By Jim Rossignol on February 4th, 2013 at 7:00 pm.
Shawn McGrath sends word that his breath-taking psychedelic whizzy particle-accelerating game, Dyad, will be heading for the PC (and thereafter Mac and Linux) around March. The game, which is set in “a reactive audio-visual tube creating a harmonious synthesis of color and sound” caused a stir of hippie-noises, gamer awe, and wide-eyed cooing when it was released on PSN, so there’s good reason to suspect that it’ll intoxicating a few of us in the coming months. McGrath says that he prefers using the keyboard to the gamepad on the Windows version, which is a good sign, and that he’ll be supporting that Steam Big Picture doohickey. So that’s reassuring, too.
Original PSN trailer below, in all its swirly glory.
Updated: Shawn’s PC announcement video.
04/02/2013 at 19:25 Hoaxfish says:
Whelp, that’s ruined my super-string theory.
04/02/2013 at 19:33 BooleanBob says:
Well, do you?
04/02/2013 at 19:42 Dominic White says:
Dyad is lovely. Played it to death on the PS3, and I recommend you all jump on it when it hits the PC if you’ve ever enjoyed a game by Jeff Minter. It has that same mix of mind-altering synaesthesia combined with a really interesting pile of gameplay challenges.
04/02/2013 at 19:59 Lewie Procter says:
This is either a pretty big coincidence, or it confirms the Steam leaks from the other day.
04/02/2013 at 20:09 Tuskin38 says:
The reason he revealed it is because of the steam leak according to a joystiq article I just read.
04/02/2013 at 21:08 tungstenHead says:
It confirms that the leaks were actually real things that were found on Steam by data miners, but it doesn’t necessarily confirm any of the games in the leak are coming to Steam. As I understand it, this leak has about the same veracity as publishers hoovering up domain names. Shawn McGrath could just as easily have run a “no comment” line until he was ready to officially announce it — and the developers of other obviously real things may do just that — but I guess McGrath decided that he’d rather not beat around the bush.
05/02/2013 at 04:28 Tuskin38 says:
Oh, I agree with you not all of these are coming, microsoft has denied Halo is coming to steam. Also his acknowledgement wasn’t the first thing that confirmed this data mining, most of the games found had hub pages and official groups, which are two things that can only be made by steam.
05/02/2013 at 06:00 SelfEsteemFund says:
They weren’t leaks or hacks, it’s Valves open CDR database, anyone can look up appids on there.. How do people still not know about this?!
As for the ‘confirmation’, Valve have hinted several times that they’re aware of sensationalist games sites using the db to drive traffic/click revenue & so began posting false appids to point out their stupidity for trying to use it as a valid source.
05/02/2013 at 11:58 Didero says:
That’s pretty interesting. Do you have a source? I’d like reading more about it.
05/02/2013 at 12:55 SuicideKing says:
LEAKFACE
04/02/2013 at 20:14 Xzi says:
I’m a sucker for these rhythmic/psychedelic games. I don’t think I’ll enjoy it as much as the Polynomial, but I’ll definitely still buy it.
Just add weed to kill a few hours in a happy trance. And no worries, it’s legal here. :P
04/02/2013 at 20:18 Hatsworth says:
One step closer to King of Fighters PC…
04/02/2013 at 22:05 Synesthesia says:
obligatory!
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/182086/Hey_Baby_Do_You_Dyad_A_Letter_Series.php
04/02/2013 at 22:21 MOKKA says:
Maybe this can cure me from my unhealthy obsession with Super Hexagon.
04/02/2013 at 22:23 kwyjibo says:
To be honest, the webcam announcement video, makes me more excited for the game than some polished trailer.
You can’t fake that indie hipster authenticity.
04/02/2013 at 22:56 Hmm-Hmm. says:
He’s rather genuine, isn’t he? Which is weird to say about anybody because people are themselves a lot of the time. I suppose a better fitting word escapes me at the moment. I blame my foreignerosity. Foreignerhood? Unbritishness?
05/02/2013 at 00:27 sirdavies says:
I think it isn’t so much that he seems genuine, but that other developers mostly seem like PR people.
05/02/2013 at 00:56 kwyjibo says:
As long as it’s not Bulgarian-ness, then you’re OK with the Tory party.
05/02/2013 at 00:19 Superfasty says:
This is exciting, if only because it opens up the opportunity to play the game in 3D!
05/02/2013 at 02:22 Poliphilo says:
If I were a single particle in the LHC, I would aside from having no conciousness, probably be all like “WEEEEE!! Class of Hadron Epoch 4eva!” followed by a “THUMP-SHHHHH!” as I fell apart into my constituent elementary particles, for science.
Looks very linear though, ba-boom-tshhhh.
05/02/2013 at 07:23 hypercrisis says:
Well now I just want to know when we get Rez
05/02/2013 at 09:39 Shadowcat says:
If you like the look of this, I would urge you to check out Digital Eel’s Brainpipe (I’ve linked to a decent short review, but note that game is actually silky-smooth, not at all like the poor frame-rate on display in the accompanying video).
Dyad is clearly a different game, but there are some definite similarities that made me think of Digital Eel’s game; and while I can’t comment on the new game, I can vouch wholeheartedly for Brainpipe.
The game has you flying through your own mind, avoiding harmful obstacles, and collecting glyphs for extra points. The graphics are neat (if difficult to make sense of in static screenshots), the gameplay is smooth, and the soundtrack is superb, constantly throwing strange little ‘memories’ out at you. As with most Digital Eel games, things are randomised so that the game never gets old.
You can pick up and play for just a few minutes, start on any level, try for a maximum 100 glyphs in a single game, or try for the highest possible score. It starts out very relaxing, but really ramps up the intensity as the levels go by, and it’s one of those games that can keep you coming back for a long long time, even though it doesn’t seem like there’s very much to it.
In essence: small, but almost perfectly formed.