Hi there, my name is Dominic Robilliard and for the last year or so I’ve been serving as the Creative Director for a new group within Sony World Wide Studios: Pixelopus.
This brand new team is made up of talented graduates from two pioneering digital media and artistic institutions here in the United States: Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center and the San Jose State University Animation and Illustration program. As well as a cutting edge creative skill set we also benefit from a diverse cultural back drop too: Pixelopus is truly an international group with five countries represented amongst the ten of us!
This week at E3 we are both revealing and launching our debut game: Entwined for the
PS4, the PS3 and PS Vita systems. It’s a beautiful, addictive and abstract action/arcade game about two souls who are in love but that can’t be together. These souls are represented by a bird and a fish, which you must learn to control simultaneously. Over the course of nine lifetimes you will help these two characters come together with the eventual goal of uniting them for eternity. This story was inspired by an ancient Chinese myth, and the theme of reincarnation lives in our level structure.
Within each of these varied lifetimes you will earn the opportunity to bring the two souls together, and at that moment they will turn into a soaring dragon. This empowering transformation was designed as a moment of liberation and pure gameplay reward to celebrate this important moment in each lifetime. The freedom and joy of flight soon leads to the ability for players to ‘skywrite’ using glorious trails of light and living paint across the sky. We hope that players will enjoy this ability to create their own aerial sculptures, and on the PS4 system they can share what they make with their friends through the Share button.
We began this project on a quest to find new gameplay ideas, create meaningful art and a desire to make something that felt genuinely new and entertaining for players. With an original gameplay mechanic at its heart, Entwined creates a unique sense of flow which only games can generate through the balance of skill, a vibrant art style and a mesmerizing original soundtrack.
I want to close out this blog post by thanking our amazing team; Lucie, Becky, Ash, Haewon, Jing, Eric, Jitesh, Arjun, our wonderful composer Sam Marshall and finally our extraordinary Art Director, Jeff Sangalli. As a group you possess a rich and enlightening mix of experience, talent, and passion for making games, which has created something truly special in Entwined. We really hope PlayStation gamers have as much fun playing this exclusive game as we did making it.
Entwined is available now on the PS4 system via PlayStation Store for $9.99, and will be releasing in about a month on the PS3 and PS Vita systems. It is a Cross-Buy title, so you’ll already own it on those two platforms when you pick it up for the PS4 system. The soundtrack is also available to purchase today on the PS3 system and iTunes Store.
Already SOLD :D
Not on the store, can’t find it
Physical release or no sale.
Nevermind, now it is… 15 mins ago it wasn’t
Edit ^ , it’s there, but not for sale
I’ll definitely have my eye on this once the Cross-Buy hits. For now, it’s yet another justification to long for the next step beyond my PS3…
(And, thank you for providing the soundtrack through the Store as well as iTunes. May I request Amazon MP3 and Bandcamp, as well?)
Let me guess we don’t have a demo for this game. So you have to buy it and if you don’t like the game then your money is down the drain.
The visual is so nice! Bought it and its beautiful
Nice to see students from my alma matter (San Jose State) having a hand in this.
I really really love this game so far. It’s very pretty and relaxing. I’ve been looking for a game like this.
I’m super happy to find out the soundtrack is available for purchase. I’m going to get it right now.
Why would a small game like this get a disc release? People have no common sense it seems.
@12 For consumer choice? For consumer rights?
God, some people are completely brainwashed.
The game looks great! hopefully Canadian grads get up there too someday ;)
It was really nice to see this in the conference…looks like a good game.Great visuals.
LOL, if you think that they will release every small indie titles on discs, then you’ll be waiting a long time. Small studios can’t afford to have all their games pressed on disc and put on the market.
It’s not a question of being brainwashed, it’s a question of common sense.
Hi Dominic,
The game looks great–really beautiful and peaceful. Also, I’d consider typing your company name out with a capital “O,” as in PixelOpus (or even a space between the words, though clearly you’re hesitant to do that). When I initially saw your company name, I thought the last four letters would be pronounced like the last four letters of “octopus.” The color differentiation in the logo helped me out a lot, but without that or a space or a capital “O,” I think you might get some odd reactions.
@Einhander138, you always have the same comment “disc or no sale”.
