Fellows! We’ve are absolutely gagging here to get Sound Shapes into your hands. Gagging! We wish it could be in your hands right now! But unfortunately that can’t be, as this week saw the release of The Expendables 2 as part of the PSN Play promotion, not us. However! If you’re popping into PlayStation Store to pick it up at any point this week you can also pre-order Sound Shapes and get an exclusive PS3 theme. That’s not to forget PSN Play’s money-saving promotion: the more games you pick up, the more money you save. So if you’ve already picked up The Expendables 2, you’ll get a cool three bucks back if you pick up Sound Shapes.
But enough of that waffle. Because we’re excited to get Sound Shapes into your hands, we wanted to kick start your imaginations by having one of our founders, Jonathan Mak, walk you through level creation using our level tools. And if you’re the kind of player who is more excited to *play* than create (and that’s fine, too) we’re revealing our Trophy mode. And yes, there is a Platinum.
So, until this point we’ve been showing you lots of different parts of our campaign mode. Just to recap: we’re providing five different albums with several tracks each, with each album including art and music from a different pair of artists, such as deadmau5 and Pixeljam or Pyramid Attack and Beck. Beating these levels will unlock their components, and then you’ll be able to mix and match them in your own levels!
In the following video, for example, Jon quickly puts together a level that (among other things) includes deadmau5 loops paired with Jim Guthrie/Superbrothers hazards, and he throws in some vocals that you might remember from our recent reveal of the Beck album Cities. He even shows off the player’s ability to record timings and change beats per minute… and it all sounds (and plays!) pretty good:
We’ve tried to make creating a song and level as fun as possible, but also effortless to upload and share. We’ve said this before, but seeing what players do with our tools is one of the things we’re *most* looking forward to. We’re certain that, after a couple of days, you’re going to blow away what Jon did here.
Something that we think (hope?) is going to take you more than a matter of days, however, is claiming our Platinum Trophy. If you’re a Trophy hunter, you’re probably well aware of the pain and glory of trying to conquer the intense Trophy levels in our pal Shawn McGrath’s new PSN exclusive Dyad. Here at Queasy Games, we didn’t want players to be distracted by playing albums in a certain way for Trophies, or trying to “game” our community. Instead we created two things: Death Mode and Beat School.
Death Mode is an unusual twist in our campaign mode. Once you’ve beaten our albums, you can flip each album over to a b-side and experience intense, single-screen timed challenges to collect notes without dying based on signature moments from each of the album’s tracks. Each win unlocks a Trophy, and it’s our hope that these will test the skills players have learned in our levels, making each Trophy win hard fought but deeply rewarding. Beat School is a different sort of challenge: here we challenge all players, even (if not especially) those who consider themselves “non musical,” to create beats on a single screen by listening and matching to a beat we have created. With luck, these levels will challenge and inspire you to go into the editor and make your own beats—if Jon’s video above hasn’t already convinced you.
Don’t forget: Sound Shapes hits PS3 and PS Vita as a cross-play title August 7th, but you can pre-order it now, receiving a lovely Cory Schmitz-designed PS3 theme and the ability to play the game on PS3 or PS Vita no matter which system you buy it on. You get both versions for one price! It’s $14.99 (20% off for a limited time for PS Plus members). And oh yeah, the Trophies are shared between both versions, too. Did we mention there’s a Platinum?
I already bought it, can’t wait for next week.
Thanks for the platinum! This is the first wave of the games that will finally save my Vita.
now i can get a platinum on my ps3 and vita? sold
Already pre-ordered! Cannot wait to dive into everything next week!
Glad to see a more in-depth video of the level editor, and a platinum is nice too.
Great Job to everyone at Queasy Games and everyone else part of the amazing collaboration!
I was already really interested in this, but, that video sold me. Pre-ordering the crap out of this when I get home.
cant wait for all these great games i all ready own two of them great games for playstation cant wait to get my money back next month! yah!!!!!
i cant wait to get my vita these games are awsome! i have a great game collection of games already these game looks great cant wait for it next week! keep it up playstation your doing great! its great being a ps+ member its worth every penny! awsome job great game coming this month for us ps+ members cant wait for this months games! thanks playstation! I LOVE BEING A PLAYSTATION MEMBER! ITS GREAT PS+IS AWSOME!
