This game has a long story: the original game was released back in 2004 on PC by Spain-based Felix Casablancas and Nurium Games, and was the best breakout-style game at its time featuring something very unique for the genre – fully interactive physics. We were one of the biggest fans of the game and when Sony approached with introduction of PlayStation Minis; we decided to bring this game to minis in 2010, which was quite successful.

A year after the PSP minis release, we thought about its sequel with the twist – at that time we had a feedback from the PSP version players, so we decided to improve the gameplay and design: we took best game and design elements of original game and rebuild it from scratch, incorporating our vision and our inspiration from the original BreakQuest. As a result, we have created a great game full of immersion and style, which really gives a new experience to players.

One of the most valuable features of original BreakQuest was 100 unique levels, each featuring its own interactive physics design and layout, art and sound theme, so we redesigned all of them preserving their original mechanics following our lead artist’s vision. Actually, it’s got 101 levels; we have a secret one, try to find it!

Moreover, we decided to create 10 boss levels, each is unique mini-game: bosses attack your shuttle with a weapon which makes your shuttle unresponsive, reverses the controls or kills the bumper for a short amount of time, so you have to destroy bosses with strategy. The brute force method is almost possible.

BreakQuest: Extra Evolution’s new Energy Shield mechanics help to keep balls flying if you use it wisely. Once a ball launched, the charging lines grows from the left and right sides until they meet each other in the middle. When the shield is fully charged, you can activate it via L or R buttons (for each side respectively).

Gravitor, another unique element of BreakQuest, attracts the ball to the shuttle’s bumper. We made it unlimited to use, not dependent on expendable energy as it was in original game.

Each boss unlocks a new shuttle which can be selected from Options menu, up to 10 shuttles in all. Every new shuttle comes with activated power-up: gun, sticky bumper, rockets, multi-ball, etc. to help you finish the levels faster and score more points.

And last but not the least, the game features 33 new absolutely amazing music tracks from created by the SandS Band, whose soundtrack will be released shortly. We hope you’ll love the new evolution of the BreakQuest as we do. Find more information on http://beatshapers.com/breakquestee and at twitter.com/Beatshapers

Hi everyone! Gaming is the bread and butter of PS Vita, with titles such as Resistance: Burning Skies, Sound Shapes and Gravity Rush launching soon.

Starting today, you’ll have even more reason to never stop playing. We’re very excited to announce the following PSP titles and minis will be available on the PS Vita Store, with many more coming soon. These aren’t just the same games you might have played at one time in the past! Check out the full list below, and we’ll keep you posted as further titles are brought to PS Store.

Available Today

PSP Titles:
Cho Aniki Zero (Aksys Games Localization, Inc.)
Strikers 1945 Plus (PM Studios, Inc.)
Tom Clancy’S Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (UbiSoft, Inc.)
Tom Clancy’S Rainbow Six: Vegas (UbiSoft, Inc.)
Valhalla Knights 2: Battle Stance (XSEED JKS, Inc.)
Ys: I & II Chronicles Digital (XSEED JKS, Inc.)

PSP minis:
Aero Racer (Halfbrick Studios)
Age Of Zombies (Halfbrick Studios)
Blast Off (Halfbrick Studios)
Dynogems (StormBasic)
Echoes (Halfbrick Studios)
Me Monstar: Hear Me Roar (Cohort Studios)
Vempire (Impressionware Srl)

Coming Soon

PSP Titles:
3D Twist & Match (Sanuk Games)
Aedis Eclipse: Generation Of Chaos Legacy (NIS America, Inc.)
Bejeweled 2 (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
Beta Bloc (D3 Publisher of America)
Brain Challenge (Gameloft)
Dead Head Fred (D3 Publisher of America)
Field Commander (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
Gods Eater Burst (D3 Publisher of America)
Groovin’ Blocks (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
King Of Pool (Nordcurrent UAB)
Luxor: Pharaoh’S Challenge Umd Legacy (Mumbo Jumbo)
Major League Baseball 2K10 (2KGames)
Mercury Meltdown (Ignition Entertainment)
Mx Vs Atv Untamed (THQ, Inc.)
Peggle (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
Prehistoric Isle (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords (D3 Publisher of America)
Reel Fishing: The Great Outdoors Legacy (Natsume, Inc.)
Split Second (Disney Interactive Studios)
Super Pocket Tennis (D3 Publisher of America)
The Red Star (XS Games, LLC)
Unbound Saga (Vogster Entertainment, LLC)
Undead Knights Digital (Tecmo Koei America Corporation)
Uno (Gameloft)
Untold Legends: Brotherhood Of The Blade (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
Untold Legends: The Warrior’S Code French (Sony Online Entertainment LLC)
Work Time Fun (D3 Publisher of America)
WWE All Stars (THQ, Inc.)
WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 (THQ, Inc.)

