In case this is the first time that you’ve seen the game, it’s time for a bit of background. Okabu is a co-op action-adventure following the adventures of two cloud-whale brothers, Kumulo and Nimbe. They’ve been dispatched from their aerial homelands to investigate the source of a toxic pollution that’s been poisoning their people.

As they reach the surface, they encounter four cloud-flying heroes, each with their own unique powers: from the Harpoon-wielding Captain Monkfish to the animal-charming powers of Picolo. Teaming up, they embark on an epic adventure to free their people and put a stop to the onward march of the industrialized Doza tribe.

Featuring a Platinum trophy, two player couch co-op, four expansive worlds, online leaderboards and four unique minigames, we hope Okabu is going to keep you busy for a LONG time!

If you’d like to find out a little more about the game, you can check out our previous posts on the PlayStation blog to meet the heroes, and find out about the gameplay and four worlds that make up the adventure. This game is also part of October’s Only on PSN program.

Since we started development, a lot of people have commented on how much they love the music of Okabu, created by our very talented partners at Resonate. Liam and the Resonate team have blown us away with what they’ve managed to create, and they’ve made a behind-the-scenes video to give you a bit of background. I’ll let Music Director Liam Paton explain in his own words!

With the release of Okabu almost upon us, we wanted to share a short film that documents our last 12 months working on the soundtrack to the game. It has been such a great project to work on and hopefully the footage captures the fun that we had along the way.

Meeting and working with an amazingly talented group of musicians, learning to play the Kalimba properly and working out how to record six-feet wide Marimbas have been just some of the highlights of the year. It feels like a long time ago since Simon first showed us that early build of Okabu last October and it’s really exciting to know that people will soon be playing the results of everyone’s hard work.

So check out Okabu in the PlayStation Store tomorrow and also part of this month’s “Only on PSN” program – we really hope you enjoy it! We’d love to hear what you think of the game, so come say hello on Twitter and Facebook.

We got a slightly carried away during development, and the game ended up quite a bit bigger than we’d originally imagined. Personally I blame Shane (OKABU’s level designer), who kept on suggesting awesome new ideas that we felt we really couldn’t cut. As a result the four worlds are pretty huge, so big that OKABU features a Platinum Trophy, earned through tracking down all the medals throughout the story campaign, finding the numerous secrets tucked away throughout the world, as well as besting the four minigames.

Following on from last week’s post about the Heroes of OKABU, we really wanted to demonstrate how their different skills fit together, so we’ve got a fresh video below that shows longer sections of gameplay. It also shows how two players can work together when playing in Co-op mode.

In the video above, you can see clips from three of the four different worlds from the game. Each of the environments is totally unique, featuring a whole new set of elements to interact with, from giant magnifying glasses and railways, to charging goats and drivable bulldozers.

Lake Waka
The homeworld of the peaceful Yorubo tribe, bursting with exotic vegetation, inquisitive creatures and tropical shores. Its here that the adventure begins, as the Doza’s destructive march finally reaches the borders of the peaceful Yorubo.

Karibu Valley
Karibu Valley used to be a lush river delta, filled with a huge amount of marine life and surrounded by fertile fields. As the Doza stormed through the valley, they constructed an enormous dam, which stopped the flow of the Karibu river. As a result, the lands in the valley have almost dried up completely.

Noko Woods
Noko woods has been visited very little by the Yorubo since a party of adventurers disappeared there many generations ago. There have been rumours of Doza activity deep in the woods, and some strange creatures have been spotted nearby.

Doza Fortress
The homeworld of the Doza, the Fortress was constructed on a huge island. Filled with giant machinery, smog-belching factories, and a near-bottomless quarry, its here that the enslaved Yorubo are rumoured to have been transported.

There’s only a few more days until release, so not long to wait now! Don’t forget to check out the PlayStation Store on 18th October and try out the free demo on launch day. If you’d like to find out more about Okabu, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

So the big news is that we finally have a release date! OKABU will be hitting PSN on October 18th, and there’ll be a demo available on launch day that’ll let you take our cloud-flying heroes for a test flight. With launch only a couple of weeks away, we wanted to share a few more details about the game, and what you’ll be doing as you guide Kumulo and Nimbe through the four worlds that make up the story campaign.

Since we started development one of our biggest goals has been to pack a ton of gameplay variety in the game, from physics-play and drivable vehicles to the ability to control the creatures that fill the world. These powers come from the cloud-flying heroes in the game, which you can pick up and drop off to swap abilities on the fly.

