Meet Derrick the Deathfin, Swimming to PSN This Summer

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Meet Derrick the Deathfin, Swimming to PSN This Summer
Meet Derrick the Deathfin, Swimming to PSN This Summer

Derrick the Deathfin is the world’s very first underwater papercraft game. The action – of which there is plenty – takes place in an irreverent aquatic world full of paper, goofy fish, paper, arcade action, paper, wanton destruction, and paper.*

After Derrick’s parents are brutally turned into soup he sets forth on a worldwide rampage of destruction in order to make himself feel a bit better. On his travels he eats all manner of dopey delights for dinner, duels with paper enemies and decimates man-made cardboard monstrosities. Derrick also has a distinct fondness for picking up diamonds and jumping through burning tyres in the sky. Just like a real shark!

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Derrick journeys through 32 beautiful, vibrant levels set across 11 environments and four continents. He is in a constant battle against his metabolism, needing to constantly eat to stay alive. He must move, groove, jump, race and puzzle his way through increasingly crazy challenges to attain paper-shark certified glory.

You could describe the gameplay of Derrick the Deathfin as the illegitimate lovechild of Ecco the Dolphin and Sonic the Hedgehog. Possibly with Joe Danger filming in the background during conception.

Indeed, the idea for Derrick came from a mildly confrontational and slightly inebriated argument one evening about the relative merits of Sonic and Ecco. Clearly the only logical next step was to try to combine the two game styles and frame it all in an underwater papercraft world. So that is what we set about doing.

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The unique, vibrant art style of the game has been masterminded by street artist and all-round superstar Ronzo. All of characters and environments in the game are based on real papercraft, often being modelled in paper before being photographed and recreated as 3d models, then imported into the game. This process and Ronzo’s uniquely goofy character designs give the game an original look and charm.

Derrick the Deathfin’s distinct styling and accessible yet frantic arcade action gameplay is designed to appeal to anybody with a PS3 and a bit of sense. Derrick will be shredding his way onto PSN this summer, so stay tuned!

*There is also a bit of cardboard for those that way inclined.

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37 Comments

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  • Seriously, you need to get those awesome looking PSN games on Vita too.

  • The game camera tracks the player so 1 to 1 that it’s disorienting to watch, otherwise the game looks fin.

    • Hi Neil, glad you like the look of Derrick, you shouldn’t find it disorienting to play & it’s not quite 1 to 1 tracking. We used a bit of license with the camera in the trailer so I guess you’ll have to trust me on that one!

      Of course if you do suffer from motion sickness it’s best not to travel on boats. That’s just a general piece of advice entirely unrelated to the game, though.

      +1 for the fintastic pun too.

  • @1 I wouldn’t agree more. They need to bring those game to the vita

    • Thanks @supermoc10 & @ Tremulan777, glad you approve!

      Our focus is on making the PSN release as sexy as possible at the moment but nobody knows what will happen in the future. Apart from maybe Nostradamus, but he failed to predict Derrick so can be safely disregarded.

      Enthusiasm for Vita release duly noted!

  • Any chance that there will be instructions on making our own Derrick papercraft? Looks pretty cool to have a paper shark around the desk.

    • Ah Sonny your intelligence belies your youth! This is extremely likely to happen yep, watch out for them as we get closer to release.

  • This actually looks fun, i might try it when it releases.

  • Looks great. I also hope it gets a Vita release. Would look great on the OLED.

  • I’ve got to say, the paper art style in this game looks very intriguing! I love the look of this game. Can’t wait till it comes out. Hopefully it’ll be near the beginning of summer?

    • Thanks, paper & character style looks great because of the talents of Ronzo – http://ronzo.co.uk. On the release I can’t promise anything solid yet I’m afraid, except that we are going as fast as we can!

  • Yes please, PSN before Vita or PSP. I’d rather it be done when it’s ready and all. As long as it is not a MiniS I’ll probably pick it up for my gf.

    • Cool thanks yep PSN is up first, that’s the only platform we are developing for at the moment. It is a full release not a Mini.

  • is it a full psn game or a mini? cause if its a mini i wont even think about buy it

  • Would love to get this on Vita. It looks awesome.

  • Awesome, hope we get a Vita release this summer.

  • i also have enjoyed the ecco games, hopefully we can see a proper HD return to ecco, just imagine the graphics whether it is 2D or 3D. Also, love to see Defender of the Future from the Dreamcast days make a return, even if it just a PS2 Classic.

  • very nice. Is it PlayStation exclusive?

    • Thank-you! PSN is the only platform we plan to release Derrick on for now, so I guess that does makes it an exclusive?

  • Looks like this will be a lot of fun. Loving the art style as well. Will definitely be keeping an eye on this until its release.

  • Reminds me of Echo the Dolphin… 0212 :D

  • I’ve been saying this for years, “We need more games with paper/cardboard elements.” And look what, we, get! I’m stoked! (I currently have no good fish puns at my disposal, but I am wearing an Hawaiian shirt)

    • Cool very glad you like the style, it does seem a bit crazy that there haven’t been more papercraft games. Happily it sounds like Derrick is now firmly on your sonar.