PSP minis:
5 In 1 Solitaire (Digital Leisure)
Alien Zombie Death (PomPom Games)
Arcade Air Hockey & Bowling (Icon Games)
Babel: The King Of The Blocks (StormBasic)
Bashi Blocks (Icon Games)
Bermuda Triangle (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Breakquest (Beatshapers)
Bubble Trubble (Creat Studios)
Card Shark (Laughing Jackal Ltd)
Carnivores: Ice Age (Beatshapers)
Cohort Chess (Cohort Studios)
Doodle Fit (Gamelion)
Doodle Pool (Big Head Games)
Duael Invaders (Laughing Jackal Ltd)
Enigmo (Beatshapers)
Family Games (Icon Games)
Farm Frenzy (Alawar Entertainment, Inc.)
Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain (Laughing Jackal Ltd)
Fly Fu (Invictus Games LTD.)
Galcon Labs (Beatshapers)
Gamocracy One : Legend Of Robot (AYEWARE / Bearded Ladies Consulting)
Gold Medalist (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Guerrilla War (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Hal 21 (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Hero Of Sparta (Gameloft)
Hysteria Project 2 (Sanuk Games)
Ikari Warriors (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Ikari Warriors Ii: Victory Road (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Jelly Pops (PomPom Games)
Karimogi (StormBasic)
Labyrinth (Bigben Interactive, S.A.)
Let’S Golf (Gameloft)
Marvin’S Maze (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Mecho Wars (Creat Studios)
Omg-Z! (Laughing Jackal Ltd)
One Epic Game (Grip Digital)
Ozma Wars (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
P.O.W. – Prisoners Of War (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Pipe Madness (AYEWARE / Bearded Ladies Consulting)
Pix N Love Rush (Sanuk Games)
Psycho Soldier (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Red Bull X-Fighters (Xendex)
Rumble Trucks (Playerthree Ltd)
Street Smart (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
The 2D Adventures Of Rotating Octopus Character (Dakko Dakko Ltd.)
The Impossible Game (Grip Digital)
The Marbians (Nordisk Film Distribution A/S)
Twin Blades (Sanuk Games)
Vanguard Ii (SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION)
Wackylands Boss (Creat Studios)
Yetisports (Xendex)
Zombie Racers (Big Head Games)

It’s been almost three months since we launched PS Vita here in the U.S. and we’re continuing to find ways to add to your portable entertainment experience. With the recent launch of non-gaming apps such as Skype and Paint Park, and upcoming apps such as Treasure Park and Wake Up Club, all available for free, the PS Vita is an ever-evolving platform that keeps you connected to the content and experiences that are most important to all of you gamers.

What PSP games are you most excited to play on PS Vita?

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

–
*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! :)

I am happy to announce that Namco Bandai Games is releasing PAC-MAN Championship Edition for PSN tomorrow! You will be able to find it in the PlayStation mini section of the PSP system’s PlayStation Store for $4.99.

We are excited to bring this title to the PlayStation family as it has certainly made an impression on the gaming community over the past few years. For everyone who downloaded last year’s PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX for PS3 and was blown away by the changes made to the fantastic PAC-MAN formula, PAC-MAN Championship Edition will educate you on where some of those changes sprang from.

PAC-MAN Championship Edition was originally designed for 2007’s PAC-MAN World Championship in New York as a special commemoration of PAC-MAN’s 27th Anniversary. The title was also the last game PAC-MAN’s creator, Toru Iwatani, designed before his retirement from the video game industry. In his final sendoff to his original creation, Iwatani-san and the PAC-MAN Championship Edition development team were able to take everything that made PAC-MAN what we know and love for three decades, and refine it into a game with enough nostalgia for gamers who have grown up with PAC-MAN, along with modern gameplay enhancements to make it fresh and new for a younger generation. In the end, they succeeded with flying colors, creating the benchmark of how classic arcade remakes should be done.

