Super Lovely Planet going platforming in summer
Bounce-o!
Lovely Planet, the deceptively cute and pleasingly tricky time trial FPS, is getting a third-person platforming spin-off. Quicktequila has announced Super Lovely Planet [official site] will bounce out this summer, a 3D platformer inspired by 2D NES platformers. "The kind of '80s 2D platformer that got mixed reviews on its controls," he says. "Think Ghouls 'n' Goblins and Castlevania instead of Mario or Kirby." Curious!
So as a nice yellow ball, off we'll go rolly-bouncing through levels and onto heads. Like Lovely Planet, it looks a stripped-down lark about trying to master something simple. In this case, it's the balance between precise rolling and speedy jumping. Peep the trailer:
I do still like how Lovely colours are muted enough to look slightly wrong.
While Super Lovely Planet's formal announcement was only this week, its creator has been gabbing about the game in dev blog posts for months. Perhaps you'd like to read about its jumping. Jumping gives gives a speed boost but has no air control, see, while rolling is slower but more precise. Quicktequila says:
"The challenge here lies in trying to strike the right balance between taking your time to carefully plan a flawless jump and moving more quickly. Nobody wants to call in a committee of advisers to give them a green-light before they can press the jump button. This combination of mechanics should see players balancing on a tightrope of temptation and patience. A balance is struck by multiplexing between two mutually exclusive states that grant control and award the player with more speed. The challenge is overcome when they are able to gracefully transition between the two states so as to create a sort of ebb and flow where the right amount of control is borrowed from crawling which pays off in a short burst of quick jumps."
Or this about shaking things up:
"Super Mario Galaxy was a big influence for the way this game eventually turned out. I feel that game is a perfect blend of wildly different platforming gimmicks that deliver a good variety of interesting mechanics without a dull moment of repetition. Since our game puts all of its focus on the platforming as well, each world experiments with a different and contrasting play style. One moment you’ll find yourself balancing on a narrow beam to later dodging sniper fire in the vast open expanse of the Rice Fields."
I dug Lovely Planet so, while platformers aren't usually my bag, I'm up for this.
Super Lovely Planet is coming to Windows and Mac this summer. A Steam page is already up for wishlisters.