With our previous trailers we’ve been keen to show off everything that you can do in the game, but I realize that there is a lot to take in such a short amount of video! With launch coming up, we thought it would be good to go into a bit more detail with each hero and give you a taste of what each of them brings to the table. Without further ado, here’s a video showing each of the characters in action:

The four guys you see surfing on the backs of the cloud-whales are Okabu’s cloud-flying heroes: Captain Monkfish, Picolo, Roki and Kat. Each provides a unique set of abilities to the player: need to pull down a drawbridge? Pick up Captain Monkfish and fire his harpoon. Need to charm a bull to smash through a wooden barricade? Pick up Picolo and get charming!

The puzzles and action challenges that make up each level center around the skills of these heroes, and its up to you to work out how best to use them together. If you’re playing single player, you can swap between the two clouds by pressing Triangle (so you can always have two heroes handy). If you’re playing with a friend, each of you can take control of a cloud-whale as you work together to progress through each level.

We can’t wait to get OKABU into your hands, and can’t believe we are so close to launch! Next week we’re going to delve a little more into the puzzles and co-op mode, so join us back here on the PlayStation.Blog, or follow us on Twitter for more details as we get closer to October 18th.

We’re excited to announce a new program called “Only On PSN,” which features brand new games that are exclusively available on PlayStation Network throughout October. Every week starting tomorrow, October 4, you will find new titles, unique to PSN that are part of this program – games that you’ve likely read about here on the PlayStation Blog, or seen during our showing at E3 2011. You may recall our announcement a few months ago about our Pub Fund – a $20 million investment in exclusive PSN titles, and the Only On PlayStation Network program showcases two titles spawning from this investment: Eufloria and Okabu.

We can’t wait for you to get your hands on the Only On PSN games yourselves, so we’re giving you a few special offers throughout the course of the program. First, to sweeten the deal, we’ll be offering PlayStation Plus subscribers a 20% discount on each game during the first week of its availability.

Additionally, users who spend $60 or more out of their PlayStation Network/Sony Entertainment Network wallet through the month of October will get $10 back in November. This includes any of the Only On PSN games, purchases of games, add-ons, movies and TV shows in both the game and video sections of the PlayStation Store, your paid subscriptions for PlayStation Plus or Music Unlimited, movie rentals or purchases through Video Unlimited and any games or virtual items you buy in PlayStation Home.

Be sure to keep an eye on the PlayStation Twitter feed, as we’ll be giving away download codes for each game in the line-up every week. Don’t miss your chance to get this week’s Only On PSN games for free!

Now, let’s check out the games:

October 4:

• Eufloria – An addictive ambient game of space exploration and conquest, plant growth and bio-mechanical evolution. Explore a beautifully realized universe rendered in a style that is unique and compelling. Conquer asteroids in deep space and use their resources to literally grow and nurture semi-organic plants and creatures to do your bidding.
• Rochard – A fun and original space adventure game that features a resourceful hero, ominous villains, rugged machinery, big explosions, even bigger stunts and sharp one-liners. The game tests players’ coordination and wits as they use gravity to their advantage, changing it at will to solve environmental puzzles and advance through each level.

October 11:

• Sideway: New York – Help defeat Spray, a sinister tagger who wants to dominate both Sideway and the real world in this unique sidescroller that offers you the chance to leave your mark on the city.

October 13:

• Sodium Collection – A more than $35 value available for $9.99, this PlayStation Home value pack includes the SodiumOne Pilot’s Jacket, which unlocks the full 50-level tank combat Salt Shooter game, and weapon upgrades for your SodiumOne tank. Also included is a variety of upgrades for Sodium 2: Project Velocity, a high-speed, free-to-play, futuristic multiplayer racing game exclusive to PlayStation Home, and the wildly-popular Blaster’s Paradise personal space, which hosts a tabletop version of Salt Shooter. Buy from the PlayStation Store and play in PlayStation Home.

October 18:

• Okabu – An action-puzzler, where players will guide Kumulo, Nimbe and four cloud-flying heroes as they battle to save their people and their world from the industrialized threat of the Doza. Dive into a hyper-tactile toybox world filled with a huge number of puzzles, playthings, adorable creatures and devious machines spread across an epic co-op campaign.
• RocketBirds: Hardboiled Chicken – Annihilate an evil penguin regime in this cinematic platform adventure game offering full solo and co-op campaigns with stereoscopic 3D support. Destroy enemies with a slew of weapons and illuminate the secrets to his past while uncovering the real enemies of Albatropolis.

October 25:

• inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood – Vampires swarm New Marais, and revered superhero Cole MacGrath has been bitten. To save his soul and city, he has just one night to find and kill the head vampire. Featuring hours of new gameplay, themed environment settings and new characters/enemies, Festival of Blood explores the darker side of the inFAMOUS universe.
• PixelJunk Sidescroller – Q-Games goes old-school with a completely retro side-scrolling shooter that reinvents the genre from the ground up while maintaining that nostalgic feeling. Dodge flurries of alien bullets and strategically upgrade weapons while battling through sweeping stages full of hazardous fluid and endless shooting mayhem.

