Coming to PSN this Week: Inferno Pool

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It’s been five months since the exclusive launch of Inferno Pool on the European PSN Store, and after a bombardment of emails asking when it was going to hit North America we can finally say, Thursday!

Just before the European PSN Store launch, there was a nervous excitement within the team here. When the people who have been developing the game for months on end are still hanging around at lunch and after work for yet another four-player battle royale you feel confident that you have something special. But would the rest of the world get it?

The answer was a resounding yes. There was a real buzz in the studio as the first glowing reviews began to roll in calling it an essential PSN purchase and waxing lyrical about evenings lost in a frenzy of multiplayer action, but the most satisfying thing of all was the reaction from gamers themselves.

Dedicated forums began to pop up discussing strategic ballzooka targeting, how to pull off a kickshot-multiball-combo and how to amass a devastating Endurance Mode time by stringing together a huge potting streak multiplier. In fact, as revealed in our European PlayStation.Blog entry, we were compelled to publish our own Inferno Pool Masterclass tips after the community identified some of our PSN IDs and began to gang up to take us down!

So, now the time has come for gamers in North America to get their hands on the game. Once again the feeling in the studio is one of nervous excitement, but maybe a little less of the nervous and a little more of the excitement.

We know that the game isn’t well known over there (if that includes you then check out the games homepage). However we’re confident gamers will be won over once they realize it’s a fiery, four-player, backstabbing, adrenaline pumping, online party game and not merely a kick-ass pool simulator.

So, fingers crossed here for Dark Energy’s first North American release…we can’t wait to see what you think.

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  • <<< leaves for store sad, was hoping I had to get extra controller for whole family to play…..monday and still nothing ….back to hoping

    • Patience my friend, it\’s been a busy Monday but when I get back to my PS3 at home tonight I\’ll send out your little gift

  • is sad there were no messages in his PSN inbox…

  • Hey rob i thought i got your last garenteed code, or were you guys too busy to send them out today. Either way, I cant wait to face you in inferno pool

  • Wahoo! Page 4… back of the net!

  • Rob, we love Inferno Pool; especially appreciated are the 8-ball and 9-ball straight pool variations.

    There are a few issues I’m hoping you can patch:

    – Invites don’t seem reliable; perhaps you’re aware of this.

    – Can’t save your audio settings; everything goes to maximum after you quit the game.

    – On many of the felt-color choices, it can be very hard to see all the balls when using top-down view (my favorite when in Inferno mode; it’s more accurate when time’s a factor)

    – You have to remember the ball colors of opponents, then remember which button corresponds to that color, to fire balls to a specific table in Inferno mode – this is a BIG nuisance to me; you ought to watermark the opponents’ tables with the button symbol or something to make it easy and obvious to choose targets. Biggest problem with the game at the moment IMHO.

    – Control details are sparse and lack critical information; I still can’t figure out how to jump the cue ball, nor exactly how spin control and first-shot break power work. The online manual is very brief and needs a lot more content.

    Thanks for listening, and especially for the phenomenal response rate on this blog.

    • Glad you are enjoying the game and thanks for the feedback it\’s greatly appreciated. Our philosophy when looking at future versions of our games is to take all the feedback we have collected from players and use that as a guide when designing new features.

      Regarding control explanations, we are aware that it is not as clear as it could be and will be releasing a video shortly which takes you through how to do all the skill shots and various techniques. Until then you can read up on tips here: http://www.darkenergydigital.com/terms.php

  • JimlnPT covered most of the issues i was going to tell you about..my main two worries are the unreliability of invites and the top-down view being hard to see balls on the table. Also it mentioned something about using R2 for power when it talks about jump shots. While I can do jump shots w/o a problem, I’ve never figured out how to use R2, or adjust power.