PAC-MAN Championship Edition plays similar to the original PAC-MAN arcade game. You’ll find Pac-Dots, Power Pellets and four ghosts spread across a variety of mazes. The major additions to the PAC-MAN franchise introduced in Championship Edition are time limits, Pac-Dot multipliers and dynamically shifting mazes. The timer is easy enough to understand. Get the highest score you can within a certain time limit. Easy! Points are earned by eating ghosts and Pac-Dots. The more dots you eat, the more points they are worth. If PAC-MAN loses a life the number of points per Pac-Dot is reset. The real magic is when the maze rearranges itself to repopulate itself with more Pac-Dots. When PAC-MAN consumes all the Pac-Dots across one half of a maze, an item appears on the opposite side of the maze. When PAC-MAN eats that item the side of the maze without Pac-Dots seamlessly reorganizes itself into a new configuration with more Pac-Dots and Power Pellets to chomp.

For those of you whose first experience with PAC-MAN Championship Edition series was Championship Edition DX, say goodbye to your ghost trains, bombs and slowdown. This is a relatively more traditional take on PAC-MAN and the only thing that will save you this time around when you’re stuck between a ghost and a hard place is going to be razor sharp reflexes.

We hope everyone enjoys the game!

Hello again PlayStation.Blog universe! Since we last stopped by to exclusively reveal the new trailer for Young Thor here back in August, we’ve been hard at work on the next game for all you Sony fans out there. We’re happy to report that it’s nearly complete and most certainly continues our tradition of delivering some of the highest quality and rewarding experiences available on the platform. So, what’s next in 2010 from Frima, the studio that brought you Zombie Tycoon, Widgets Odyssey I and II and Young Thor? The answer lies in the cosmos with A Space Shooter for Two Bucks!

With what we feel may be the most appropriate and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) titles in gaming history, A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! is what the Frima Studio team has been working on for the last portion of 2010 and is one of the most exciting minis we’ve ever seen. For the ridiculously low price point of – yep, you guess it, $1.99 – it’s also one of the most value-rich shooters ever. And as a bonus, A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! is quite historic – when it launches on Tuesday, December 21, it will also be available absolutely FREE to all PlayStation Plus subscribers, marking the first time a game has launched to the general PSN public and also made free for Plus users on the same date!

About the game itself…well, hopefully you can guess what kind of game it is from the title. :P

We’re a big fan of the classic space shooting genre here at Frima Studio, and it’s been a real thrill to create one ourselves and being able to add everything we love about space shooters and omit everything we don’t. A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! features everything you’d expect: swarms of enemies filling the screens with hazardous bullets and missiles, heaps of upgrades for your ship and its arsenal, high-paced and constant action requiring deft reflexes, and hordes of alien baddies just waiting to be blown up by your superior space-faring skills.

A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! also contains some truly colorful characters that you’ll get to meet during gameplay and cutscenes. You’ll wipe the galaxy clean of nefarious extra-terrestrials by taking control of Commander P. Jefferson, a truly patriotic earthling who has vowed from an early age to keep the human race number one in the universe, where it belongs! His xenophobic quest is assisted by Edgar, his ship’s somewhat persnickety artificial intelligence (AI) that guides Jefferson to various galaxies and provides helpful information, but always with plenty of snobby sarcasm piled on his replies.

We’re also proud to report that A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! features a complete soundtrack of full voiceovers for Jefferson, Edgar and all the rest of the characters you’ll encounter throughout your journey, both good and evil. We’re excited to have a team with the technical expertise and experience with this platform to be able to squeeze full voiceover into a game that looks and plays fantastically and will give you hours of intergalactic enjoyment in a package under 100MB.

Again, A Space Shooter for Two Bucks! launches on Tuesday, December 21 for $1.99, so keep an eye out and stay tuned to the PlayStation.Blog for more information and assets. Happy alien hunting cadets!