Also starting tomorrow as part of Only On PSN, we’ll also be offering a selection of rare classic games in the PlayStation Store: God Hand, GrimGrimoire, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, Odin Sphere and Ring of Red.

So head into the PlayStation Store tomorrow afternoon to check out Eufloria and Okabu, and don’t forget: If you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber, be sure to take advantage of the 20% discounts for the new games each week before we move onto the next week of Only On PSN titles. We hope you enjoy the month of October gaming with these exclusive titles on PSN!

Recently, Dylan Jobe detailed LightBox Interactive’s plans for Fantastic Fest 2011, Austin’s independent sci-fi/horror/fantasy film and gaming festival. He also showed off some badass new Starhawk space footage. You should watch it.

Today, we can reveal the full truth: PlayStation will serve as Fantastic Fest’s exclusive videogame company, and we’ll be holding court at The HighBall Club and Lounge. You’re invited! RSVP here. As Dylan mentioned, the LightBox team will be holding Starhawk tournaments on Thursday, September 22nd starting at 5:00pm. Additionally, you’ll be able to go hands-on with some of our hot upcoming PSN indie games like Journey, Okabu, Closure, and Retro/Grade, PlayStation Move titles like Deadmund’s Quest and Everybody Dance and SOE’s Sideway, Rochard, and Payday: The Heist.

Even better, you’ll have the chance to meet the devs, many of whom you’ve seen here on the Blog. Even Q-Games’ resident artist/DJ Baiyon is making the trip from Kyoto to spin PixelJunk 4am for you. There’ll be prizes and tasty beverages, all for the low, low price of FREE.

You in?

The Details

Date: Thursday, September 22nd (RSVP here!)
Time: 5-8pm (capacity is limited, so please arrive a bit early)
Location: The Highball Club and Lounge, 1142 S. Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX (map)

Playable games:

• Journey
• PixelJunk SideScroller
• PixelJunk 4am (formerly PixelJunk Lifelike)
• Okabu
• Eufloria
• Papo & Yo
• Closure
• Retro/Grade
• Sideway: New York
• Payday: The Heist
• Rochard
• Starhawk
• Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest
• EyePet & Friends
• Carnival Island
• LittleBigPlanet 2 PlayStation Move Pack
• Everybody Dance

You must be 18 or older to attend – please bring your ID! If you’re in the Austin area – I’m talking to you, Dallas/Houston/San Antonio gamers! – please join us. We’d be happy to meet you. Now RSVP here!

UPDATE: We’re also holding two free panels for Fantastic Fest:

PlayStation Network Developer Panel: Game creators speak about working in and out of the gaming industry. Panelists include Queasy Games (Sound Shapes), thatgamecompany (Journey, Flower, Flow), and Q-Games (PixelJunk) to name a few. Click here for more details.

Storytelling and Development in Videogames and Film: Feature film writers and writers of the game Starhawk will discuss storytelling and development in videogames and crossing over with film. Click here for more details.

So what does this mean for you as a gamer? It means more unique, fun, innovative, edgy and higher quality game experiences on PSN that you won’t find anywhere else! We are excited for the upcoming PSN exclusive titles that are part of this three-year plan, including Eufloria, Okabu, and Papo & Yo, which recently received several accolades at E3, including Best Puzzle Game by both IGN and GamePro. Under this investment, we’re committed to delivering titles that have innovative gameplay mechanics, vibrant visuals, interesting storylines and an artistic element to interactive entertainment that can only be found on PlayStation Network.

Stay tuned to the PlayStation Blog for more exciting announcements around the PSN exclusive games portfolio soon!

HandCircus is a really small team — there are only five of us at the studio! In addition to myself, we have Mikko and Matt handling art needs, Luke spearheading programming and Shane tackling level design. We’ve also been working with Resonate Music, who have been crafting Okabu’s original, authentic African-inspired soundtrack. Their studio has been filled to the rafters with all manner of exotic instruments like Marimbas, Kalimbas, Vibraphones as well as some extremely talented vocalists. Read on to learn more about how we’re implementing co-op, physics puzzles and minigames to make Okabu our most immersive game yet!

Always-on Co-op

Co-op is at the core of the game. Even single player is a co-op experience because it allows you to swap between Kumulo and Nimbe (and they hero that they may be carrying) at any time. Much of the game revolves around using the different skills of the heroes together – get Monkfish to pull open a door, then Picolo can lure a bull through and get it to take out a dastardly Dozabot. If there’s two of you the game is even more fun, as each of you can take control of Kumulo or Nimbe.

