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How Harmony: The Fall of Reverie’s Augural system brings the magic of clairvoyance to your choices

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Hello readers! We’re very proud to launch Harmony: The Fall of Reverie on PlayStation 5 on June 22nd. It’s a narrative adventure with two vibrant worlds, a cast of loveable characters, and a compelling story we hope all kinds of players will enjoy.  

One of the main features of our game is the Augural, and that’s what we’d like to talk about in this blog. The Augural is the game board and visual representation of our main character, Polly’s, gift of clairvoyance. It is the place in which you will foresee and make all your choices in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.  

We wanted to the Augural to be a peaceful and beautiful place where you can prepare your next move without any stress. That’s why the Augural is set against a placid lake reflecting a starlit sky, and this starlight conveys the idea of an astronomical map where fates can be deciphered. 

When we first set out to build the Augural, the intention was to offer significant choices that were well-informed, so you need never be surprised or caught off guard by the decisions you make. From there, it evolved naturally into a way to expose the ‘core’ of the story and show how events are connected to one another. We wanted to do something new in the Choices Matter sub-genre.  

We experimented with graphs and trees during conceptualization. One of our main references was Augury, the Ancient Greek art of divination, which they performed because they believed that the gods were willing to communicate with mortals. This was a good way for us to make the link between Polly’s clairvoyance and this method of representing it.  

But it came with its challenges – we wanted you to feel the gift of clairvoyance and still be surprised by how the story unfolds. The biggest issue however was readability; the Augural went through quite a few iterations!  

Some versions that we experimented with but ultimately didn’t make it into the game are more complex trees that would spread in several directions, cards that would reveal themselves on the board as the story progressed, and at one point there was even a building you could rotate in 3D! In the end, we made the system more user-friendly with lots of testing, removing any unnecessary visual elements, simplifying the background, improving readability at any level of zoom, and spent a lot of time tweaking the navigation. 

As the Augural is a very visual way of playing, we had to create a system in which you can see even the seemingly trivial decisions eventually build up to greater outcomes down the line. This is so you can visualize how you’re going to play to reach the outcomes you seek. During the game you’ll also make decisions which have an immediate impact on the

Tower of Fantasy launches on Aug 8, new character Liu Huo revealed

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Greetings, Wanderers! Get ready to immerse yourself in a world of boundless exploration and adrenaline-pumping battles. Tower of Fantasy, the immersive open-world RPG brought to you by Perfect World Games, is making its grand debut on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on August 8th (UTC+0), and pre-order is officially open today. Brace yourselves as you craft your very own one-of-a-kind character and embark on an unforgettable journey, either alone or alongside your friends. This world awaits your arrival.

Let’s dive into some of the amazing features that will make your journey truly extraordinary. 

Liu Huo, the fierce fighter with an artistic soul

After the release on PlayStation, all wanderers can take an adventure in the map called Domain 9, filled with eastern aesthetics. You’ll also encounter an intriguing character named Liu Huo—a spirited and formidable girl with an undeniable passion for martial arts. She loves to wear a vibrant red dress reflecting her prowess in combat and her role as the guardian of Farewellville. However, there’s more to Liu Huo than meets the eye. Beyond her rough exterior lies a burning passion for the arts, particularly painting, and calligraphy. Join Liu Huo as she strives to balance her pursuit of elegance with her spirited nature, and witness firsthand the extraordinary journey that awaits her.

To reflect Liu Huo’s personality, we put a lot of thought into designing her appearance, combat actions, and skill effects. There are many eastern elements can be found in Liu Huo’s appearance. Her outer garment is made of silk with embroidered golden patterns on the collar. Her weapon is a giant brush called Pine Comet, which suits her refined taste. Additionally, the character “霸”  is written on her legs, symbolizing her dominant personality. 

 

When designing her combat moves, we fused calligraphy and martial arts, capturing the essence of ink painting. We utilized vibrant blue and orange flames to intensify the visual impact, employing brushstrokes to convey varying levels of intensity. As Liu Huo unleashes her weapon “Pine Comet” in battle, it’s as if she wields a brush, evoking a formidable presence. However, keen-eyed observers familiar with Chinese characters might catch a stroke error. It appears that Liu Huo still has room to grow on her path to be a real artist.