Headlining the Thanksgiving sale is highly acclaimed PlayStation exclusives, Joe Danger and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Joe Danger, developed by the four-man studio Hello Games, released earlier this summer and is what IGN calls “one of the most polished, full-featured, and downright fun games available on the PS3.” Peace Walker brought the award-winning Kojima series to the PSP and had Joystiq calling it the “best game on Sony’s handheld.” These two games are only the start of the Thanksgiving sale, so be sure to check the other PS3, PSP, and minis titles while they’re on sale beginning tomorrow!

As we said, the below limited-time offers are good through Monday, November 29 for U.S., Canada and Mexico storefronts and open to all PlayStation Network users in these regions.

PS3
PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap – $3.49 sale price; $6.99 regular price
Top Gun – $7.49 sale price; $14.99 regular price
Gundemonium Collection – $7.49 sale price; $14.99 regular price
DeathSpank – $7.49 sale price; $14.99 regular price
Joe Danger – $7.49 sale price; $14.99 regular price

PSP
Groovin’ Blocks – $4.99 sale price; $9.99 regular price
Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake – $9.99 sale price; $19.99 regular price
Dissidia Final Fantasy – $9.99 sale price; $19.99 regular price
Dante’s Inferno – $19.99 sale price; $39.99 regular price
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker – $19.99 sale price; $39.99 regular price

Minis
Young Thor – $2.49 sale price; $4.99 regular price
Fieldrunners – $3.49 sale price; $6.99 regular price
Hero of Sparta – $2.49 sale price; $4.99 regular price
Alien Zombie Death – $1.99 sale price; $3.99 regular price
Monopoly – $2.49 sale price; $4.99 regular price

Hi everyone,

At the end of November, Housemarque, the developers of Super Stardust HD (the first game to ever feature trophies), returns to the PlayStation Network with the widely-anticipated title, Dead Nation. PlayStation Plus subscribers can take it to the zombie apocalypse for 20% off. Also, for our trophy hunters out there, Dead Nation has a platinum trophy, so be sure to pick it up while it’s on sale!

Looking for something to keep your mind off of the zombie apocalypse? PlayStation Plus subscribers will also receive discounts on two huge PlayStation franchises: Tomb Raider and Twisted Metal. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation takes Lara Croft to Egypt in the continuation of her adventures on the PSone. Twisted Metal 2 comes from the mind of David Jaffe and takes gamers deeper into the destruction of Calypso’s Twisted Metal tournament. Along with these classics, we are discounting two new import titles, Blockids and Dezaemon Plus, and offering a free download of Vector TD, a tower defense from the minis collection.

As always, here’s a friendly reminder to pick up the content that will be removed from PlayStation Plus, including free downloads of Breakquest, Dead Nation Dynamic Theme, and a discount on Tomb Raider 2. Also God of War fans, be sure to pick up the PlayStation Plus exclusive skin bundles of God of War I and God of War II before they are removed from the PlayStation Store.

Also, another quick reminder that we published new PlayStation Plus content in yesterday’s PlayStation Store update. Visit the store for free downloads of Shatter, Oddworld’s: Abe Exoddus, and DYNOGEMS – minis.

Finally, our introductory offer is still available. For a limited time, subscribers of a full year of PlayStation Plus will receive three months for free.

PlayStation Plus Highlights for 11/30:

Free Games
Vector TD – minis (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers, regular price $3.99)

Discounted Games
Dead Nation (20% off) (PlayStation Plus price $11.99, regular price $14.99)
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (50% off) (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)
Twisted Metal 2 (50% off) (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)
Blockids – PSone Import (50% off) (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)
Dezaemon Plus – Psone Import (50% off) (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)

Free Themes
Smoke and Mist (Free and exclusive to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
PlayStation 15th Anniversary Dynamic Theme

Last Chance, Get Them While You Can – Coming down on November 30:

Free Offers to PlayStation Plus Subscribers
BreakQuest – minis
God of War III – Dominus Skin
Dead Nation Dynamic Theme
Shadowy Graves

Discount Offers to PlayStation Plus Subscribers
Tomb Raider II (50% off) (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)
Crazy Taxi (20% off) (PlayStation Plus price $7.99, regular price $9.99)

Exclusive Offers to PlayStation Plus Subscribers
Free Kratos: Phantom of Chaos Skin with the purchase of God of War I
Free Kratos: Forgotten Warrior Skin with the purchase of God of War II

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 ;)

In Angry Birds, players take control of a flock of different birds as they attempt to retrieve their precious eggs from a fiendish group of thieving pigs. The pigs have taken refuge within levels containing structures made up of materials such as wood, glass and stone. There are over 100 levels to play through! The object of the game is to catapult the birds into the pigs and their protective barriers, in order to eliminate the pigs and rescue the eggs.

