BEYOND BLUE SPHERES HOW TOIn the tutorial stage alone we learned how to swing from suspended hoops by alternating the head that bites, how to slingshot our phog across long distances by anchoring one head to a post and stretching the other out before snapping it back, and how to wrap our stretchy body around large balls to corral them into holes. Like any good puzzler, though, it’s how Phogs! makes you use this simple toolset that makes it actually engaging and fun. The controls are simple you can move your head with the control stick, hop or bite onto things with a button press, or stretch your mysterious connective tissue to great lengths by holding a trigger. Take a gelatinous cylindrical tube and slap a dog head on each end and you’ve got yourself a phog, and in co-op each player controls one of those two heads. Simple right? A buddy and I sat down for a co-op session controlling one such phog (or “phoggo” as we were taught). It then grew in size last year and again this year to a booth all on its own right next to XSEED and Nintendo’s with a line wait time upwards of two hours! After finally getting some hands-on time with this physics-based puzzle game, I can understand why. I first saw Phogs! at PAX East two years ago in a tiny little booth tucked away in the Indie MegaBooth. If the idea of swimming with the digital fishes excites you, too, then look out for when Beyond Blue releases for Steam, PS4, and Xbox One this April. E-Line Media promises more interesting atoll, night, and even deep-sea abyssal dives later in the game that will be packed with even more foreign scenery to explore–and that makes me positively giddy with excitement. For anyone that’s a marine biology nut like myself, though, it’s almost like a dream game, and that’s only after the basic dive I played today. They also interject with the occasional factoid on whatever you may be looking at, which feeds into the educational aspect of Beyond Blue.īeing made alongside the creation of a documentary means that Beyond Blue actually has little mini video clips called Ocean Insights taken straight from footage of Blue Planet II as well as other academic sources that go into further detail on some of the creatures you encounter while playing.īeyond Blue certainly won’t be a game for everyone it’s soothing and slow-paced with no actual danger or air management (it takes place ten or so years in the future where rebreather technology has advanced), and I couldn’t really get a sense of how strong a push the core narrative will be to keep playing. Their lighthearted exchanges provide some levity and add to the already calming nature of the game, as well as provide you with cues for what to do next to progress the investigation (once you’re done being distracted by anything and everything that moves). Movements are smooth and natural, but it’s the small details like the battle scars on a whale’s body or how dolphins will playfully swim along with you that really sell the idea of actually being in this beautiful world.Īll the while, our marine biologist friend is engaging in playful banter with her team on the surface. Developers E-Line Media worked closely with professionals in the marine biology field to replicate these oftentimes majestic beings both in form and motion and it shows. In my demo I came across sperm whales, devil rays, dolphins, octopi, and much more. This detail, of course, carries over to the marine fauna themselves. The way light rays refract on the surfaces of coral and other creatures is nothing short of astonishing. The first thing immediately noticeable is just how drop-dead gorgeous the game is, almost perfectly reproducing this oftentimes alien landscape and, perhaps even more impressive, imitating how light behaves underwater. The entire game takes place underwater as you control a marine biologist as she flutters about the waters recording data on the various creatures around her. BEYOND BLUE SPHERES SIMULATORNow with Beyond Blue, I can somewhat live that dream even in this different life I have chosen.īeyond Blue is a narrative-driven diving simulator developed in collaboration with BBC Studios to complement the release of the documentary Blue Planet II. I always had an affinity for the ocean and the prospect of studying and discovering all the mysteries she holds was, and still is, highly attractive to me. Beyond Blueīefore deciding to go into the profession I’m in now, one of my early childhood and high school dreams was to become a marine biologist. We’re continuing our ongoing coverage of PAX East 2020 by highlighting two more games that stood out from the rest on the show floor today.
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