You’re missing out on a ton of content if all you purchase are retail releases. I’m sure you have an tablet/phone and don’t worry about digital purchases. This is 2014, physical games will soon be on the way out – it doesn’t matter what form games take, just play and enjoy them.
This game is really beautiful! The art style and soundtrack are incredible, the gameplay is simple but fun and the challenge mode is super addictive.
@18
I don’t have a tablet and don’t make purchases on my phone.
“Physical games will soon be on the way out” – only if you allow publishers to bend you over and take away your consumer rights.
If you don’t support digital releases, there will be less of them.
Just giving up and accepting it means we’ll get more.
Nowadays you have to *fight* for consumer rights.
This game is awesome! I’m really happy that it came out the day of E3, that’s so awesome. <3
I’m really happy I bought this game. Short and pretty. Challenge mode is fun. Worth the $10. Beautiful game with a lovely soundtrack to go along with it. Recommended!
@Einhander138
Unfortunately all games won’t have a physical release since doing it for smaller studios, like this one, could raise the costs too much. Plus with the low price point it doesn’t make sense. It has nothing to do with consumer rights though. It’s production costs.
These independent companies aren’t looking to screw you out of a sale. They need your sale! They aren’t Sony or Microsoft that can survive if they have failed sales for a few games.
The *fight* for consumer rights you should work towards is crappy day 1 dlc content that will costs you extra with a $60 game. That isn’t right and should be included with the game. Or *fight* against paying retail price for digital versions. This game costs $10 because its digital only. Physical release of this could increase price to $15 or higher.
Maybe you’re trolling, maybe you ‘re serious. I don’t know. It unfortunate you’ll be missing out on some great games.
Beautiful, artistic, colorful, & cross buy.. SOLD. What a nice surprise to have something at E3 available right away. Well done and it reminds me of the good old Apple conferences when the new toy was available that day.
@22 The fight for consumer rights *includes* fighting against digital copies. The only reason so many indies publish digitally is because they’re trying to kill used games. Indie companies aren’t looking to screw me out of a sale, but they *are* looking to screw me out of my consumer rights.
Lol! Yes, release the 50-100 MB games on a 4.7GB DVD disc. Or better yet, a 25GB BluRay. Please! For my consumer rights!
You’re probably the type who once finishes his game, goes to a retail store for trade-ins.
I can see retail copies still going for big titles that uses lots of space, but for small indie titles, ah! I’ll agree with the others, you’re just trolling.
Looks interesting, will download for my PS3.
@Einhander138
I can’t argue with you about the industry attempting to kill used games. If the industry has its way, used games will be dead in 5 years time. Which means higher prices and wasteful consumption for gamers everywhere. This has nothing to do with a small indie company though.
In this case, we are talking about a $10 game. If there were a physical release, sure you could find a used version. Lets be generous and say we knock a big 50% off the price because its used. You are saving 5$. That’s not much, because the price of new isn’t much. Its cheap because its a short indie arcade game that can be downloaded in an hour.
Now lets take a full size, AAA developer, $70 game that is so large it would take me a few days to attain digitally. If we knock 50% off of this game, we save 35$. That’s 7 times the savings than the used indie game. If you saved the same amount of money on the AAA title as you did the indie title, the AAA game would be $65 used. So basically the same price. That puts into perspective how impractical it is to buy a $10 indie title used.
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@Einhander138
If you’re still fighting for the consumer right to physical media for small size arcade style inde games in 2014, you’ve missed the boat. Digital only indie arcade games have been around for at least half a decade now. You’re losing sight of what you should be fighting for in terms of consumer rights. Fight against the triple A games that want to go digital only. They are worth so much more money that buying used versions is actually practical. Not to mention the strain on your home internet connection that a digital only AAA game would cause. Heed the advice of @Kalthoon and fight against expensive day 1 DLC that a few years ago would come included with the original release for no extra money on top of the price you pay for the game. Raise issues with the EA sports games that require you to activate your copy on xblive/psplus so that you can’t even lend the game to your own brother in the same house.
Gaming consumers are under attack on all fronts by those who stand to profit most from the gaming industry and sometimes it gets confusing which game companies deserve a boycott, but this game and this company have done nothing wrong.
:o I want it.!