Hiya fellow precision platform junkies! I’m Juhana, the Artistic Director of Bionic Bay – my most formidable challenge but. Bionic Bay is a precision-puzzle platformer set in an historical bio-mechanical world, hand-crafted pixel by pixel to create a high-fidelity, atmospheric surroundings.
Bionic Bay began as an opportunity assembly between me (Mureena) and Psychoflow studio, on a Reddit publish showcasing their swap mechanic. We quickly started to collaborate, merging their technical experience with my expertise in degree design and artwork course from earlier titles corresponding to Badland 1 and a pair of.
Creating Bionic Bay: One pixel at a time
The common-or-garden swap mechanic stays a central gameplay mechanic, however Bionic Bay has seen unimaginable progress since we began. We knew early on that the largest hurdle could be to create environments which supplied a problem with out turning into irritating. As well as, this balanced problem could be hosted inside intricately detailed and hand-crafted pixel-art environments, taking important time to create.
We approached these growth challenges with a easy two-part answer. Firstly, I’d concentrate on degree design and artwork, and Psychoflow would work on the technical answer to verify our mechanics regarded nice and labored effectively.
Maybe extra essential, we agreed that we might all repeatedly bounce in and play every degree, experiencing it simply as a participant would. We’ve got carried this on all the way in which to launch, and this has helped us to make sure nice steadiness, and that we perceive the participant journey via Bionic Bay.
All of us love a precision platformer, however we additionally needed to be sure that Bionic Bay gives a novel and worthwhile expertise, and that comes right down to the sport’s core mechanics.
This started with the swap function which first introduced Mureena and Psychoflow collectively – permitting gamers to change locations with objects inside every degree. This was quickly joined by extra instruments, with every present process common playthrough testing:
- ChronoLag, our time dilation expertise which permits gamers to decelerate time for a brief interval. In addition to permitting gamers to navigate via fast-moving areas, it’s additionally a good way of getting velocity boosts that will help you get sooner instances in our ghost information racing mode.
- Energy Fist, offering the chance to launch objects throughout the surroundings. In addition to clearing house within the solo story, used along with ChronoLag has led to some imaginative puzzle fixing to hurry up your journey
- Gravity Manipulation, permitting gamers to bend the very forces of actuality. This can assist to clear paths, or assist discover new paths. It’s essential to watch out, nevertheless, as this new gravitational course may also have an effect on free objects on the extent which might result in… unintended cessation of all life indicators.
After all, gamers might be launched to those mechanics as you progress via Bionic Bay’s historical bio-mechanical world. Some you’ll be capable to use collectively, and gamers will typically want to mix these instruments (in addition to fast considering and exact controls) in an effort to overcome the challenges you’ll face.
In addition to utilizing these inside our narrative single-player journey, gamers may discover our devoted on-line problem mode with Bionic Bay On-line. Bionic Bay On-line permits gamers to compete for the quickest time on a course, racing in opposition to different gamers’ information ghosts – one thing which ought to communicate to these of us racing on PlayStation within the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
To compete in Bionic Bay On-line, gamers might want to use all the instruments at your disposal, and discover artistic options to take the highest spot on the leaderboard. We may also be including particular post-launch content material for Bionic Bay, together with devoted time problem ranges to permit you to showcase your abilities to the world.
A legendary PlayStation collaboration
We’re ecstatic to announce that Bionic Bay additionally has a collaboration with certainly one of our greatest followers – PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida. We’ll be implementing a particular degree only for Shu throughout the on-line problem mode following Bionic Bay’s launch on April 17. In case you participate and beat Shu’s rating, you may even unlock our Shu pores and skin, permitting you to customise the look of your scientist for our on-line leaderboards.
In addition to Shu’s personal participant pores and skin, we’re additionally bringing you a Deluxe version of Bionic Bay – with our Traditional Monster pores and skin pack. This consists of eight costumes impressed by classic horror (a private favorite style of mine), with an alien, a werewolf and extra. The Traditional Monster pack permits gamers to unleash slightly frightful appeal and actually sink your fangs into the net leaderboards.
The bio-mechanical world of Bionic Bay opens up on PlayStation 5 this Thursday – April 17, and is obtainable to wishlist now!