    • Power: Moving right stick from center position to forward position does a light shot. Moving right stick back and then forward quickly does a hard shot. To \”charge up\” for even more back repeatedly tap back on the right stick before pushing forwards to strike

      R2: Hold to lock the current power level. When the power is locked it take the uncertainty out of cue ball behaviour and the cue ball will follow the white line of the aiming aid exactly. You can also lock high power by taping back on the right stick repeatedly and then holding R2 to lock the high power allowing you to aim before firing

  • As expected, THIS GAME ROCKS!!!….Hours of entertainment for under 10 bucks….Instant hit in our home…Myself, wife, and daughter all love it….Now we just need to practice…

  • oh ok thanks for explaining it!

  • Rob… any word on those codes yet?

  • Rob, can you tell if there’s any server problem creating online matches? I’m having to wait quite a long time to find a match in any mode, sometimes going 20 minutes or more and often just giving up.

    Your rankings number in the thousands; I find it hard to believe that everyone’s staying offline all of a sudden. I have tried various times from 10am to after midnight local time (GMT-8) witout success.

    Thanks for keeping us up to date with all your replies.

  • Just received my code. Thanks, Rob. Are you GingerMonkey81? =P

  • Rob, still having problems with online – sometimes it takes a while to find a match, but the big problem is crashing my PS3 completely, requiring a power-off restart (and once it even de-registered my controller).

    It happens when in the lobby setting up a match – as soon as I hit the Ready X button, everything stops and freezes solid – the other player reports being stuck in the lobby waiting for me to get ready. Always happens in just this manner.

    I usually play ranked 9-ball quick matches; it’s happened sometimes twice in a row and about 1 time out of every 10-15 matches. Have similar reports from a couple of other players I’ve been matched with.

  • Hey Rob….A couple questions…1. How many skill shots are there?…The video makes it look like 6, help menu shows 4 , I think 5?…Does this have to be done online?…2000 point didn’t…..

    • Umm let me think…

      1. Bank Shot (object ball bounce of cushion and goes in pocket)

      2. Kick Shot (Cue ball bounces off cushion and hits object ball into pocket)

      3. Combo (chain 2 or more object balls together and sink the last in the chain)

      4. Multiball (sink 2 or more balls in one shot)

      5. Jumpshot (jump the Cueball over 1 or more objects balls and sink a ball)

      Yep… you\’re right. It\’s 5! To get thr trophies some of the shots require you to pull off a certain score while doing the skill shot (except jump shot), and Ultimate Skill Shot requires an even higher score using any skill shot.

  • I do not know if this has been addressed but, It seems as though I am having a bit of difficulty when I quit this game.

    It will act as if it is going back to the XMB and the screen will remain black, then my PS3 gives out two beeps and locks my PS3 to where I have to hold the power button down to restart my PS3.

  • Rob did you leave us? I find it difficult to find an online match…I know people must have this game….i try Quick and Custom and it takes forever if we even get anyone…A lobby would be nice….Custom music would be great or at least some music…..The BEST thing about this game is how myself, my wife, and my daughter can all log in our PSN accounts and play…Finding our 4th seems to be a struggle though…Feel free to add me as friend if you play Inferno Online….5 Minute Endurance is tough, All skill shots we will get…Last 2 trophies we need…Love this game!

    • I\’ve got some news from the programming team regarding online problems:

      \”This is most likely to be a router/firewall configuration problem. If
      SPI mode is enabled on the router then you will be able to communicate
      with the PSN servers for matchmaking, but it will prevent you from
      establishing a peer to peer connection with your opponents. Making sure
      that all parties have this setting disables might help with this
      problem. Some routers may call this mode something like \’strict NAT\’
      instead of SPI.\”

      Custom music is on the way, as for Endurance Mode, the secret is to build your multiplier with an unbroken potting streak, watch the new tutorials videos for more information:

      http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkEnergyDigital

  • To clarify, I meant anyone who plays online add me, not Rob,lol.

    • I think you\’re already on my friends list anyway, but the time difference makes it difficult to hook up a game :(

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