 

Immersive PS5 features

The DualSense wireless controller allows us to provide an immersive experience through haptic feedback. During intense battles, when hitting enemies or facing moments of crisis with significant blood loss, the controller’s haptics help you accurately assess the current combat environment. Outside of combat, appropriate haptics during key story moments create a thrilling experience. When racing, the controller’s vibrations accompany intense collisions, making it feel like a steering wheel and immersing you in the e

Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 461: Mortal Podkast

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Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS, or download here


This week the team talks Summer Game Fest 2023 and discusses their hands-on time with the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1. Plus the team gets into Diablo IV and the sinister legacy of the classic franchise.

Stuff We Talked About

  • Final Fantasy XVI
  • Crash Team Rumble (w/ Wumpa Fruit deep-dive)
  • PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for June + PS5 Game Streaming news update for Premium members
  • Summer Game Fest 2023
  • Mortal Kombat 1 hands-on report (starts at 6:35)
  • Diablo IV

The Cast

Share of the Week: Shiny

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Last week, we asked you to find shiny things in the game of your choice, sharing using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: 

ps5_raz shares a shiny golden helmet in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

 

secondcapture shares Rivet with a shiny glowing gadget in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

danliest shares Aloy swimming amongst shiny glowing bioluminescent plants in Horizon Forbidden West

 

TheFourthFocus shares the shiny fender of a silver car in GT7

 

Mur4dQ shares the shiny dog and weapons of the humans in Humanity

imroyank shares a shiny butterfly in Fortnite.

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? 

THEME: The Last of Us
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 21, 2023

Next week, we’re celebrating ten years of The Last of Us. Share your favorite moment from the series using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

How Coin Crew entered digital gaming with Escape Academy

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Before Escape Academy, Coin Crew Games produced location-based entertainment (LBE) experiences such as escape rooms and arcade cabinets. Producing an escape room called Space Squad in Space is how Wyatt Bushnell and Mike Salyh met, placing them on the path to founding Coin Crew Games. 

The original goal for the studio was to design casual arcade experiences for large groups of friends to have some friendly competition. These first arcade cabinets took the shape of the licensed racing machine Hot Wheels: King of the Road and Coin Crew Game’s first original title, Battle Bowling.

Battle Bowling pits up to four people against each other who must frantically spin a large orb to navigate a hazardous track and knock over the most pins. It will bowl your mind.

During the development of our third cabinet, the pandemic struck, forcing the closure of physical entertainment spaces. We figured out how to translate our talent and experience into a digital title. This exploration brought us to the idea of bringing the escape room experience to the digital space. 

And thus, Escape Academy was born!

The difference in physical versus digital and making the transition

Unlike most digital titles, physical experiences range from three to sixty minutes, so a key component is ensuring the game is immediately understandable with zero tutorialization. Players need to understand the objective simply by looking at the cabinet. Becoming practiced at simplicity was a key component in making Escape Academy accessible.

In the case of Hot Wheels: King of the Road, the goal is simple. Outdrive your friends and be the first to the finish line.

Regarding puzzle design, an essential component is building clues and ways for players to deduce the solution. In real-life escape rooms, everything is a potential clue at first glance, so players spend much of the experience inspecting objects to determine their relevance to the puzzles. To recreate this digitally, every object in the environment must be programmed as an interactable, which posed a challenge scope-wise.

This engineering limitation made us decide to be very selective about what pieces of the environment became interactable, which afforded us much control over guiding the player’s path through the room. This was a critical way that balanced our rooms and ensured that all the puzzles remained accessible instead of overwhelming. Naturally, this “balancing” process takes some trial and error. However, Coin Crew Games had already established a rigorous playtesting regiment for their physical experiences which was another essential part of the process needing a digital translation.

In the past, we would observe people playing and note how they moved through the space, their body posture, and how many quarters they put into the machine. The shift to digital evolved into running 2-6 playtests a week while the players’ screen shared their game view and team members observed the play patterns. We encouraged our playtesters to discuss their thought processes while solving puzzles to hone in on misleading clues.

Art and environment

Operating in the digital space allows for immense latitude in environment design because the laws of physics, space cons

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