Velocity on minis was critically celebrated (lots of 9/10 review scores), but many people suggested improvements to the game to make it a ‘must buy’.

So we began scouring the internet for every Velocity write up we could find; professional and hobbyist, as well as YouTube comments and forum threads around the world. We took all the feedback into account, and addressed all of the major requests (as well as some of the minor).

Many people thought Velocity was a bargain on minis because of the sheer amount of content we managed to squeeze into it, but Velocity Ultra goes a step further by including Trophies (yes, there’s a Platinum!).

Velocity Ultra features global and friend online leaderboards, as well as something called the Elite Lounge, which is a bit like an exclusive club for awesome players. To find out more about the Elite Lounge, check this link.

We’ve given the entire game a native graphics facelift with a more contemporary art style. We were so happy with the new art we put nice pictures up on our studio wall.

Two highly requested features for the PS Vita version that, to be perfectly honest, don’t really work very well in our opinion, but you wanted them, so we put them in so you can make up your own mind: touch to teleport, and bombs on the right analog stick. We also took this opportunity to give Velocity Ultra as much user experience attention as possible, so the UI is redesigned giving you more options for navigating in menus (for example, you can now select a different zone on the level complete screen) and we’ve smoothed off all the rough edges. The most important refinement for me was getting the music to fade out before a new track begins!

Overall, Velocity Ultra is prettier, more polished and properly integrated into the PlayStation ecosystem, which makes it ultimately better than the original release. Hopefully now we won’t have to worry about Robin. ;)

Hello again! It feels great to be back on PS.Blog — especially now that we’re able to reveal a project that so many people have asked for: a native PS Vita version of our multiple award-winning PS minis game Velocity!

It’s called Velocity Ultra, and it features Trophies, online high scores and a completely overhauled visual style at native PS Vita resolution. We’re reworking all the art in the game, so the cut scene stills have been recreated at a much higher standard than before.

We’re also unifying the art style throughout the game by ditching pixel art in favor of the edgy cartoon style.

The dinky (and rather pathetic) Quarp Jet now looks less dinky (and rather bad-ass)…

We’re also adding lots of visual effects. Here’s what Velocity Ultra looks like at the moment. Note that the graphics look considerably cleaner when running live on PS Vita’s screen.

The dark shading at each side of the screen focuses the action whilst explosions illuminate the environment to create a more dramatic experience. The PS Vita is a lot more powerful than the PSP, so we’re able to add these lighting effects whilst still running at a solid 60FPS – just like the original!

You can think of Velocity Ultra as the director’s cut; everything we would have done the first time around if we’d had the budget. Our goal now is to create a perfectly formed piece of interactive art that will do your shiny PS Vita justice!

We don’t have a solid release date yet, but we’re on track to submit to Sony at the beginning of April, so we are guesstimating a release date in May. We are extremely excited!

We know that some of you might be a little disappointed, because you were expecting to see a sequel, not an HD rework. Well, don’t be too sad…

Velocity Ultra is a way for us to establish the Velocity franchise for a wider audience, and we’ve got plenty more Velocity in the works.

In fact, we’ve just published a Velocity Sequel Questionnaire to find out what you want to see in a sequel. If you fill it out, you could win a copy of Velocity Ultra!

If you’d like more information more frequently, just subscribe to our website and you’ll never miss an update! We hope you like the look of Velocity Ultra, and we can’t wait to put it in your hands!

Hello! My name is Jack Lang, Junior Programmer at FuturLab. I’m responsible for the programming on our new game, Surge, and I’m here today to talk briefly about how the PlayStation Mobile SDK has made the process of developing our game for PS Vita really easy!

I started out as a Flash developer because I wanted to make games. This experience, along with some prior knowledge of C#, meant that I was able to use the PSM cross-platform SDK to focus on the game rather than the specifics of each platform it supports.

As you can see from the trailer above, Surge uses nice visual effects, and thanks to PSM I was able to pick and choose between high and low level programming libraries, making it possible to get visual features like the ‘awesomizer’ line style, particles and the attractive color blurring glow effects running efficiently and in a short space of time.

