Tucked in a rather nondescript slot in the middle of Sony’s booth was the usual quintet of PlayStation Network games. PixelJunk SideScroller was a gem I had discovered at Sony’s post-press conference part a few nights earlier while Machinarium was a know darling of the PC community, but what really stuck out was a trio of games I had never heard of. Okabu, Eufloria, and Papo & Yo all boasted rich color pallet divergent from the usual desaturarted nightmares that typically boast the biggest guns and longest lines.
Aside from their unique aesthetic, each of these games are also part of Sony’s Pub Fund. The Pub Fund was designed to help independent developers with their budget and marketing in exchange for exclusivity on Sony’s console. It’s an interesting system, and one that certainly creates the opportunity for smaller, earnest development studios to get a shot at the same stage as their big budget brothers.
Okabu came to me differently than Papo & Yo. I had a bit of free time in between appointments, and the silly, colorful aesthetic of Okabu was an easy sell for my particular taste. There was already someone playing, so I followed protocol and waited patiently behind him. Twenty minutes later I was getting rather aggravated and impatient. Furthermore, the guy appeared to be just messing around with Okabu and not completing any tangible objective. By coincidence I started chatting with ex-EGM/1UP writer, current Sony employee, and long standing champion of independent games, Nick Suttner. Nick was nice, but he was also instrumental in relaying that the gentleman hogging the Okabu kiosk was actually Simon Oliver, founder of Okabu developer Hand Circus and the sole representation for the game.
Whoops.
Hand Circus, as you might remember, was responsible for one of the first legitimate games to grace an iOS device; Rolando, as well as its sequel. Okabu is their first stab and creating a console experience. Despite having probably pushed players through the demo more times than he cares to remember, Simon was enthusiastic about his project, and he seemed delighted that I shared an appreciation for Okabu’s visual appeal.
Anyway I’m sure you’re waiting for me to actually talk about the game, so I’ll hop to it. Okabu is a game about controlling modestly sized cloud-whale creatures and befriending people as you work to clean up their environment. Best of all, it can be done (and is apparently best enjoyed) with a friend in tow. Yeah, that sort of sounds like a bizarro world version of Okami (and the name certainly doesn’t ease these comparisons), but, from a gameplay perspective, the games couldn’t be more different.
My immediate actions were simple; dip myself into water, fill up, and water things that needed watering. Whether it be for purification or get to plants to bear fruit ripe for an antagonist explosion, water was a good way to get the job done. Conflict was a minor part of the demo, and I’m not too sure how it will pan out in the final product, but it seemed rather natural with the controls and unobtrusive to the puzzles in the world.
I also was pleased to find Captain Monkifish. Monkfish, who rides Okabu, came with the power to attach his plunger hook grappling thing to objects in the environment. This translated to me pulling using to it pull boats to safety or fish out of polluted water. Monkfish can be dropped at a moment’s notice if the player wishes to accept another rider or revert back to its default “fill up” ability, but ample checkpoints are in place to, in a manner of speaking, teleport Monkfish should his power be required for any certain puzzles.
We completed the introductory level, but I hadn’t budgeted enough time to consume a second. Instead, we opted for a cooperative minigame. Goat Guardians, as it was called, was an Okabu take on the tower defense genre. Lasers or other ridiculous stereotypical weapons of defense were replaced with…goats, that, thanks to the power of a new rider, could be lead around and (kind of) aimed at aggressors. I believe Simon said the mode would go on infinitely and get progressively harder and that the furthest anyone on the show floor had made it was to wave 15 but, alas, we only made it to 9. I blame myself.
A final thought, one that didn’t consider under the plane ride home, was how earnest and jazzed Simon seemed about his game. Over the course of E3 I had been subjected to dozens of canned demo’s in small rooms and half assed vertical slices of hollow content passed off as gameplay, but I rarely stumbled upon someone genuinely passionate about their project (and not a translucent and half clueless PR-guy manner). Simon was thrilled to talk about Okabu, and it fed in to how much I appreciated the aim and intent of Okabu. No, it’s probably not going to end up on any mainstream sites or gather a fistful of awards in December, but it’s probably going to be a truckload of fun. What more could you want from a cheery, uplifting downloadable game?
Be sure to look for it this October.
