Twin-stick Shooter We Are Doomed To Hit PS4, Vita

10 3
Twin-stick Shooter We Are Doomed To Hit PS4, Vita

Hello there! I’m Mo, founder of Vertex Pop, a tiny independent video game studio based in Toronto, Canada. I’m really excited to introduce We Are Doomed, a twin-stick shooter where you zap polygon baddies with an insanely overpowered laserbeam. I want to tell you all about the core mechanics of the game, the unique visuals, and my plans to bring it to PS4 and PS Vita.

And I’ll be showing We Are Doomed at PlayStation Experience next month, so please come by if you’re attending!

We Are Doomed

The first thing you’ll notice is that the player is armed with a powerful but close-range laserbeam weapon. If you want to get anywhere in We Are Doomed, you need to dive right into the action. Hanging back and picking off baddies will simply not do.

You’ll also want to charge your already overpowered laserbeam into a SUPERBEAM, which is when things get a little absurd. The SUPERBEAM is a brief triumph: a beam that goes all the way across the screen, zapping everything it touches in short order. You’ll want to make the most of your time with it. But remember to keep your cool, because you’re still vulnerable when using it.

The entire game is built on a risk/reward mentality. Every mechanic is designed to make throwing yourself into danger and dashing across the arena to collect Trinkets (the purple cubes) pay off. It makes for a fast-paced game of constantly evaluating your options while maintaining composure.

In this way, We Are Doomed is about feeling empowered and challenged, often at the same time. But just as important is experiencing the beautiful explosion of geometry, color and light. Let’s talk about that.

We Are DoomedWe Are Doomed

We Are Doomed features a unique lo-fi aesthetic, with bold shapes, glitching geometry, and neon colors. This isn’t a throwback to the way games used to look, but an alternate reality scenario: what if texture-mapped, shader-calculated, photo-realistic graphics never happened? What if instead, flat shaded, vector-based graphics ruled the world? We Are Doomed explores these questions in gloriously colorful fashion.

I’m really excited to bring We Are Doomed to PlayStation. It looks beautiful on the big screen (1080p and 60 frames per second, of course) and plays beautifully on DualShock 4. I’m committed to bringing the game to Vita as well, but that’ll take a little longer. I’m just one person, cut me some slack. :)

The best part about PlayStation though, is the built-in community of gamers (That’s you!) who love a little friendly competition. I’m looking forward to seeing the leaderboards light up with unbelievable high scores.

On that note, if you fancy yourself a pro shmup player and are coming to PlayStation Experience please come by my booth! I’d love to see how the game fares against your skills. Of course, if you just want to have a fun, neon-filled arcade experience, I’m equally eager to see you.

We Are Doomed is coming to PS4 in early 2015, with the Vita following a little later.

Comments are closed.

10 Comments

3 Author Replies

  • Sounds Awesome!

  • Hey Mobeen,

    This looks really nice. I like the art style and colors.

    I wanted to ask if guys would consider making “Dynamic Themes” and “Avatar Pictures” for the PS4. It would be cool to see what you guys could come up with.

    Cheers!!!

    Rob aka Graf

  • I’ve played this game many times…looking fwd to playing the final build!

    • Oh cool, thanks for being an early adopter! :) The final version is improved in every aspect, so I think there’ll be something new for everyone.

  • Name of the game says it all…. yet another indie.

  • I dabbled with it and enjoyed it on PC. Really love the art direction!

  • If this is on any other platform, please dont price it higher on pPlayStation. A LOT of indy games are ignored by me and many others because pricing is wrong. Realise what you have, and price it accordingly.

    Also, basic shapes and vector graphivs arent unique. At least not anymore with so many indies coming out.

  • Looks great! Reminds me of Everyday Shooter, one of our favs from the early days of PSN on PS3. (I wish there was a PS4/Vita native version of that games — the music and art style is amazing!)

    Can you talk about who’s doing the music, if the audio assets will be 24-bit FLAC, and if it will support surround sound?

    • Oh man, yeah Everyday Shooter is amazing! The gameplay never *quite* worked for me, but the experience alone was worth it. You’ll definitely enjoy the art and gameplay in We Are Doomed as well. :)

      Robby Duguay did the music, you can listen to (and buy) the amazing OST here: http://robbyduguay.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-doomed-soundtrack-ep
      I’m working on getting the highest quality audio possible, but unfortunately, no surround. That sort of thing gets super complicated for a small dev shop like mine.

  • I can say this, mist Indie games have been a real disappointment.
    I have learned though, that twin stick shooters are a pretty nice addition along with certain 2-D platformers, with such a lack of games I usually want to play.

    Glad you are bringing it to Vita.

    Not sure if I will like it as much as Dead Nation, or Pixeljunk, but worth looking into more, when it finally becomes available.

    • The lack of twin stick shooters has been really disappointing for me as well … that was part of the reason for making We Are Doomed!

      I especially love wave/level based modes where you feel a steady progression and have a sense of familiarity as you play the game more. We Are Doomed has both (Waves and Endless mode) and I gravitate toward different modes depending on my mood & amount of free time.

  • The name of this game is an excellent reference to how Vita owners feel about the handheld actual and future situation.

    Great job SONY!

Please enter your date of birth.

Date of birth fields