I’d recommend learning the PlayStation Mobile SDK if any readers want to get started making games, so if you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them; don’t be shy! Surge is out tomorrow for all PlayStation Certified devices, including PS Vita. For more info, check out FuturLab’s website.

Need more information on PlayStation Mobile? Want to know more about supported tablets and phones? Head here.

Hello folks! Earlier this year we were shouting about shouting about Velocity, and now we’ve got some new things to be excited about. We’ve been hard at work coming up with more simple, elegant and clever ideas, and crafting them into fun and addictive games.

The first of these games is called Beats Slider, and it’s called that because you slide beats around. It’s simple, rather elegant, and pretty clever too…

Beats Slider – Conquer Those Blasted Slider Puzzles!

Each block of the sliding puzzle represents MIDI data, which is basically musical notation that computers can read. MIDI data can be used to play back any instrument, synthesizer, drum loop or whatever you throw at it, just by changing the instruments or samples that are triggered by it.

So what we’ve done is allow the player to push a drum loop MIDI pattern into a synthesizer slot, or a melody pattern into a bass line track, and every combination you could think of within the limits of each level. It was quite the brain teaser to write music that can be rearranged in this way whilst still sounding good, but we managed it.

What we’re also doing is teaching people how to solve those blasted slider puzzles. Some people are just able to solve them, but people like you (and me) are often left frowning with frustration. No more. If you play Beats Slider, you will learn how to solve every slider puzzle that will ever be made, whilst also listening to catchy music like this.

Fuel Tiracas – Twitch-On-Touch Done Properly

Hot on the heels of Beats Slider is Fuel Tiracas, which is our attempt at bringing hardcore twitch gaming to touch-based mobile devices!

As with all our games, Fuel Tiracas is simple, elegant and a little bit clever, and it takes everything we’ve learned about addictive mechanics from Coconut Dodge and Velocity, and boils them down to their absolute core essence, building the simplest game possible that adequately challenges the following faculties:

• Use manual dexterity to create fast paced action
• Use memory to take ownership of repeated patterns
• Make fast decisions in response to random events
• Look really cool doing all of the above competently

These are the things that make Coconut Dodge and Velocity fun and addictive, and it’s these things that we have literally put right at the player’s fingertips – in their purest form – in Fuel Tiracas.

The game takes place on Planet Tiracas, which currently has no atmosphere, and it’s the player’s job to use Tiracas’ natural resources as Fuel to power giant atmosphere processors!

Fusing together ‘Whack-A-Mole’, ‘Spinning Plates’ and ‘Simon Says’ gameplay, the player must quickly collect fuel (in the form of colored circles) as it appears in one of the six fuel pods to raise the fuel level in a selected fuel gauge, making sure to balance each gauge within its threshold for long enough to generate 100% power to the atmosphere processor. This would all be really easy if the fuel didn’t slowly deplete over time, and that’s the kicker…

It’s simple, fast-paced action with a resource/time management slant, and it’s addictive as hell because, as with Coconut Dodge, the combination of random and predictable elements gives the player the opportunity to memorize and master the patterns that appear, whilst being kept on their toes by random events, leading to Bishop-level exhibitions of skill and speed; and people looking and feeling cool while playing.

Fuel Tiracas has 12 levels that slowly introduce players to the various Fuel Types included in the game, and the real value is in the huge amount of replayability as players learn the patterns and improve their best times, competing for the top spot on global high scores!

And… it costs $0.49.

A PlayStation Vita game for 49 cents.

Hello PlayStation Mobile!

Need more information on PlayStation Mobile? Want to know more about supported tablets and phones? Head here.

Here at FuturLab we don’t think it is good enough to churn out cloned games. We wanted to do justice to the nostalgia of early games in the shoot ‘em-up genre, so that people can pick up Velocity and feel right at home, but also feel the excitement of playing something completely new!

After many months prototyping, we knew we had something special with Velocity – the teleporting mechanics had never been done before – so we wanted a big sound to complement the gameplay experience.

We are therefore incredibly excited that Joris de Man, the award winning composer that wrote and produced the music for Killzone 2 & 3, has co-written and co-produced the music for Velocity!

