My name is Matt Morton. I’m a Producer at Santa Monica Studio and I wanted let you all know how excited I am about the release of Datura for the PS3, which will be available later today on the PlayStation Network for $9.99.

I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to be working here at Santa Monica Studio. We are constantly searching for titles that bring interesting and unique experiences to the gaming community, and having the opportunity to present Datura to you is yet another huge honor.

Datura is the second offering from Plastic, a group of amazingly talented developers in Poland. This project started awhile back, after they released Linger in Shadows for the PS3, which was an interesting step for us as a studio. We honestly weren’t sure how the public would react to an interactive art house project, but our fears were soon laid to rest as our hunch that our gamer were a savvy bunch was proved correct.

In Datura, the player will experience an incredibly unique scenario. As you play Datura, you find yourself in a forest. As you explore this environment, you will be presented with different scenarios in which you have to make a choice. Which choices will you make and what will be the result from these choices that you’ve made? Each scenario will call on the player to make a choice and even though I’ve been working on this project for quite some time, I’ve always been fascinated to watch people play Datura and see the choices they make.

If you don’t have a Move, don’t worry. Datura does not require the PS Move motion controller, but I will say that the PlayStation Move provides the best, most immersive experience. With the Move, the hand seen on screen is a true 1-to-1 extension of your own hand. Datura also supports stereoscopic 3D TV systems, and I can easily say this is one of, if not the best-looking 3D titles I’ve ever experienced.

We hope you give Datura a play on the PS3 later today. We’re very proud of it, and hope you are as impressed with it as we are.

Here we have the interview in which Baiyon does a live performance of his new collaborative title: PixelJunk lifelike! This title garnered a lot of buzz during the show. It’s nearly impossible to explain what it is, so Baiyon and Dylan decided to show us what PixelJunk lifelike is all about. While it may not be a game, per se, it definitely is a game changer! Hope you enjoy the video and Baiyon’s performance.

We want to get a solid mix of PixelJunk enthusiasts, as well as people who are new to the franchise. The purpose of these focus tests will be to help us balance and polish the game to make sure it’s as fun and exciting as it can be. As you can guess, we’ve got a TON of exciting things to offer in this sequel to the already amazing PixelJunk Shooter, but we need your input to help make it the absolute best it can be!

As you can guess, we’ve got a TON of exciting things to offer in this sequel to the already amazing PixelJunk Shooter, but we need your input to help make it the absolute best it can be! What will we need from you? Your honest opinions on the game as you play through segments of each of the three new environments and encounter new challenges along the way. You will also get to go head-to-head against other testers and experience the online Battle System in which you fight 1-on-1 taking turns being the hunter or the hunted!

If you are in the local Los Angeles area and are available this Friday, December 3rd, we want to hear from you! We will be hosting three sessions at 1:00pm, 3:00pm and 5:00pm so when responding, please let us know which session you would like to attend. Expect each session to run about 90 minutes. Seating is extremely limited and we expect the available slots for testing to fill up fast!

As a “Thank You” for helping us out, we will give each of our testers a brand new PlayStation Move starter bundle to take home.

Requirements for application:

• Have reliable transportation to the testing location.
• Be 18 years of age. If under the age of 18, you will need your parent or legal guardian present for the entire duration of the session.

If you are interested, here’s what you need to do:

Send an email to PJS2Test@gmail.com.

In the email please state the following:

• Full Name
• Age
• Email address for confirmation purposes.
• Phone number for confirmation purposes.
• Time of session you are interested in.
• Let us know if you are a PixelJunk player or not. Not to worry if you aren’t, as we need all kinds of testers!

Thank you, and we hope to hear from you soon!

Huzzah and Hooray!
Fat Princess has released in a portable way!

Battles are fierce, intense and quite fun!
Soon you too will cry “Cake for everyone!”

OK, OK…. I couldn’t help myself. I have been in quite a festive mood as we near the release of Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake. I couldn’t help myself from trying out a bit of prose. As you can see… I won’t be running off to publish any poetry books in the near future, but I WILL be playing Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake on my PSP. I’m very proud of this game and how well SuperVillain Studios brought all of the PS3 fun into the PSP. Plus they have added so much more to it with new game modes like Demolition, Jailbreak and Grim Reaper, plus the neat Dilapidated mode which adds a neat spin to any game. In Dilapidated mode, you must first repair the hat machines in order to get them operational! The new maps are great, too. They also created a longer story mode to introduce you to these new game elements and help you get familiar with the new surroundings.

There is so much to do and so much to play,
Before you know it, you’ll have finished your day!

Sorry about that… I will stop with the rhymes now. Promise.

In fact, I’m going to finish this up and go play Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake on my PSP. It’s a whole lot of fun in the palm of your hand!