Let’s Get Physical

Physics plays a core part of the game. One of our key aims with Okabu is to give the world a real toybox feel, where all the elements and interactions are super-tactile. We want you to feel that you are really reaching out and touching the world. Toys like Big Loader, Kong Man and Screwball scramble were big influences on members of our team growing up, and capturing the physical magic of those toys has been an objective since we began development. Use of physics has allowed us to create some really fun interactions between all of the machines, vehicles, creatures and characters of Okabu, from a vacuum-powered truck and block-flipping goat to the towering Doza cranes and Bomb-bot cannons.

As well as a sizeable adventure mode, Okabu also features a number of endless minigames that allow you to compete for scores via online leaderboards. Each minigame focuses on a different style of play, with one featuring Captain Monkfish attempting to round up a number of Bushybeasts that have been rampaging around a Yorubo village by luring them with tasty fish. Another sees Picolo charming various goats and bulls to take out marauding Dozabots.

Okabu is Coming Soon!

We’re really excited to be bringing Okabu to PSN this summer, and can’t wait to share more about the game. If you’d like to keep up to date on all things Okabu, you can visit the HandCircus Blog, follow us on Twitter, or drop us an email at hello@handcircus.com.

Hi all! We’re slightly over-excited about the upcoming release of our brand-new PS3 title Okabu. While we’re best known for creating handheld titles (we are the creators of the Rolando series), we’ve found the allure of developing for PlayStation 3 impossible to resist, and so have swapped our touch screens for Dualshocks. For the last two years we have been beavering away creating a brand new world and an all-new adventure, Okabu, that will be coming to exclusively to PSN in the coming months.

Okabu is a co-op action-puzzle-adventure, following the exploits of a two Cloud-whales, Kumulo and Nimbe, as they battle to save their people and their world from the industrialized threat of the Doza clan (a rather unpleasant collection of machinery-obsessed tyrants). The tale of Okabu begins in the ancestral lands of an ancient race of Cloud-Whales – as vast clouds of toxic pollution have risen from the surface, the sky-dwellers have become struck by a great sickness. Two of the remaining healthy Cloud-Whales (the brothers Kumulo and Nimbe) are dispatched by the Cloud-whale elders to the surface to discover (and put a stop to) the source of the pollution.

Meet Kumulo and Nimbe, the Cloud Whales of Okabu

Kumulo and Nimbe do not fight alone! As they explore the surface of the world, they discover the Yorubo: a tribe of people with a deep affinity with nature. They too, have had their lands consumed by pollution and their people have been enslaved: the Yorubo farmers and fishermen have been shackled and imprisoned – forced to work in the factories and mines of the Doza.

The Yorubo have decided that enough is enough – its time to strike back! The best and the bravest of their tribe offer to join the adventure, each bringing their unique skills to the quest. We were a little inspired by the late 70s Japanese TV show “Monkey” (Saiyūki), and the exploits of the Cloud-flying Monkey king – it was a hugely popular tea-time show when I was growing up as a kid in the 80s. We felt that there needed to be more cloud-flying heroes in games, and so it was a natural step to have our Yorubo heroes cruising around on Kumulo and Nimbe’s backs.

Enter the Four Heroes

Each of the heroes brings a totally different style of play to the game. From left to right:

Captain Monkfish: The first cloud-flying hero you meet is the aerodynamic fisherman Captain Monkfish. Using his trusty plunger, Monkfish can harpoon all manner of objects in the environment. Allows a huge amount of interaction with the game world, from yanking open gates and catching fish, to pulling down drawbridges and wrenching exploding fruit from trees.

Picolo: A master of charming, hypnotic rhythms, Picolo can bring to his aid a variety of creatures and friendly Yorubo. Once entranced these creatures can be persuaded to perform all manner of tasks, from operating switches and climbing ropes, to healing trees and making bulls charge and smash though planks of wood.

Roki: Horrified by the actions of his own people, Roki took a stand against the Doza to join the fight, helping Kumulo and the others to clean up the lands and free the Yorubo. He can take control of many Doza machines and vehicles, from bulldozers and turrets, to giant robotic spiders and wrecking balls.

Kat: Teamed up with her flying pet, our Yorubo warrior’s swiftness and combat ability are unsurpassed. Don’t let her pet’s appearance deceive you, this can be one vicious little creature thats more than happy to sink its teeth into a Doza. Her pet can be used to get into narrow areas that Kumulo and friends cannot, as well as neutralizing Doza foe and rewiring Doza circuits.

Check back next week for a closer look at the wide world of Okabu!