Thank you so much! I was already going to buy this game, but the platinum is icing on the cake. Glad to read that developers understand how much trophies mean to gamers :)
Can’t wait to download Sound Shapes. Very excited!
How big will the download be for the game?
Thanks!
Hey Sony, what is the chance for us to get Dead Space 2 just like the european psplus guys?????????? In the past 2 months the european psplus received great updates. Please Sony, show us some respect and give us at least 1 GOOD full game on next week, i said GOOD like Dead Space 2, Motor Storm Apocalypse, Darksiders, Magic 2013, Batman, etc…
Can’t wait for this game another week ut i have to. So it will be like LBP in the aspect where players put levels online and anyone can play them? I’m surprised how easy it will be to create my own musical levels. August 7th feels so far away!!!!
Sounds good – on the fence. I want to be in the BUY BUY BUY camp! How big is the download?
I’m looking foward to this game, the level editor seens amazing!
Also, congrats on your decision of letting us buy the game just one time and still being able to cross-play. Its always to see developers respecting gamers.
couple of questions now:
1 – Do you have any plans to relase future DLC featuring new songs/beats? There are some artists that would be a blast working with Sound Shapes (Trent Reznor, for instance)
2 – What about user-made songs? I’ve made some beats using that awesome app. Incredibox and man, it would be awesome to see it on Sound Shapes.
FINALLY a game for the Vita!!
I was wondering whatever happened to Jonathan Mak since Everyday Shooter. So many great pixel artists & musicians on board…I’m totally counting down the days/hours/minutes until this finally releases. That’s how excited I am!
This makes the Vita look great! I’m glad I got one… just need more creative games like this! I loved how the menus and back touch pad work so well!
Here’s hoping LBP Vita will be just as cool (or better)!
The game looks great! I love how the guy really gets into it. You can see at the end when he looks up, the look in his eyes…like he’s just come out of a trance. I love immersive games like that. Also, the way he handled the PS Vita while creating/playing that level. Was really an impressive testament to both the Vita’s capabilities and the developers creative use of all the Vita functions. Seems like level creation will be way more intuitive on the Vita than on the PS3. Congrats on a great game guys, can’t wait to play it!
Great I can’t wait to unlock the platinum and creat some levels.
THESE GAMES JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER@BETTER PLAYSTATION RULES! XBOX360 SUCKS THEY GOT NOTHING ON US! WE ARE #1 WHILE THERE #100025? AW WHO CARES WE RULE !
HEY MORGON DO YOU THINK YOUR GONNA TRY THIS GAME WHEN IT COMES OUT NEXT WEEK? JUST ASKING THANKS! LOOKS GREAT THANKS!
IM GETTING MY VITA CANT WAIT FOR ALL THE GAMES COMING OUT IN THE NEXT COMING MONTHS!
Not sure about this one. Looks like a cool game, but not usually my type of cool game. I think I am going to hold off on this one (even with my PS+ discount), and await a few reviews, or even a demo to try it out. If the reviews and/or demo are positive, I will be the first to admit I was wrong, and buy the game at full price.
Pre-ordered!
Yeah Sound Shapes is a definite buy. I’ve been waiting for this
This game looks AMAZING. I really can’t wait to get my hands on it. I’m usually horrible at level editors (can never seem to find little platforms that you can jump on) but this looks like it is really intuitive and will be easy with time. Will it come in both physical and digital forms? Next Tuesday cannot come any faster :/
i am as eager as the next chap to get my hands on this fine looking game. But will sokeone please tell someone to stop using video formats that arent viewable on the vita? I mean, after all this game will be on the vita, and im using one right now, but i cant see the video….. oh well. looking forward to this release regardless!
Pre-ordered. Let me see if I get this straight, the pre-order entitles me to both the ps3 and Vita versions?
Sorry for the redundancy I just can´t believe it. Pls answer!
You got it! When you pre-order Sound Shapes (and also when you buy it once it launches next week), you get the PS3 AND the Vita version. Boom! :)