(OK, one more)

Get Fat Princess now on your PSP,

Available for download or on UMD!! (for $19.99)

The entire Fat Princess team loves your response to the recent patch for Fat Princess on the PS3! We love our fans and we are hard at work to make sure Fat Princess is as fun as it can be. We have a very special request for fans of Fat Princess on the PS3 who are living in the Los Angeles / Santa Monica area. We value your input so much that we are looking for a select few to help us test some new features for Fat Princess PS3.

We are looking for people who can give us two hours of their time and let us know what you think. We need people for this Friday, April 2nd in any one of the following sessions:

Session 1: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Session 2: 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Session 3: 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Session 4: 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Requirements for the Playtest are as follows:

• Be at least 18 years or older.
• Be willing to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement, because what you will be testing is a BIG Cake-of-a-secret!
• Be familiar with Fat Princess on the PS3.
• Live in the LA area with reliable transportation to the playtest.

Mastery of the game is NOT a requirement!

For your time and valuable input, we will give you a free copy of God of War III for your PS3 enjoyment!

If you are interested and meet the above requirements, please send an email to FPLAPlaytest@gmail.com with your name, address, contact phone number and your preference of which session you would be willing to join. If you don’t have a session preference, please state “any available session”.

Selected members will be emailed back with a confirmation email with a location and time for check-in.

Seats are VERY limited!

Thank you very much, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Check out the trailer!

I wouldn’t be able to talk about this great game without mentioning SuperVillain Studios (SVS). They are the developers that met the challenge of bringing Fat Princess to the PSP, making it a faithful game that stands on its own, and adds so much more than the original did. I would like to introduce you to Todd Morgan, the Senior Producer from SuperVillain Studios that helped bring Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake to life.

Todd, let’s talk about what SVS has brought to FP: FoC. What new and exciting things will we see in this new title?

Hi Matt! First of all, thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak about the game. We are very excited about game, and think that everyone else will be too! First off, we have added six new maps to the game. Five of these news maps will be showcased through the newly expanded single player mode called Legend of the Fat Princess. The sixth map was created specifically for one of our new play modes that we have created for our version of the game. In total we have added 4 NEW play modes to the game. These new play modes are integrated into the single player story mode, but can also be played as stand alone play types from the main menu. We added six new music tracks created specifically for each map, in order to stay true to how the PS3 version was made. Lastly, since this game is so multiplayer friendly, we made sure to make this game support both Adhoc play and Infrastructure play.

How did you get all of this extra-good cakey-ness onto the PSP?

Lots of hard work! I’m kidding, good question. For the most part we took what was already there with the PS3 version of the game, and then by hand remodeled and resized all of the existing maps and characters in the game so that they would fit onto the PSP. All the while making sure that the game still looks as close to the PS3 version as possible. We also had to make tweaks to the in-game UI and FX’s to again fit with in the PSP hardware. The additional game modes took a bit of work, but were a lot of fun to add to the game. We had to re-sample the audio, but again this was just necessary in order to fit onto the PSP and to sound as best as possible.

Fat Princess is a great online experience. What is the number of players we can battle, and in what modes: Ad Hoc, Infrastructure?

Adhoc will support up to 8 unique users to be able to connect and play together without having to be signed into a PSN account. Infrastructure will support up to 8 unique users logged into PSN. Both play types will have the ability to have up to 24 characters onscreen during gameplay. We’re very excited about this. We worked really hard to make this happen for the integrity of the game.

I can’t wait until everyone gets their hands on Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake! It’s been a pleasure getting to work on this with you guys. Anything else to add before we sign off?

Working on Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake was a lot fun for us here at SuperVillain. We really enjoyed working on the game, and would definitely like to give credit to Titan Studios for creating such a fun game to work on. I would also like to thank you and Deb Mars, and SCEA Santa Monica Studio for giving us the opportunity to work on such a fun and creative game. We are very excited about the work we’ve done, and think that everyone else will really enjoy it as well.

Thank you, Todd!

Well everyone, there you have it! We’ve got a great game heading your way for the PSP very soon! We’ve had a blast making it, and we are very proud of how it’s all come together. I think you will be thrilled with this game, no matter if you are a fan of Fat Princess on the PS3, or even if you’ve never played Fat Princess before.

See you on the battlefield, and remember: Cake for EVERYONE!!

The patch will be releasing VERY soon, with Japan getting the first patch release on October 23. If all goes well with final testing, you will see the patch in SCEA and SCEE territories on October 30. If there are any delays to the above mentioned dates, we will be sure to update the blog to let you know about it, so stay tuned!

The Q-Games team has been hard at work on the PixelJunk Monsters patch and has packed a TON of great features into this great game. I’ll give you a quick breakdown of some of the new features you will expect to see:

Game Difficulty settings
You can now choose between three different difficulties of gameplay! There is a Casual mode, the Regular/Ranked mode, and Hard-core mode. The great news here is that you can use any combination of difficulties to complete your progress through the islands! Is there one particular map that’s too hard? Try it in Casual mode. If you Rainbow the level, that rainbow counts and will remain on the map no matter what difficulty the other rainbows were achieved at! Only the Regular difficulty will register on the ranking boards, though.

