic trailer :)

    and Ed, I am a fan of Manchester United :P

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