Each level gives the player a certain number of birds to catapult at the pigs using a giant slingshot. There are six different types of bird, each with its own appearance, weight, sound effects and special abilities such as exploding or splitting into three mini-birds for maximum impact! If the birds hit the pigs or knock a piece of material onto a pig, the pig may explode into thin air and disappear.

When all of the pigs are defeated without the player running out of birds to catapult, the level is complete and a new level is unlocked! Players may re-attempt levels as many times as they wish, and may also replay completed levels to score more points and achieve more reward stars.

Angry Birds for minis features all of the content that has made it a record-breaking addictive success! Controls are instinctive, meaning that anyone can play the game straight away, while visuals are optimized for the PSPgo to ensure the overall experience is the best it can be on the platform.

This is going to be a hit release when it launches soon! For more information on Angry Birds you can visit Chillingo.com now!

Last week’s launch of Young Thor has been a tremendous occasion for our studio, and finally launching one of the biggest mini titles to date has brought up a lot of warm praise and even some questions from the fans. In short, I’d love to take this opportunity to tell you how this project came about, and fill you in on our unique approach to minis.

Nearly three years ago, an idea came to us for a project surrounding a fresh take on Norse mythology. We wanted to make something that we’d enjoy as hardcore gamers, but also something for all ages that our families could dive into at the same time. While we weren’t exactly sure where we would decide to take the game, our imaginations ran wild before we got into the actual game design itself. We created our own animated short for Young Thor that helped us wrap our heads around what we wanted to do. Once finished, we all knew that we still wanted to tell this story in game form, but we wanted to do so in the same vein as an animated short.

At the time, there just wasn’t really a platform for that.

We DID know that we loved the PlayStation platform, but we didn’t want to stretch things into a full-on retail game, nor did we want to go as big as a downloadable PSN game. We needed a format that could help us encapsulate the essence of a short animated film, yet retain the feel of the all-out epic adventure we wanted to enjoy. By 2009, we knew that Sony had exactly what we were looking for when the PlayStation minis were first announced.

This is what lead us to the launch of our first mini, Zombie Tycoon, a ghoulish take on the RTS genre that was designed to be played in as short or as long of bursts as needed. Once we wrapped on that project, we finally had time to go back to the drawing board on Young Thor. Not only did this mean a total redesign of the characters and the logo, this also meant we were faced with the challenge of creating not necessarily a ‘full-length’ action epic, but a ‘mini-length’ action epic. A game that would fit the tone for what minis are all about, yet still retain all of the same production value as a full-blown retail game.

I’d say that overall, this was definitely the most challenging piece of new territory for us, rethinking a lot of how we knew games could be presented and trying something fresh. In our story, we wanted Young Thor to travel through rich and vibrant environments, but we also only wanted to focus in on four of the Norse realms where we would follow him on his journey. This meant that we would give the player an epic experience, bashing their way through all four worlds, upgrading experience and finding rare items – but this also meant keeping the experience brief, or ‘mini’, as you will. This was an idea we fell in love with, but also wanted to see if we could flesh things out for the hardcore players like us. With this notion, we gave players the option to re-explore those same levels with a completely different set of enemies and challenges, also giving 50 different achievements to complete. This was precisely our goal: a short, epic story for everyone with plenty extra packed in for the hardcore gamers like us.

This is why we love the minis so much. We have the ability to create something for everyone, tell our stories, hook players in just long enough to finish, and then give them even more gameplay on top of it. We encourage players to check out all of our minis, and not to miss Widgets Odyssey II which launched this week and which echoes many of our same approaches we had with Young Thor. I also want to thank everyone again for supporting Frima, and we look forward to continuing our delivery of quality games on minis that come from big ideas.