Tower Menu selection
You can now set the default menu to appear when selecting a tower! How many times have you sold off a tower and run over to another tower to quickly upgrade it and accidentally sell it by mistake? I know I’ve done that many, many times. Now you can choose which option appears as the default, instead of the last action you selected.

Tower Balancing
Those of you who have purchased Encore know about the reduced cost on the Ice Tower, and balanced functionality of the Tesla tower. This patch applies those changes to BOTH islands, not just the Encore island.

Video Recording / YouTube Support
Ever since Q-Games included this feature into PixelJunk Eden, we knew it needed to be in Monsters as well. You will be able to record up to 10 minutes of gameplay and upload it directly to your YouTube account, or send it to your video folder on your PS3’s XMB.

XMB Custom Soundtrack Support
You can now make your own custom soundtrack to listen to as you play PixelJunk Monsters and Encore! I’ve personally been enjoying listening to the PixelJunk Eden soundtrack while I play Monsters, as well as listening to the PixelJunk Monsters soundtrack within Eden! It’s great how well those fantastic soundtracks work in other games.

With these features being added, and several other small bugs being fixed in the game, we think you’ll have a great time playing PixelJunk Monsters and Encore all over again.

I think that’s about it … But it feels like I’m missing something … Hmm … I can’t quite put my finger on what I might be forgetting. Wait a minute … I remember now …

TROPHIES
Trophies are now added for both PixelJunk Monsters and Encore. We weren’t able to retroactively apply Trophies to the previously played data, but Q-Games didn’t want to force people to play everything all over again. They came up with a great idea by creating Trophy Challenges. These challenges have specific maps with set rules or objectives that will reward you with Trophies if you complete them properly.

Recently, Jeff Rubenstein got to visit Q-Games in Kyoto (the lucky so-and-so) and shot an interview with Dylan to talk more about the patch for PixelJunk Monsters. Check it out …

What we’ve learned from Part 1: We’re all fans of Lost, fan mail rocks, Dylan’s marriage is fine, Encore hint revealed, coinage of new word “WikiTiki.”

We’re happy to announce that the game will be releasing this Thursday, May 8th for $5.99. And we promised you some juicy new info about the expansion. Well here is what we can tell you: There is a secret landmass located between Tiki & Toki Islands. Suffice it to say you won’t get any of us to dish on this one. But if you clear all stages, well…you’ll find out.

And now back to the interview:

6. (Matt) What was your first “epiphany” gaming moment when you realized this was going to be your career?

(Dylan) When I made a Pac-Man clone on my friend’s ZX-81 (an old 8-bit computer made by an English boffin called Clive Sinclair). I found it fun programming the AI for the little ghosts in BASIC. It was awful AI and took up way too much CPU time, but it started me on my long and winding path to make games for a living. That was about 1982 and I was ten years old.

7. (Matt) What game did you wish you made & why?

(Dylan) Out of existing games by other people? The original Made in Wario/WarioWare. I had an idea that was almost exactly the same which I pitched to Sony Japan in 1998 but it got lost in the rush to make the rubber ducky bath demo on the PS2.

Out of non-existing games? I really want to make a character-based side-action shooting game with platformer elements, but right now our line up for PixelJunk Series 1 is pretty much decided so maybe that will have to wait for Series 2.

8. (Matt) What career would you be in if you weren’t in the games industry?

(Dylan) A novelist, probably sci-fi. I really like Iain Banks stuff. If I failed at doing that I think I would open up a proper fish and chip shop in Kyoto during the day, and a really cool laidback bar in the evening. Maybe those three things should be my retirement plan. I’d also really like to make some kind of tv drama – something really dramatic and dark – for Japanese TV as all their stuff is so light and frilly. They could never do something like Lost or Prison Break…everyone smiles too much.

9. (Matt) If you could play co-op mode on Monsters/Monsters Encore with anyone, who would it be & why?

(Dylan) The Queen of England. Why? Well, it would be a hell of a laugh and I think she’d enjoy it, too. The Kings and Queens of the world don’t get to wage war anymore so we should encourage them to release their stress by playing RTS games. (I am watching another TV series besides Lost called The Tudors and it is really good.)

10. (Matt) Can you honestly, in all truthfulness, really get rainbows on everything?

(Dylan) Me personally…oh yes, definitely. It takes a few tries for a few of them, but I am quite the master. I know how the towers fire and where best to place them for maximum damage. Sometimes you can even time the building of a cannon tower so it pops up just as a big crowd is passing by and fires right into the middle of them inflicting a lot more damage than when if it fired as soon as the crowd hit the radius line. My wife also got all rainbows, by herself, not in cooperative play.

(Matt) Seriously?

(Dylan) Seriously.

…
Still always spreading the PixelJunk love,
-Deb, Matt, Dylan and the whole team at Q-Games