So it sounds incredible and is a genuine, high quality homage to the classic games us older folk remember fondly ;) Check out the trailer below:

Velocity is a portable-friendly shooter that is packed full of innovative ideas, designs, sounds and gameplay – and it’s really addictive!

We wanted to use the minis platform to do something nobody had seen before, so we really hope you enjoy playing on your PSP, PS Vita and PS3!**

Velocity is due for release in March in Europe and the US, and will be FREE to download for PlayStation Plus subscribers!

If you want to find out more about the game, check out the screenshots, or stay in touch with me and the rest of the team, here’s a bunch of useful links:

• Official Velocity Website – Info on the game, and screenshots!
• Velocity on Facebook – Come and ‘Like’ Velocity!
• FuturLab Website/Blog – Stay in touch through our website and blog!
• FuturLab on Facebook – Come and ‘Like’ us too!
• FuturLab on Twitter – Follow us for the latest info

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*Some of you may be wondering what happened to the pilot’s name, as we asked people to name her too. Unfortunately we didn’t receive any suggestions that did it for us, so we named her ourselves: Kai Tana J

**If you like what we’ve done with Velocity, please show your support. There’s a powerful, shiny new handheld on the scene now, and we’d love to give Velocity the HD treatment! With your support we can do it! :)

Hello folks! James here from FuturLab, creators of the hit PlayStation minis game Coconut Dodge! Our newest game is quite different than Coconut Dodge, but there are some strong similarities:

1. A tried-and-tested game mechanic with a new twist
2. Extremely addictive gameplay
3. Quality throughout and value for money

These things have made Coconut Dodge one of the best scoring minis games so far. We learned a whole bunch of tricks making Coconut Dodge, and we’re applying the same level of care and attention to gameplay addictiveness on this project!

If that sounds good to you, read on! :-)

September 7th, 2210

Vilio — the beating heart of the Toron nebula — exploded last September, becoming an ominous red giant in the process. Luckily, and somewhat miraculously, no one was hurt, though a galaxy wide electromagnetic pulse shuddered through our fleets, nullifying mining ships and colony vessels as well as our Special Forces fighters. Power and communication ceased instantly; those ships now survive on fossil fuels, remote and helpless. A rescue mission was launched in October; those craft are now expected to reach Toron in approximately ten months time. This much you know.

However, close monitoring has revealed that Villo has begun to collapse in on itself, the spectral red light bending inwards to form the beginnings of a black hole. The speed of collapse is debatable, but at best we expect Vilio to be a full-blown black hole within a matter of months.

As we expected, our director of operations was invited this morning to brief the government on the current state of our Quarp Drive project. It was concluded that all resources necessary for the completion of our testing period should be redirected as appropriate; their intention being to use our prototype Quarp Jet as the basis for an immediate rescue mission.

Being the lead test pilot, you are the obvious choice to take the lead on this mission. Since we only have one prototype craft, you’ll have to go it alone, and we’ll provide support as soon as possible.

I would like to end the brief there, but unfortunately the situation has become even more complicated. Our warring neighbours have seen potential reward from our misfortune, and have deployed a fleet of ships to prey upon our helpless drifters for precious minerals and our coveted technologies.

You’ll begin your mission in the relatively safe zone of the Toron outer rim. Once there you will locate and rescue any drifters you find, protecting them from scavenger attacks. Good luck.

What you see above is some concept artwork and the back story for a vertical scrolling space shoot ‘em up!

The game is in development now, and features a unique teleport mechanic, allowing you to teleport around the screen and throughout a level in order to evade enemy attacks and solve action based logic puzzles!

Exciting huh? However, you may have noticed that we don’t have a name for the game yet, and that’s where you come in!

We’d like you to give the game a title, and suggest a name for the test pilot lead character!

To help you get in the mood, you can play the game’s theme tune — Teleport Rescue — and some tasty wallpaper artwork to share in the vision we have for the game. People who make suggestions that are shortlisted will be credited in the game, and will each win a copy of the game when it is released!

The lucky people whose suggestions we actually use for the game will also win a copy of the game, and a bunch of other goodies so awesome we haven’t even thought of them yet!

So head on over to http://www.futurlab.co.uk/nameourgame/ to take part, find out more about the game, and have a look around to see if there’s any other cool stuff you can find ;)