Hey everyone! SFB Games is comprised of two brothers, Adam and Tom Vian from London. We’ve been making games for many years (mostly for browsers, under the name “The Super Flash Bros.”) and this is our first opportunity to make a game that can be enjoyed on a real handheld console.
When we heard about PlayStation Mobile and thought about PS Vita as a platform, there was only one game we had in mind. The colourful graphics and simple controls of Haunt the House work perfectly in this context — it’s a really natural fit. The original Haunt the House was a browser game we made for Halloween back in 2010, and since then we’ve come a long way as designers.
The basic idea of Haunt the House: you float around as a ghost, possessing any objects you see and use them to perform spooky haunting actions to any humans who are nearby! The aim of the game is to scare every single human away from the town, but this game also has an extra objective…
The first thing we wanted to design was the town itself, exploring all the best tropes of spooky horror locations. Eventually we settled on a theatre, a hospital, a museum, cruise ship and a clock tower. Then we asked talented artist Catherine Unger to design the backgrounds for the game. She produced detailed digital paintings of each building and developed an amazing colour palette that gives the game a really unique atmosphere. In the end, we produced vector versions of Catherine’s backgrounds for the final game.
This was Tom’s first project using C#, and he was surprised by how quick and easy it was to switch over from Flash development. He also enjoyed writing a custom tool for exporting Flash animation for PlayStation Mobile, so we didn’t even have to use any new animation tools.
Meanwhile Adam began designing ghosts, people, menus, and hundreds of “possessable” objects to go into the buildings. It was fun thinking up the most interesting objects to go in each room — from chandeliers, telescopes and statues, to tubas, X-ray machines and roulette tables! We aimed for as much variety as possible.
We hired the incredibly talented composer Raphael Benjamin Meyer to produce an original soundtrack to the game. The music is made even more special by the presence of real instruments being played by real musicians. Next we asked Kimlinh Tran to act as voice director since we needed a range of voices for both the ghosts and the human characters. She did a great job and we have a wonderful range of vocal talent on board. Thanks to everyone who helped us out!
The final game is something we’re all incredibly proud of. It’s simple to learn, but offers endless possibilities to play around and discover new things and new situations. We don’t think we’ll ever get bored of it.
The game will be available to download today through the PlayStation Mobile service.
Need more information on PlayStation Mobile? Want to know more about supported tablets and phones? Head here.
That looks really cool. How much?
Ill look for it!
Life of Pixel is already in PSN EU, and PSN US, any news?
Sorry about the question at @2, it was directed to PS Blog, not SFB Games.
Played this before. Fun game. Will definitely get a copy!
Hello. You mencion PS VIta on your post. This game will be available for Vita in some moment???
I really hope Sony start including really cheap and casual games to Vita… not every game must be a “AAA” and cost “40 bucks”, you know?
I hope you sell a lot… Sony need more indie devs for their consoles… :)
Looks good any chance of trophy support?
or making its way over to the PSN?
I saw this game pop up under the Mini’s section of the PS Store yesterday and thought it looked interesting. This post and trailer made me want to buy it. Looks fantastic.
Awesome, I saw a video of this game a while back but never knew where to get it. I’m a jerk so screwing with people in and out of games is what I love to do and this seems like the perfect game for that. Sold.
Looks great! Will definitely pick it up!
mine
Just bought it, but I’m at work, so I’ll have to play it later!
I wish the Playstation Mobile games were trophy enabled. I’d buy more of them.
Played it a bit on my break, lots of fun. Very charming all around. I highly recommend it for the curious!
Trophies are lame. They don’t add much of anything to the quality of a game. A fun game is a fun game. Maybe I’m just an old timer, but playing NES games in the 80’s wouldn’t have been MORE fun if an arbitrary Trophy/Achievement system was added to it.
I understand that lots of people love Trophies, but I don’t understand how someone would not buy a quality game because of lack of Trophies.
I’m sure few of you are old enough to remember it, but this game instantly reminded me of a game for the Sega Genesis called “Haunting Starring Polterguy”. I have some very fond memories of that (which I’m sure are being remembered through rose-colored glasses) and I’ll definitely be picking up Haunt The House.
This looks cool so I will pick it up if the price is reasonable. I’m glad you are supporting PS Mobile.
Why don’t new PS Mobile games appear on the “New Releases” tab in the Game section of the vita store? It’s a new game, so it should be on the front page, so that people know about it. I have a feeling that not too many vita users EVER check the “Playstation Mobile” tab, nor do they even know it exists. Help these indie devs out, Sony, and put their games in the front page spotlight.
If this was on PSN, I’d be down.
The art looks very nice and it seems like fun… hoping that PS Mobile games integrate Trophies soon but I’d check it out.
Surprised that this isn’t by the game people that did Beat Sneak Bandit which would be great if it came out for PS Mobile.
while i do agree that trophies don’t add much to the quality of a game, just remember who you guys are trying to sell these little games, Vita audience have standards and one of them are trophies, scoreboards, in other words playstation network support, you put trophies on psmobile games and those games will start selling like crazy because some of them are actually very good games.
@20: PS Mobile isn’t soley Vita. Duh.
Besides, cross save is more important to add than trophies. What’s the point of being able to have a game on my phone, tablet and Vita if I have to be stuck with separate pogress? Where as playing a game without trophies is fine, as I am playing the game for the game. Not to inflate my ego.
I love trophies, but they are not necessary.
at 21 ask naughty Dog, Incognito Studio, evolution studios or even Media Molecule if trophies are not important for a game to be relevant again lol, lots of playstation fans are used to them, i just think it would help those little games to have the upper hand when it comes to platform of choice, thats all, i know i would chose the vita instead of my cell phone to play those games if they support trophies, scoreboards and even online play.
thanks Tom & Adam …. looks like a great game. bought it today along with Life of a Pixel & Crate Boxes. for under $10 I snagged 3 games … I’m going to be paying more attention to PS Mobile …. looks very promising for innovative, reasonably priced games …. & at these prices, far more willing to take a chance on an unknown … too many gems I don’t want to miss out on ….
I posted earlier saying I would buy it if the price was reasonable. It turned out to be $3.50 so I bought it. I don’t normally buy games at full price when they are first released (every game goes on sale eventually) but this was too hard to pass up at such a reasonable price.
Feedback for the PS Blog folks – I love that the PS Blog is supporting indie developers and PS Mobile by giving them visibility on this blog. This posting and the imbedded gameplay video got me to buy a game I would not have given a second thought to otherwise. Keep up the great work!