Announcing: Zen Bound!

[Frand]

What is 'Zen Bound'?

In short, Zen Bound is a calm and meditative game of wrapping rope around wooden sculptures - a simple task that can become surprisingly complex.

It is something to be enjoyed at a slow pace: a game where a high score is not the goal. Zen Bound is designed to challenge in a subtle way, it does not attack or force the player. There is also an element of self-reflection, for each of the sculptures is a representation of a state of mind or a human emotion.

We want the game to feel hand-made: we photographed materials and sampled rope sounds. Bass, strings, a metallic teapot and many others were recorded separately from live instruments for the musical score. We studied totem poles and Mexican wood sculptures for reference. Zen Bound is a game of stone, wood and rope; much effort was put into making them feel right.

Above all, we focus on playability and polish.

Zen Bound features an original musical score and sound effects by Ghost Monkey (http://www.myspace.com/theghostmonkey).
Original concept and coding by Mikko 'Memon' Mononen, of modest demoscene experience and previously in lead engineer position for Crysis.

Starting with release on iPhone and iPod touch this fall, Zen Bound will be available on multiple platforms, including game consoles, PC and Mac.

First teaser here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7obli6Vx-A

And some screenshots from the work-in-progress version:

[Polyfonken]

http://www.polyfonken.com/SX/ZenBoundCarePrelisten.mp3

a small taste of the in-game musics!

t.. / polyfonken / ghost monkey

[Just_C]

Game Consoles....sounds great
But wich of them?! Older one?! Or something like the Next-Gen Consoles?!

The 360 had there Marketplace for little Games & the PS3 the PSN-Store for little budget Games

[Frand]

Our strategy is to sell our games as digital downloads. Therefore PSN, WiiWare and XBLA are all interesting to us as potential distribution channels.

However, we left the part about game consoles a little vague intentionally, because as a small developer we need to take things step by step.

While we are currently officially able to make games for iPhone, Wii, PS3, PC and Mac, the public announcements about which (if any!) of those platforms are the next in line will come later.

Obviously as a major global multi-platform publisher we would certainly love to have our game available on all possible platforms

[Gran PC]

Originally Posted by Frand

Our strategy is to sell our games as digital downloads. Therefore PSN, WiiWare and XBLA are all interesting to us as potential distribution channels.

However, we left the part about game consoles a little vague intentionally, because as a small developer we need to take things step by step.

While we are currently officially able to make games for iPhone, Wii, PS3, PC and Mac, the public announcements about which (if any!) of those platforms are the next in line will come later.

Obviously as a major global multi-platform publisher we would certainly love to have our game available on all possible platforms

1 word: Homebrew.
1 link: www.wiibrew.org
It's free to make homebrew.
And anybody, I say ANYBODY can hack WiiWare. But then again you can also hax homebrew, but you might be able to do a ownership check (some kind of Nintendo Wii id check online?).

[SamRCL]

Me wants it now

[jetro]

Originally Posted by Gran PC

1 word: Homebrew.
1 link: www.wiibrew.org
It's free to make homebrew.
And anybody, I say ANYBODY can hack WiiWare. But then again you can also hax homebrew, but you might be able to do a ownership check (some kind of Nintendo Wii id check online?).

As cool as homebrew stuff is, it is not viable for commercial distribution. It's very nice way to make some hobby stuff for fun, but I think no company would consider trying selling games for homebrew-hack-platforms... that might even end up in a lawsuit from the console manufacturer. That's just the way it works.

[Frand]

Just added the first teaser trailer to the original post, thought I'd post some quick comments here...

The video was recorded from the desktop build running the game in iPhone resolution. The game currently looks exactly like that (with some "score" counters in the device build added).

Gameplay on the device is much nicer than on the desktop version, MUCH nicer in fact: the objects have inertia when you spin them on the iPhone screen, so the rotations are much smoother, and when you twist the device we use the gravity sensor to adjust the the rope. Those little things make for a world of difference

Our next video will show the gameplay in more detail.

[Just_C]

Looks.....scary^^

A dog...a cow and a snake?! Are there any Problems with Greenpeace, PETA...

Any Story in that Game?!


Seers, Just_C

[lionkatana111]

will it have a price,and will sd2 be for mac