If you enjoy being ordered to open seafood, not smile at woodland creatures and punch a bear in the face, you’ll be delighted to hear that Frobisher’s Mega Fun Pack is coming to a PS Vita near you on Tuesday! As if the previous requests Frobisher made weren’t crazy enough, the Mega Fun Pack contains 15 new games involving such ludicrous demands as joining a gurning squad, milking a mammoth and driving to Stephen’s house. Who is Stephen? We’re still not quite sure.

Frobisher hasn’t exhausted all the ways you can use your PS Vita to solve his conundrums, so expect to utilize the system’s unique motion and touch capabilities in even more bizarre ways with the Mega Fun Pack.

In case you haven’t played lately, Frobisher has added some new features for the main game — and our previous Super Fun Pack DLC — too! If you’re used to doing his bidding, you’ll be pleased to know that Frobisher has found some Trophies he no longer wants, and he’s going to make you work for them.

For those of you who like to lurk in the dark playing games, or whip out your PS Vita on a bus, you can disable certain categories of games – games that use the camera or Microphone, for example. You can also submit your top score whenever you like! Lastly, Frobisher wanted to give you a little more insight into his lineage, so he’s set up a gallery where you can – through receipt of Near gifts – view portraits of his bizarre family.

So there you have it. Free goodies for those who already know the world of Frobisher Says! and a whole bunch of new madness, in the form of the Mega Fun Pack, to download for your PlayStation Vita. Look for the Mega Fun Pack on PSN Tuesday!

Frobisher Says! is a collaboration between the independent developer Honeyslug, and the artist and designer Richard Hogg. Frobisher was a strange little man we met a few years back. At first, he seemed to be the imaginary friend of an artist pal of ours, Roger Kelly. But it turns out he’s real! And the next thing we knew we were making a game for him! Frobisher is a rather demanding person — and while not actually cruel, his demands tend toward the mischievous… and you really don’t want to get on the wrong side of him!

So the PlayStation team approached us to ask if we were interested in creating something for PS Vita that would demonstrate its unique features. We’d recently been to a PS Vita demonstration day at their offices, where the hardware was revealed to developers — and found the whole thing quite bewildering! PS Vita has motion controls, front and rear cameras, front and rear touch, a microphone, face detection and Augmented Reality powers, as well as all the traditional controls from a DualShock controller. So many options that thinking about what to do was confusing… until artist and Honeyslug-collaborator Dick Hogg said “let’s make a game that uses everything!” and it went from there.

Working with Frobisher to come up with the games was a lot of fun. Some of them came directly from PS Vita’s capabilities — we love that we’re able to have a game called “Look Away Now” where the game detects that you aren’t looking at the screen before displaying some of the strangest art in the game! Other times we based games based on Frobisher himself: he hates any kind of shellfish, so of course he would make the player “Pry Open My Clams” … and then refuse to eat them. The idea was to have as much variety as possible in the game types, the control mechanics, and the art styles.

One of the most exciting things about Frobisher is how many different artists we worked with, from comic book artists to print designers to medical textbook illustrators. Many of them had never worked on a videogame before, such as Martin O’Neill, an artist who normally creates collages from vintage magazines using a scalpel and glue. The comic book artist Johnny Ryan was great — he was like, “I don’t really get this, but sure, I can draw an otter running through a landscape…and I’m going to give him a liberty Mohawk and set the game in a derelict slum.” So even though he didn’t care about how the game worked, he made a massive contribution to the humor and spirit of Frobisher.

We worked pretty hard on making the games enjoyable for all types of gamers, and we really wanted people to enjoy multiplayer games of Frobisher with their non-gamer friends and family. Since it was released in Europe, we’ve had loads of reports of people having a fantastic time playing Frobisher with very young children or older parents, which makes us very happy!

Download Frobisher Says! for free via PlayStation Store on PS Vita today.

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No big-name guests this week, I’m afraid. But we make up for it with lots of geeky game talk focusing on our experiences with great new releases XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored, and The Walking Dead: Episode 4. We even delve into some recent favorites from the silver screen (Looper!) and a few from the small screen (The Walking Dead season three!).

Of course, we also discuss next week’s jam-packed North American PSN lineup, which includes five PS Vita games (including the highly amusing Frobisher Says!) and some new PS3 full game downloads, including Day 1 Digital title Medal of Honor Warfighter. And we answer four new Listener Queries just to keep things lively, several of which deal with PSN’s October sale that gives you $20 in credit for spending $100 on PSN (which applies to games, content from the Video Store, Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited, even NFL DIRECTV).

Stuff We Talked About

Frobisher Says!

Dead or Alive 5

Dishonored

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

The Walking Dead: Episode 4 – Around Every Corner

Day 1 Digital

PSN’s October sale: Spend $100, get $20 back

The Walking Dead season 3

 

The Cast

• Sid Shuman – PlayStation Social Media Manager
• Jeff Rubenstein – PlayStation Sr. Social Media Manager
• Nick Suttner – PlayStation Sr. Product Evaluator
• Rey Gutierrez – PlayStation “Creator of Awesome”

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

• Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. Special thanks to Astro Gaming headsets for providing audio gear.

As we continue to create more exciting applications and services for you to enjoy on your PS Vita, we‘re looking forward to introducing you to an interactive game we’ve crafted with you in mind – Frobisher Says!. This quirky party game, available exclusively on PS Vita, will make its debut on October 23rd.

Obey the rowdy and childish demands of a peculiar little man named Frobisher. You may find yourself poking otters with sticks, delivering puddings, drawing on eggs or smiling at ladies. With Frobisher, anything is possible.

The application is composed of more than 50 fast-paced minigames, each unique in style and designed specifically to change alongside the art as the games move along. Frobisher Says! is intended for you to use the full range of features the PS Vita has to offer, such as front and rear touchscreen, six axis motion sensor to manipulate the game’s environment, and the front and rear cameras to create augmented reality.

Up to eight players can play these crazily entertaining games in addition to the single-player mode. Be sure to check out Frobisher Says! when it becomes available as a free download on the PlayStation Store next Tuesday, October 23th.