  • Finally! I heard about this earlier this year – or was it late last year? – and have been looking forward to it ever since. The art style is absolutely wonderful!

  • First thing I thought of was Little Big Planet and Sonic meets Ecco. Looks like a fun platformer. Can you give us a hint to the price?

    If only this was coming out this week I would have an excellent Mothers day present for my wife. She loves these games (I do too).

    • Thanks @TwinDad glad you like it!

      I can’t tell you the price I’m afraid but I can give you a hint so abstract that it is almost meaningless: it will be less than you expect but more than you hope for.

      I don’t mean to disappoint you twice but it’s not coming out this week either!

  • Quite unique! I’m putting this on my hit list this summer!

  • Great job on what looks like a genuinely fun game! I do like the art style. What modes, if any, are available other than the main story? This looks like time might play a part.

    • Hi @FORMIK thanks! There are 3 types of level in the game, which all form part of the main story: Regular levels, which are time pressure based as you noted, Speed levels and Disaster levels. So there are no separate modes as such, but loads of variety within the game – the idea being that the level design and environments will always surprise and challenge you as you progress.

  • Look like a fun cross between Aqua Panic and Super Stacker, both of which I really liked. That being said, I’m tired of typical platformer mechanics like coin collecting. Zack Zero looked great and had decent mechanics, but it followed the platformer “recipe” a little too closely for my tastes. How is this game bending/breaking the rules a la Braid?

    The screenshots appear to be 720p — is there a reason the game isn’t rendering in 1080p natively?

    Who is doing the music? Will the soundtrack be encoded with HD/lossless quality? 320kbit/sec Ogg?

    Looking forward to hearing more about the puzzles and other gameplay differentiators! :)

  • This. Looks. AWESOME!

    Ahhhhhh, I get so excited about different looking games haha. This is definitely going on my purchase list right now :]

  • Omg, this is like piranha panic. Love it!

  • Hi @plaztiksyke, I see we are on to the tough questions now!

    I’ll let you be the judge of the gameplay when it comes out, we have tried to make it very immediate, fast paced and satisfying with oodles of variety and surprises. It’s definitely fun to play, and it is miles away from being a typical platformer, but whether that satisfies your criteria only you will know when you play it!

    Screenshots are 720p as that is the current game resolution as you guessed. There are plenty of reasons for this as I’m sure you’ll understand, running at a smooth 60fps being one of them, sufficed to say it looks lovely on big full HD tellies.

    All the audio in the game has been produced by Pitstop – http://www.pitstopproductions.co.uk/ – they have done an ace job on the music and sfx. Indeed nearly all of the audio has been produced using handmade things – paper ripping, bubble wrap popping etc. Obviously that doesn’t apply to the soundtrack though & I honestly have no idea as to its final encoding quality/format at the moment, as we are still finalising such things.

    Glad you looking forward to hearing more, thanks for checking Derrick out!

    • Oops reply fail, that was supposed to be a reply to @plaztiksyke. In fact double reply fail as I have just replied to myself.

  • More enthusiasm for a Vita release to note! (and great looking game!)

  • And Perfect use of the “SEGA” sound at the end!

    • Thanks for the nice comments @manobon, getting a lot of Vita love today! There is a dopier version of that sound in the game too.

  • Yes Vita please!

  • Love it. Great art style.
    This would be well complimented by a “Derrick Aquarium Dynamic Theme” for fans to purchase, no?

  • Would definately buy on my vita, please do it!

  • It’s games like this that continually push the industry, not the bigger games that people assume.

  • Another game ideally suited for the vita, another game being passed over for the vita. Wow, don’t know what to say except sony needs to start talking to these developers and start pointing them in the right direction.

  • this is the one of the most randomly interesting things ive seen in quite some time… almost on the level of the original katamari damacy, not that thats a bad thing. I will be keeping an eye on this one

    • Wow very kind words thanks! You do encounter random piles of upside down crabs, penguins etc. in the game which are a bit katamari looking. Bringing back memories of what an amazing game that was now…

  • This looks just awesome enough to be super awesome.

  • Gordon, your sense of humor is delightful. Between Aram from Atlus and yourself, this here blog has gotten a heck of a lot more chuckles out of me than usual. Love the look of the game, definitely a huge fan of both the art direction (Props to Ronzo!) and the nods towards Ecco. I got a little nostalgic flashback whilst watching the trailer. Rock on man, can’t wait to play this!

    • Thank-you very much – my sense of humor is delightful until you inevitably get unbearably sick of it, so let us enjoy this golden time together!

      Very happy you like the game!

  • I know it’s been asked a bunch of times but, uuuummm Vita version. Pleeeease?

  • Games like this are perfect for handhelds, I don’t own a PS3 but i would love to play this game, I guess the same can be said for PS3 owners if it was Vita exclusive. PSN and Vita so we all can have some Fin

  • Lol good one lol

  • The art style of this game is pretty awesome and i’m looking forward to it, a small question Gordon: it’s going to have trophies?

    • Hello, yes there are plenty of trophies to collect & display in Derrick’s cabinet – it will be a major challenge to try & get them all!

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